December 13, 2010 02:25 PM EST (Updated: December 13, 2010 04:17 PM EST) 
 
 Kate Gosselinâ€™s miserable camping trip was featured on last nightâ€™s episode of Sarah Palinâ€™s Alaska. Weâ€™ve got to thank TLC for putting together these two women who are vastly different. If you thought Kate was a miserable person before, you have to see her on a camping trip. Imagine whiny and screechy all rolled into one fake blonde. 
 
 Sarah Palinâ€™s father had some choice words about Gosselinâ€™s attitude. He said, â€œ[She] b****** from the moment she got off the plane.â€ 
 
 Needless to say, Kate made no new friends during her camping trip mainly because she made everyone around her miserable. Gosselin and her brood of eight kids were scheduled to stay overnight but it became so bad for the original Octomom that she actually made her kids leave via a plane before nightâ€™s end. 
 
 After complaining throughout the trip about insects and the cold, Gosselin finally cracked and shrieked: "This is ridiculous! I just don't get it!... I held it together as long as I could, and I'm done now." 
 
 When her children protested her decision to leave, Kate stated: "OK, goodbye. You're now a Palin, not a Gosselin." That was so mature of her and it was the perfect move on her part because her kids packed up and left with her. 
 
 In the end, Sarah Palin was most likely happy to be rid of Kate but we should all feel sorry for her children. Itâ€™s the children who see their mother behaving badly and they in turn pick up on that. Itâ€™s really sad. Gosselin couldnâ€™t even tough out just one night for a once in a lifetime camping trip for her children. Even if she were miserable, she really should have thought about the fun her children were having. That is really so selfish, she needs a mental and emotional evaluation. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Â© Evalynn Saeyang â€“ Gather Inc. 2010 ||||| In her television show tonight, Sarah Palin casts herself as a can-do superwoman of the natural world. She fishes, hikes across glaciers and preaches "respect for the elements" from a speedboat while clad in a yellow cagoule. But the programme has already plunged the Mama Grizzly-in-chief into controversy after a leading conservationist in her adopted home of Alaska accused her of flagrant irresponsibility by fishing too close to protected brown bears. 
 
 John Toppenberg, director of the Alaska Wildlife Alliance, said scenes in an online trailer for the programme appeared to show the former Republican vice-presidential candidate breaking the rules of Wolverine Creek, a famous spot where bears – and humans – come to fish. "It's clear from the video that she violated the guidelines," he said, calling her actions "a travesty". 
 
 In a preview of Sarah Palin's Alaska, a part nature documentary, part candid camera of the daily life of one of America's most controversial political families, the former state governor is seen fishing for salmon with husband Todd and family members. She can be seen apparently holding her rod towards brown bears on the river bank, while the party's boat appears to be closer to the bears than guidelines advise. The Alaska department of fish and game says people in a boat must not fish within 30ft of a bear. "It's clearly irresponsible," said Toppenberg. "She is encouraging the violation of important guidelines. Humans can get too close to the bears." 
 
 The irony of a right-wing conservative, who boasts of hunting moose and shooting wolves while campaigning for more oil drilling in Alaska, transforming herself into a nature fan for primetime has not been lost on environmentalists. 
 
 Large brown bears gather in Wolverine Creek because the fishing is so easy and the animals have, in the process, become a tourist spectacle. But Toppenberg warned that by behaving in an apparently irreverent manner, Palin was doing nothing to foster responsibility among visitors. "She is encouraging the violation of important guidelines that allows tourism to flourish in Alaska. She is inviting future problems with the tourism industry and, in particular, the bear-viewing industry," he said. 
 
 More than two years after she was plucked by Republican presidential candidate John McCain to be his running mate in the 2008 election, Palin, 46, claims she will run for president in 2012 if "there's no one else". Meanwhile she has decided to put her family and her home state on show for the nation in Sarah Palin's Alaska. But even a soft-focus programme becomes controversial when Palin is attached to it. 
 
 Joe Meehan, of the wildlife conservation division of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, said that it appeared that the Palins' boat got within 30ft of the bears but not while they were actually feeding. "Some people may say you shouldn't even try to fish when a bear is in the area and I wouldn't argue with that," he added. 
 
 Meehan, who supervises Alaska's wildlife refuge programme, which includes Wolverine Creek, said that while he did not believe Palin had necessarily breached the guidelines, he had concerns over the signal she was sending. "Fishing in close proximity to bears may, in general, not send an appropriate message to large numbers of people that are not experienced at fishing in bear country," he said. 
 
 The preview clip also shows a bear jumping into the river near the Palins. Palin recalls dramatically to camera later: "So I'm thinking we are going to get stuck there, the anchor is dropped and there is a bear coming towards us." 
 
 But this enraged Toppenberg. "She implies that she is somehow in danger or being brave. That's complete nonsense," he said. "Wolverine Creek is the one place in Alaska where the bears are tolerant and completely habituated to the presence of people and boats. But the guidelines are there for a reason." ||||| The unreality of reality television meets the unreliable narratives of the Palin Saga in a new series, "Bristol Palin: Life's a Tripp." Premiering Tuesday on Lifetime, into whose Woman Against the Odds ethos it vaguely fits, it follows the young mother and"Dancing With the Stars" contestant from Alaska to Los Angeles — and, indications are, back again — with her toddler son in tow. 
 
 Given her visibility over the last four years, I assume Palin has fans of her own, apart from any interest they might have in her media star mother, Sarah, who shows up here to dispense advice ("Work hard, be humble and take risks") and play referee. They may be simply happy for her company. But anyone expecting an unvarnished, unmeditated look at her life or any substantial take on the challenges it represents, or seems to — her child-care issues stem from not wanting to hire "some random baby-sitter," not from a lack of wherewithal — will be disappointed. 
 
 "I'm moving to L.A. to show Tripp what's out there," says Bristol. (Tripp is something like 3.) She also wants to "get out of my comfort zone," and has a "job" volunteering at an L.A.-based charity, but it's clear that she's really moving to L.A. to make a reality show about moving to L.A. Indeed, the present scenario, in which she drags her impressively impassive younger sister Willow south to keep an eye on her son while she's out — it's the job none of them seems to want — replaces an abandoned first in which Bristol and Tripp were to share a place with actor Kyle Massey, whom she met on "Dancing With the Stars," and his brother Christopher. 
 
 In spite of their occasional expressions of enthusiasm for the "adventure," we're left with a show about two sisters, temporarily billeted in a Beverly Hills mansion, mostly complaining about Los Angeles, each other and their lives. Willow, says Bristol, "has no idea the pressure that I'm under." Bristol, says Willow, "thinks the world revolves around her, but it doesn't." 
 
 We see them shop for groceries and clothing, without Tripp, I should note, presumably looking after himself back at the mansion. (So much for that premise.) Bristol visits with her "DWTS" partner and at last reports to Help the Children, where she is taken on a driving tour of skid row. 
 
 "What is skid row? I've heard of it before," she says. "It's where homeless people live," she is told. 
 
 "I have never in my life ever seen or experienced something like that," she says later, not unusual for a small-town 21-year-old, "so I was just completely blown away." Possibly, in a future episode, she will get out of the car. 
 
 In an unusual unmanaged moment, a remarkably self-possessed Bristol confronts a loudmouth in a bar who has called her mother "a whore." (The loudmouth, one Stephen Hanks, who was not asked to sign a release, is suing Lifetime.) The producers tease this encounter, which has been on YouTube, all through the first episode, then make it a cliffhanger continued in the second. They also helpfully cut Bristol's remark that she knew he was "a homosexual" because "I can tell you are." 
 
 If the life she's led in the public eye has been strangely insular, her family's circle-the-wagons mentality is not surprising, given the vituperation her mother attracts and the notoriety that is the foundation of her own career, such as it is. A girl whose introduction to the wide world was as an unwed pregnant teen and potential political liability, Bristol has lived the years since in a world of spin and publicity, bad and good, imposed or self-produced. 
 
 A reality show may just be what life looks like to her now. 
 
 robert.lloyd@latimes.com 
 
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 'Bristol Palin: Life's a Tripp' 
 
 Where: Lifetime 
 
 When: 10 p.m. Tuesday 
 
 Rating: TV-PG-L (may be unsuitable for young children with an advisory for coarse language) 
 
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 ALSO: 
 
 Bristol Palin: New show isn't about turning her haters into fans 
 
 Bristol Palin ridiculing Obama on gay marriage? Cue the backlash 
 
 Bristol Palin! Advice for the new author! (Fewer exclamation points!)
– Kate Gosselin and Sarah Palin might have politics and the strong woman thing in common, but they're tundras apart in one area: camping. "We are not camping people. I'll scream it from the mountaintops," sobs Kate on a camping trip in the latest episode of Sarah Palin's reality show. "I don't see hand cleansing materials. I am freezing to the bone. I held it together as long as I could and I'm done now." Later she sits sullenly next to a tent and grumbles at Piper Palin: "This is fun for you?" Piper, like her mom, goes into upbeat face freeze, stunned that no one could enjoy the overcast drizzle of a chilly Alaska campout the way they do. "Are you staying here for real?" asks an incredulous Gosselin to smiling Sarah as she stomps off home after a mere two hours in the "wilderness." Good riddance. Sarah's dad said Kate "bitched from the minute she got off the plane." Click here for the video.