Keith B. Darrell's Blog, page 14

When Johnny Comes Marching Home

Since my last post, I’ve had some people take issue with my comment that Robert E. Lee was a great man. As is usually the case when people make such comments, they do so without any knowledge of history. The world is full of people who are quick to express their opinions regardless of whether they know what they are talking about. Unfortunately, we live in an era in which people absorb sound bites and headlines to form their opinions without delving further into the facts that are necessary o...

Statues Don't Get Up and Move

One person is dead and 34 were injured in the wake of a protest that saw Americans parading under a flag bearing the Nazi swastika turn violent, as fights broke out and a domestic terrorist drove a car into the crowd in Charlottesville, Virginia today.

Let that sink in for a moment. Someone was killed today. A lot of your fellow citizens were injured, half of them in a street fight with other citizens and the other half in an act of domestic terrorism. Not Islamic terrorism, which we hear so m...

Girls Have Cooties

Now that the fires of the Fourth of July barbecues have cooled to embers and the previously unfurled flags have been folded and placed back into storage for another year, it’s time to consider the dangers of patriotism.
Patriotism is like ice cream: A little bit is a wonderful thing, but too much leads to bad consequences. Patriotism is defined as proudly supporting or defending one’s country and its way of life. It sounds reasonable until you realize the “Us versus Them” mindset lies at its f...

An Independence Day excerpt from My Book

And now, on this Fourth of July, an appropriate excerpt from my new book, Collected Essays of a Reluctant Blogger :




On this day commemorating the founding of our republic, it is appropriate to take a moment from our barbecues and fireworks displays and reflect on the state of our country and our society. Recently, the Supreme Court, in the Citizens United case, which allowed corporations to spend unlimited amounts backing political campaigns and spurred the development of superPACs, effectively...

“Hold My Crown”

Revealing how it would defeat the deadly scourge that has plagued it for so long, the West unveiled its secret weapon against terrorism this week: a 91-year-old woman dressed in blue.

At the start of WWII, King George V and Queen Elizabeth I sent their daughters, Princess Elizabeth (now Queen Elizabeth II) and Princess Margaret to sanctuary at Windsor Castle, 30 miles from London. Princess Elizabeth, 13 at the time, did not want to go but obviously had no say in the matter. When the Nazis bega...

Pre-Order Your Copy of Issues in Internet Law!

Now available as an electronic download to your computer, laptop, iPhone, iPad, Kindle, Android devices, Chromebook, and other e-readers! Save up to $10! Download the 11th edition of  Issues in Internet Law: Society, Technology, and the Law  from VitalSource !

The 11th edition of Issues In Internet Law: Society, Technology, and the Law has been updated for 2017 with the latest cases and trends in Internet Law. Of particular note are major changes in the areas of online p...

Have You Got A Minute?

Mackenzie Mortimer does. And you'd be amazed at what he can do in a single minute with a pocket watch that can freeze time.


The final novel in The Adventures of Mackenzie Mortimer  Young Adult SF trilogy has just been published! Click here to learn all about the series, and for links to order the books in multiple formats (paperback, Kindle, EPUB, Nook, iTunes, and more!)

Available in paperback, Kindle, and EPUB! Order the whole trilogy now:

The 25th Hour  (Book 1)

The Tomorrow...

An Apology to Donald Trump

After careful reflection and due consideration, I’ve concluded I owe President Donald J. Trump an apology. I admit, I was peeved when I learned of all the prominent writers, journalists, and civil libertarians who have recently been banned from President Trump’s personal Twitter feed. And, I must also confess I was jealous, and deeply hurt, as a writer who so often addresses political and social commentary, that I had not been banned too. I thought perhaps it had been an oversight, so I devot...

Four Little Words

I’ve written a lot in this column about the failings of American business, but I neglected to point out that most of them stem from the demise of the “Ma and Pa” small business at the hands of Big Business, whether corporate-owned or corporate-controlled franchises. When individuals own their own businesses they are fully invested in them, both financially and emotionally. Not so, the wage slaves of the corporation. Middle managers seek only to please the home office, not the customers they s...

Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

President Donald Trump announced his intention to pull America out of the Paris Climate Accord in his Rose Garden speech famously justifying his decision by stating “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.” There’s just one problem with this… and it’s not what you think.

The problem is not that 195 nations – all but Syria (which is in the midst of a civil war) and Nicaragua (which argued the agreement did not go far enough) – meaning basically the entire world, is in...