Keith B. Darrell's Blog, page 39

What's Hot in Croatia -- Hidden in the Cobwebs of Zagreb

If you happen to find yourself wandering the streets of Zagreb, Croatia, be sure to stop by Superknjizara Bookstore at Rooseveltov trg 4 (opposite the Mimara Museum on Savska Street) or, if that's a tad out of your way, check out their outstanding selection of books. These fine folks obviously have superb taste in books, judging from the sampling on this page of their website!  ;) 

The Writing Process Blog Tour

Welcome to a special edition of my blog this week. Author Kanchana Ayyar has invited me to be part of The Writing Process Blog Tour, in which selected authors answer four questions on their blog. Think of it is how a writer might imagine a Passover Seder… sans the matzoh. “Why is this night different from all other nights?” So begin the traditional Four Questions asked at Passover Seders for thousands of years. In a similar vein, today you might ask “Why is this blog different from all o...

The Reluctant Blogger

I'm pleased to announce my latest book, Collected Essays of a Reluctant Blogger, has been published this month and is available for purchase in the European Union. It can be ordered from Amazon in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, and Spain. Collected Essays of a Reluctant Blogger is 332 pages of social commentary and humor, featuring a selection of my best blog columns from the past three years.

Unfortunately, Collected Essays of a Reluctant Blogger  is not available...

A Politically Incorrect Trip Through Time

On a balmy day in May of 2014, a time capsule cracked open, revealing two relics of a bygone era: a pair of wealthy, old, white men displaying what was once a more common form of racism than the invidious, subtle bigotry of the post-racial 21st century.
Cliven Bundy is a Nevada rancher who has grazed his cattle on government land for two decades without paying grazing fees like thousands of his fellow ranchers. Some might label him a freeloader or moocher. Not me, of course. A rich guy like Cl...

Creativity is Radioactive

One of things I wanted to accomplish with my short story collection Shards was to unleash my creativity and push the envelope. I’d grown tired of the same formulaic plots and stories, both in literature, and on television and in movies. I recalled writer Harlan Ellison’s tales about Hollywood producers being unable to grasp creativity. To pitch them an idea for TV series, a writer had to give them a one-sentence tagline that analogized the proposal to a previously successful show. For Gene Ro...

Standing Up to the Bullies

During this Passover week, Jews leaving their temple in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk were handed a leaflet ordering them to register with the (unrecognized pro-Russian) government, declare their assets, and pay a registration fee or face loss of citizenship and deportation.

Exactly who distributed the leaflets, and why, is uncertain. They might have originated with a pro-Russian separatist group, or they might, as Denis Pushilin, the self-proclaimed leader whose name appears on them,...

Stretching the Billion Dollar Rubber Band

Meet the poster child for the One Percent. Sheldon Adelson makes $32 million … a day.
Sheldon made his money in computers, casinos, and gambling. He’s the chairman and CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation. Some might describe him as a college dropout (City College of New York) who amassed his billions from the moral weakness of his fellow men. Others might call him a shrewd businessman. Or maybe he just had gambler’s luck.
Sheldon’s hobbies include journalism (as a boy, he sold newspapers in...

Time to Pull the Plug on Comcast

Comcast Cable has the worst customer service for Internet subscribers and the second worst customer service for cable TV viewers. Not content to be No. 2 in lousy customer treatment, Comcast is trying hard to be Number One when it comes to being, as spoofed in this NSFW video , the company whose customer service motto is “We Don’t Give a F—k”. In 2013, the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) surveyed 70,000 customers to come to that conclusion. Comcast is also No. 2 on MSN M...

A Sense of Entitlement

I've noticed the younger generation exhibits a sense of entitlement combined with a lack of accomplishment. They believe the world owes them, not only a living, but a lifestyle that includes a place to live (preferably rent-free); downloadable free books, music, and videos, regardless of copyright; and even free money. I gasp at the chutzpah (that's Yiddish for "balls") of some of these twenty-somethings, fresh out of school with no experience or record of achievements and accomplishments, wh...

Priorities USA

I’m worried about Sam. He spends more money than he makes, and worse, he spends it on the wrong things. He has his priorities all wrong. Sometimes he’s overly generous, helping out strangers who live far away, while his own family goes hungry. Heck, some of that money could even be used to make our own neighborhood look a little nicer. But more often, he wastes his income by getting into senseless fights. He always claims they were self-defense, but his idea of self-defense is, he needs to at...