Author Archives: authorbengarrido
Race Report!
Man it feels good to get back on a racetrack! My lovely new Brocinante, recently recovered from open chassis surgery, finally made her debut in the arena, and what an arena it was. Injae Speedium, a new circuit in the rugged mountains of northeastern Korea, slots into that sweet spot between beautiful and diabolical. Just […]
Fear and Loathing and Elderly Korean Cars
Have you ever owned a beautiful thing while knowing that, just beneath the surface, that beautiful thing is rotting away? Have you ever made a beautiful thing ugly? Have you ever described a 15 year-old Korean psuedo sports car as beautiful? I bought my 2002 Tuscani about six months ago. It had obviously been cared […]
The Aesthetic Case Against Rights
This is an excerpt from my upcoming book “Overcoming Justice.” I’d love any ideas, reactions and thoughts you have regarding this article. I have several reasons for viewing rights with suspicion. I think the epistemology is all messed up and I think that the concept of human rights invalidates huge swaths of history and experience. […]
The 2016 Election
I’d like to start this post with a short history of voting rights. The 19th century and early 20th century was rife with revolution. The last remnants of medievelism were being crushed and replaced with, occassionally, democracies and, more often, chaotic democratic disasters that quickly descended into strongman dictatorships. The democracies that survived were the […]
A Short Meditation on Victim Blaming
Victims deserve pity not blame. It is almost impossible to respect someone you pity. I would rather be blamed. “It is the spirit of our times to honor the victimized. They, the downtrodden, the deliciously injured, the erotically disempowered – how lovely is it to shower our pity down on their bowed shoulders? How fervid […]
Why We Hate, Part Two
Click here for part one of “Why We Hate.” See this dude here? He knows a lot of things. Far more than you, though he pities you enough that he would never say so and risk hurting your little feelings. He wouldn’t have to say anything, if you just spent a few minutes in his […]
Help the Helpless Writer Help You
I’d like to introduce my current novel project and ask for your opinons. Partly this is because I believe in open expression, freedom of speech and noble things like that, but mostly, I really just want to steal all your good ideas, put them in my book and then hoard the profits. You know how […]
Why We Hate, Michael Brown and Baton Rouge
Warning: This is a very touchy subject. If you are faint of heart you will not enjoy this post, I promise. The things I say will challenge you, they will cast you as a villain. I’m not trying to be offensive, but this is hardcore. That said, I sincerely do hope you continue. Hatred – […]
The Saint, Version 2.0
The house, brown and squat and smelling of nicotine, left Reggie in a near constant state of fear. His room looked over the narrow alley behind the house and opened into the hallway directly across from his mother’s lonely little cave. Reggie nearly knocked down some of the legion decorative toys and trinkets his […]
The Saint
Reggie, 8 pm It was bad, even for a 7-11. The clerks seldom bathed, the deli meats promised gastric distress and the diverse clientele ranged all the way from sad to hopeless. A congealed soup of unburnt hydrocarbons covered the parking lot to half an inch thick, daily refreshed by the streams of […]
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