V. S. Naipaul

I might have come across the name of V. S. Naipaul a few times in my life, but I have known nothing of him or his work. In this article, we see that he comes from an interesting cultural position, having come from India and the Third World to work, study, and achieve success reaching London and the center of Western civilization into the lap of luxury, coming to disdain his origins. Though, in truth, I just wanted this sexually sensational and scandalous excerpt about his sex life.

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Naipaul and Margaret began an affair that set free all of his desires and fantasies. When his editor and friend Diana Athill scolded him, he replied, “I am having carnal pleasure for the first time in my life, are you saying I must give it up?” Carnal pleasure meant violence — in fact it was inextricable from beating Margaret up, degrading her in bed, turning the great man’s penis into an object of worship. How do we know these things? Because Naipaul tells them to his authorized biographer. “I was very violent with her for two days with my hand; my hand began to hurt. . . . She didn’t mind it at all. She thought of it in terms of my passion for her. Her face was bad. She couldn’t appear really in public. My hand was swollen. I was utterly helpless. I have enormous sympathy for people who do strange things out of passion.”

-- Morgan Meis at The Smart Set

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Of Democrats and Republicans

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How did the parties get this far apart? Political scientists suggest that it has a lot to do with income inequality. As the wealthy grow richer compared with everyone else, their policy preferences have moved to the right — and they have pulled the Republican Party ever further in their direction. Meanwhile, the influence of big money on Democrats has at least eroded a bit, now that Wall Street, furious over regulations and modest tax hikes, has deserted the party en masse. The result is a level of political polarization not seen since the Civil War.

-- Paul Krugman at The New York Times

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Cats and Weather

If the cats were not going stir crazy, I would keep them in for one more day, giving the earth more of an opportunity to firm up and not be so damn muddy. However, there is a fair chance that it will rain again on Thursday, and I guess I got to let them go, let them do their wild thing while they can.