Saturday, August 13, 2022

Rushie off ventilator— “joking,” says fellow author; perp pleads “not guilty”

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
Saturday, August 13, 2022 at 10:34:00 P.M. EDT

mayville, n.y. (ap) - the satanic verses author Salman Rushdie was taken off a ventilator and able to talk saturday, a day after he was stabbed as he prepared to give a lecture in upstate new york.

Rushdie remained hospitalized with serious injuries, but fellow author Aatish Taseer tweeted in the evening that he was “off the ventilator and talking (and joking).” Rushdie’s agent, Andrew Wylie, confirmed that information without offering further details.

[GRA: What could he joke about? “my eye is gone, my liver is shot, and I can’t feel my arm—but you know what’s worse? This damn hospital food.”]

earlier in the day, the man accused of attacking him friday at the chautauqua institution, a non-profit education and retreat center, pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and assault charges in what a prosecutor called a “pre-planned” crime.

[N.S.: That’s redundant. The English usage would be “planned” or “premeditated.”]

an attorney for Hadi Matar entered the plea on his behalf during an arraignment in western new york. the suspect appeared in court wearing a black and white jumpsuit and a white face mask, with his hands cuffed in front of him.

a judge ordered him held without bail after district attorney Jason Schmidt told her Matar, 24, took steps to purposely put himself in position to harm Rushdie, getting an advance pass to the event where the author was speaking and arriving a day early bearing a fake id.

“This was a targeted, unprovoked, preplanned attack on Mr. Rushdie,” Schmidt said.

[What is with this pervasive abuse of “unprovoked”?]

GRA: Pretty amazing Rushdie is still among the living.

--GRA



2 comments:

europeasant said...

I remember renting his book "Why I am not A Muslim" from the library. The librarian kept the book hidden under the counter. I always wondered how long the book would last once the peaceful Muslims found out.

Anonymous said...

"The librarian kept the book hidden under the counter."

They used to have that in the old Soviet Union. The library with the forbidden "works" of the capitalist authors. You could read the books but only if you were a trusted member of the communist party. And then don't read too many of them. That might raise eyebrows as they say.