From the Chronicle: Undeterred by the protests, Andy Ross, owner of Cody's, opted to keep "The Satanic Verses" in stock, hoping to sidestep controversy if he kept it out of the front window display. Then one night he got a phone call from the police, saying someone had thrown a firebomb into the store. While nobody left a note or came forward later, Ross and investigators saw the bombings as retaliation for his decision to sell the book.... No one was hurt, Ross said. When he and his staff arrived to clean up the next day, they found an undetonated pipe bomb in the poetry section, and had to call a bomb squad to blow it up. "They said it would have killed everyone in the store," Ross recalled, his voice shaking. "And this is the part where I get really choked up. I told my staff, 'I don't know what you want to do. This book is dangerous.' So we took a vote. And we voted unanimously to keep carrying the book. He paused a beat. "And that was one of the highlights of my career."..... At some point, members of the Islamic student associations at UC Berkley came to Cody's and offered their condolences, making clear they did not support violence, Ross said. Years later, Rushdie made a surprise appearance at Cody's. He was still in hiding, so employees were notified only 15 minutes before he came in, Ross said. They gave him a tour and showed him a crack in the drywall above the information desk, left from the 1989 bombings. Someone had scrawled "Salman Rushdie Memorial Hole" near the indentation. Ross remembers the author's droll reaction. "Well," Rushdie said, "some people get statues and others get a hole. "
I tell this story to honor the bravery of the staff of Cody's and the great panache of Salman Rushdie. And now, 33 years after Cody's was bombed, an attacker, determined to carry out the Ayatollah's fatwa, has given Rushdie injuries called "life-changing" in the paper.
When I read "The Satanic Verses" years ago, I could not understand how it could provoke such outrage. Many books have been written attacking Islam. But Rushdie's fantastical novel is not among them. So why the fatwa? I can only think that it was because he was very famous, because he came from a Moslem family, and because his novel had an irreverent attitude towards everything, including the Prophet Mohammed. Perhaps irreverence is, in the end, more threatening than hatred. Yes, now that I think about it, irreverence CERTAINLY is more threatening because it implies that the ideas of Islam have no power over you anymore.
So now Salman Rushdie lies in a hospital bed with terrible injuries. According to one report, he's well enough to entertain his visitors with jokes. What an amazing spirit this great writer has. We see that spirit in his writing, in his visit to Cody's Bookstore, and now in his hospital room. To honor him, I'm going to reread "Midnight's Children," about the independence and partition of India. | 
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