Michmutters

That Salman Rushdie was nearly murdered at an event in New York while talking about whether the United States was a safe haven for exiled writers is an irony he’d have rejected as too far-fetched in even his most fantastical novels. That he was talking at all at such an event – ​​with no personal security, no special precautions – will have been a shock to many, given that he will always be best known, to his chagrin, not for something he did, but for something that was done to him, when the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against him in 1989.

But even then, when the threats against him seemed to be at the most heated, he refused to be cowed, always looking straight ahead when he walked slowly from his hiding places to his security detail’s car, never bowing his head, never scuttling. If you succumb to the fear, he writes in Joseph Anton, his memoir of that period, “you will be its creature for ever, its prisoner.”

“One thing I feel, well, proud of, let’s say, is if you knew nothing about my life, if all you had were my books, I don’t think you would feel that something traumatic happened to me in 1989. I thought : be the writer that you want to be,” he said when I interviewed him last year.

Yet I persisted in asking, to his irritation, questions about how the death threat had affected him. Because I couldn’t see how it had: in person, he is warm, interested in everything and always one of the most fun people at a party. Only last week I sent him an email, and he wrote back at once, always happy to talk about anything (as long as it’s not the fatwa). He hates how the fatwa shaped perceptions of him as much as he resents how it shrank his life from him when he lived for a decade in hiding. “It destroys my individuality as a person and as a writer. I’m not a geopolitical entity. I’m writing someone in a room,” he said to me. And so, with great determination and courage, I have retained his individuality from him by choosing freedom, with all the risks that he entailed.

So the fact that Rushdie was speaking at a book event when he was attacked is entirely in keeping with the man. Even more characteristic was what he was speaking about: the rights of writers who face persecution. People who have endured far less than him have found themselves lured by the siren song of reactionary conservatism; Rushdie’s great friend Christopher Hitchens was not immune to it, and all that happened to him was he aged.

But Rushdie’s moral compass has never wavered, and he remains a fearless defender of the freedom of expression. In 2015, he was scathing about the authors who objected to PEN America honoring the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, months after the murderous attacks on its staff by Islamic extremists. Peter Carey condemned PEN’s “seeming blindness to the cultural arrogance of the French nation, which does not recognize its obligation to a large and disempowered segment of the population”. Rushdie, an atheist who was raised Muslim, retorts: “What I would say to both Peter and Michael [Ondaatje] and the others is, I hope nobody ever comes after them.”

Ignorant people have been trying to school Rushdie from the moment the extremists began to come after him. Looking back on news coverage from 1989, it’s striking how little sympathy there was for Rushdie then, on the left or the right. There was a general sense that he had brought this on himself because he had offended extremists. It would be extremely wrong to believe we live in more enlightened times now. Three years ago, a columnist in the Independent, who had not read The Satanic Verses, wrote, “Rushdie’s silly, childish book should be banned under today’s anti-hate legislation.” Two years ago, Rushdie, along with JK Rowling – herself no stranger to death threats – was mocked for signing what is known as the Harper’s letter, which argued against censorship on the left, as well as the right.

“There’s a youthful progressive movement, much of which is extremely valuable, but there does seem to be within it an acceptance that certain ideas should be suppressed, and I just think that’s worrying,” he said to me. He has been thinking about these issues for longer than some of his critics of him have been alive. In 2005, he gave a speech, Defend the Right to Be Offended, in which he said, “It seems to me to be a liberal failure to say that even though we don’t understand what is upsetting those who say they are offended, we shouldn’t upset them … People have the fundamental right to take an argument where somebody is offended by what they say.” This is not a very fashionable argument now, when Rowling’s name is now considered analogous to Voldemort in progressive circles, and comedians such as Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle are physically attacked on stage because someone was offended by something they have said.

Rushdie has always stood against all this, and he stands for much more. It is completely devastating that he has been attacked. The rest of us should think how lucky we are that we only need to look to him to see what true courage looks like. And he should take enormous pride in knowing that he really is both the writer and the man that he wanted to be.

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Jerry and Marge have won the lottery not once, but too many times to count — and luck had nothing to do with it.

Jerry and Marge Selbee are multimillionaires but you wouldn’t know it to look at them.

They’ve lived in the same home they’ve had for 65 years in the tiny town of Evart, Michigan.

This modest existence belies the extraordinary life they’ve been living since retiring in 2003.

Jerry and Marge have won the lottery not once, but too many times to count — and luck had nothing to do with it.

“It was just simple maths. Anyone could have done it,” Jerry said.

Jerry had always been good with numbers, so when he saw a new lotto game being advertised, he picked a loophole very few others did.

‘I did not have to be lucky to win. I had to be unlucky to lose’

The game, called WinFall, had a unique feature: if the jackpot reached US$5 million ($7 million) and failed to go off, the money would roll down to ticket holders with fewer winning numbers.

“I looked at the probabilities of the game and it said that when the WinFall actually occurred and no one won the jackpot, that the prize level would go up by a factor of 10,” Jerry said.

“US$50 for a three-number winner and US$1,000 for a four-number winner and the odds were one in, one in 56 and a half for a three-number winner and one in 1032 for a four-number winner.”

While it dramatically improved players’ chances of cashing in, Jerry quickly realized it could also be exploited.

“Most people are conditioned that [the] lottery is structured so that if you’re lucky, you win,” he told reporter Liz Hayes.

“I did not have to be lucky to win. I had to be unlucky to lose.”

Once he worked out how often the jackpot went off, he tentatively decided to put his maths to the test — and it worked.

“I think what was making me nervous is trying to believe in myself,” he laughed.

“I think it was so easy that it was hard for me to believe.”

Jerry spent weeks secretly withdrawing his hard-earned retirement cash to buy more tickets, before he finally decided to come clean to his wife of 65 years.

“I knew it was time to tell her because my next play was going to be US$15,000 (about $21,000),” he recalled.

To his surprise, Marge was on board right away and joined him in the lucrative syndicate.

“He does this stuff all the time, so I believed him,” Marge told 60 minutes.

Before too long, they had started making millions, but it wasn’t easy winnings.

The couple had to buy hundreds of thousands of tickets, a process that became more complicated when the WinFall was shut down in Michigan.

‘It was not about what he would buy, it’s about the joy of winning, of playing the game, of being involved’

They found another lottery with the same feature 1600 kilometers away in Massachusetts, but it meant driving for 15 hours to keep the money rolling in.

“I would start at 5am in the morning,” Jerry recalled.

“And then I would quit for the evening about 6pm or 7pm so that I could take her to dinner.”

Unsurprisingly, their highly successful scheme eventually caught the attention of suspicious investigators.

But Jerry and Marge were doing nothing wrong — they’d simply done the maths, looking at the lotto as a game of strategy instead of a game of chance.

Their remarkable story seems tailor-made for the silver screen, so it comes as no surprise it has been turned into a film for streaming service Paramount+.

‘It gives you purpose, because once you retire, what do you do with all that time?’

Playing Jerry in Jerry and Marge Go Large is Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston, who didn’t think it was ever really about the money.

“It was not about what he would buy, it’s about the joy of winning, of playing the game, of being involved,” the actor said.

“I think my favorite part of the whole story is that this adventure for Jerry and Marge created an opportunity to reignite that romantic flare.”

The real Jerry agrees. After 65 years together, it seemed there was still plenty of the Selbees could learn about each other.

“We learned that we could work together, that we could travel together,” Jerry said.

“I loved her just as much then and now as I did when I was 15.”

Not much has changed for Jerry and Marge since making their fortune, which they’ve spent mainly on education for their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

It seems they wanted nothing more than a little excitement.

“It was something to do and something to look forward to every couple of months,” Marge said.

“It gives you purpose, because once you retire, what do you do with all that time?”

Related Clips

Jennifer Lopez has firmly planted herself on the side of team britney amid the popstar’s ‘feud’ with Kevin Federline.

On Friday, Spears posted a throwback photo of herself at the 2001 VMA’s alongside J-Lo, quoting the marry me star in the caption.

“As Jennifer Lopez once said,” she wrote, “‘You look right down that camera and tell every little girl in the world to get loud and never ever back down to giving light to injustice’!!! I’m here to share that freedom is a state of mind !!! GOD BLESS U ALL.”

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Lopez commented with three heart emojis, then reposted the photo adding a sticker that reads “stay strong”.

The photo has since been deleted by Spears, but in the caption, she also reflected on “independence” and “equality.”

“In a world where you have the right to use your feet 🦶… heart ❤️ … mouth 👄 … eyes 👀 … and body… to express yourself however you may 😁 !!! Declaration of INDEPENDENCE … for equality and to be equal 🤝 !! Not even touching, covering, and holding me against my will for 4 months!!!”

The caption seems to be in reference to Spears’ ex-husband, Kevin Federline, posting old videos of her earlier this week. In the clips, it appears that the ‘Toxic’ singer is arguing with her and scolding her two sons, Sean and Jayden.

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“I can not sit back and let my sons be accused in this way after what they’ve been through. As much as it hurts us, we decided as a family to post these videos,” Federline wrote Alongside the clips, saying their sons were 11 and 12 at the time the videos were taken.

His decision to share the videos online garnered a ton of backlash. A source for Spears told Page Six“This is terrible, Kevin is disgusting. He is weaponizing the kids by releasing the videos.

“But in these clips, Britney is just being a mom.”

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