The Tyee memory hole [updated]

Until today, the quirky and often interesting on-line West Coast publication The Tyee was on my linkroll. But a funny thing happened on the way to the latest red-baiting column by Terry Glavin--I was mugged by the editor, David Beers.

Here's the story. I posted a comment (unfortunately, I didn't retain a copy of it) that took issue with Glavin's whole approach to his perennial strawman "left." I didn't mince words. I'm no Glavin fan, as people here know: his intellectual dishonesty has irritated me for some time now. The thrust of my comment was that no "leftist" I know supports rule by mullahs, hanging gay teenagers and so on, but that Glavin offered nothing constructive in his article--the Iranian situation was just another excuse to stick his hairy finger in our eye.

A couple of people made approving comments. When I went back, part of a sentence had been erased, replaced by an editor's "offensive comment removed." Going by memory, I had accused Glavin of being disingenuous and (given his bizarre insistence on calling himself a leftist) a political fraud. Beers tried to give gave the impression that I had used obscenity or some-such. I posted again simply to clear up that point.

Lo and behold, when I visited the site again yesterday, Beers had closed the comments, removed both of mine--and also the comments of those who had indicated support for what I had said. It was a classic Orwellian exercise, from an erratic editor who recently banned a commenter for "anti-Semitism" because s/he had voiced criticism of Israel.

The palmy days at The Tyee appear to be over. Murray Dobbin still has a space, for which we should all be thankful, but I'm reminded a bit of the Georgia Straight, which signalled a rupture with the past by running a column by the now-mouldering anti-Semite Doug Collins. Or of the great expectations we had for Zimbabwe when the young and progressive Robert Mugabe took over, who morphed into...well, not pretty.

Anyway, if anyone was curious, that's why The Tyee is no longer featured at my place. And if you hold up four fingers, I'll still say it's four, Comrade Beers. Any guesses how many fingers I'm holding up at the moment?

UPDATE: (November 17) Damn. I was wrong. Follow the link.