From worried parents to policemen with built-in Satan detectors, underground comics have never lacked enemies. And for 30 years Neil Gaiman and his friends have fought back in the name of free speech
In the latest ethos, which has spun well beyond college campuses in short order, any tradition, any experience, any costume, any way of doing and saying things, that is associated with a minority or disadvantaged group is ring-fenced:
look-but-don't-touch. Those who embrace a vast range of "identities" -- ethnicities, nationalities, races, sexual and gender categories, classes of economic under-privilege and disability -- are now encouraged to be possessive of their
experience and to regard other peoples' attempts to participate in their lives and traditions, either actively or imaginatively, as a form of theft.
I'm dismayed by the radical left's ever-growing list of dos and don'ts -- by its impulse to control, to instill self-censorship as well as to promote real censorship, and to deploy sensitivity as an excuse to be brutally insensitive to any perceived
enemy. There are many people who see these frenzies about cultural appropriation, trigger warnings, micro-aggressions and safe spaces as overtly crazy. The shrill tyranny of the left helps to push them toward Donald Trump.
Artist and author Dennis Cooper has re-launched his popular blog after months of legal disputes with Google who censored his previous blog.
The artist posted a message on the blog's Facebook account o explain Google's reasoning for erasing his 14-year-old blog. According to Cooper, someone had reported a post on DC's Blog, which was hosted on the Google-owned Blogspot, from 10 years ago as
they felt it constituted child abuse images, and Google immediately deactivated his account.
Cooper's troubles started two months ago when his Gmail was disabled without reason. He later attempted to log into his blog and received a notice saying it was suspended due to a violation of Google's terms of service. Cooper lost 10 years' worth of
correspondence in his emails, all his blogposts, and a gif novel called Zac's Freight Elevator, which was slated for release in the coming months.
Cooper told the Guardian that Google originally provided no explanation for taking down his site and didn't respond to the lawyers he enlisted ; even Google employees who were fans of his work were unable to uncover what happened. According to Cooper's
Facebook post, Google began negotiating with his lawyer on 15 July and eventually agreed to provide all the data from his disabled blog, the data from his 10 years of correspondence in his Gmail account and his novel. The data from his site will be put
up on a new site, post-by-post.
