Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Friday, June 26, 2009

Lensmen On The Big Screen?

By Steve Hynd


The London Times reports that a screenplay for a movie of E.E. "Doc" Smith's classic Lensman series of pulp SF novels is doing the rounds. Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski is responsible for the screenplay and director Ron Howard is reported to be interested.


Sure, the Lensman series was 40's American culture - sexist, racist, virulently anti-labor and arrogantly sure of it's own supremacy - brought into the far future. But where else will you find the line "armed and armored as only a planet can be armed and armored"? With modern CGI the effects are certainly doable, and would be the most mind-boggling array of movie incandescence ever seen. And with Straczynski doing the screenplay, I'd think the worst of the 40's-think would be either ameliorated or set into a context whereby you can smile wryly instead of growling angrily (think Sky Captain, maybe).


If it's done right it'll make the effects from Star Wars and Star Trek, Terminator Four and The Matrix look like cheap made-for-TV stuff. Seriously awesome.


Update: sfHeath makes a comment well worth promoting to the post itself because it's so correct.




Despite all the flaws you mention - I don't think I've read anything more overtly sexist, racist, and arrogant - I have always loved this series too. I think it's because the mythology of the series pre-supposes a perfect identification of ultimate authority. The lens cannot be faked, it's only given to the best of the best who only do good. And because they have that authority, they can command the entire resources of the planet - which of course results in complete and total war with the first alien race they find. (In all fairness, the aliens shoot first.) The pacing of the novels is a breakneck speed and the descriptions assault all the senses. Very powerful stuff for the young adolescent male I once was.


That adolescent fantasy, of following an ultimate authority who can do no wrong, has of course almost wrecked the USA; but in fiction, it's a great ride. Unlike some of our policy-setters, I know the difference between entertainment and reality.


Heh, that's a great comment, sf. The Lensmen series is very much "neocons in space", only with the pretense at democracy dropped of course. The perfect authorities, the lensmen themselves, rule with no oversight or hindrance.



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  1. sfHeathJune 26, 2009 at 10:23 AM

    Despite all the flaws you mention - I don't think I've read anything more overtly sexist, racist, and arrogant - I have always loved this series too. I think it's because the mythology of the series pre-supposes a perfect identification of ultimate authority. The lens cannot be faked, it's only given to the best of the best who only do good. And because they have that authority, they can command the entire resources of the planet - which of course results in complete and total war with the first alien race they find. (In all fairness, the aliens shoot first.) The pacing of the novels is a breakneck speed and the descriptions assault all the senses. Very powerful stuff for the young adolescent male I once was.
    That adolescent fantasy, of following an ultimate authority who can do no wrong, has of course almost wrecked the USA; but in fiction, it's a great ride. Unlike some of our policy-setters, I know the difference between entertainment and reality.

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