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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Thursday, July 23, 2009

Congrats to the Farleys

By Fester:


Rob Farley's wife just gave birth to the second and third cutest kids this year.  My daughter of course is the cutest!  Congratulations to the Farley family, and yes you will sleep someday.  My wife and I are actually able to sleep through the night again, and have been able to do that for a couple of months now, so the blur of the first few months slows down again. 


And here is one of my favorite articles on parenthood and the mall-zone defense:



On Black Friday, mall crowds are about 200 percent larger, and small children are extra-distracted by the presence of Santa, Christmas trees, large displays of new Wii games, and other kids skillfully eluding their parents. Small children can get separation from their parents on Black Friday as easily as Torry Holt against DeAngelo Hall. What's worse, they work in pairs to terrify their parents. I call them "combo routes." I swear that Tom Moore sneaks into my house when I am not there and coaches the boys on some fiendish Marvin Harrison-Reggie Wayne tactics to distract me, escape me, and enjoy some hot cocoa with the gang at mall security while I shave four years off my lifespan panicking for their well being.


Figure 1 shows one of my kids' favorite combo routes: the hook-and-distraction. C.J. (6) does something that demands my undivided attention: he does a forward roll into a Kitchen Kapers display of imported saffron, masters quantum physics, or just strikes the "Cat's In The Cradle" tone of voice he has mastered, the one that tells me he will carry anything short of a top priority daddy intervention with him as a grudge until the day the doctor asks him whether to remove my feeding tube. As I dote over C.J., Mikey (2) sprints around a blind corner. It's simple and effective: the slants-and-flats of small child misbehavior.


If C.J. wants to get open, he executes a linger-and-dash (Figure 2). Obviously, the six-year-old is on a longer leash than the two-year-old. If I'm not using a stroller (you only use a stroller on Black Friday if you want a portable battering ram; a large percentage of parents choose this option, but I don't), then most of my attention is focused on Mikey. As shown, Mikey takes an inside release, so I open up to his side, glancing over my left shoulder when heading for the food court for chicken nuggets (them) and stromboli (me). C.J. exploits the hole in the zone to my right, then darts into GameStop when I turn to check on Mikey. GameStop is small, and I know C.J. will be near the Mario Kart display, so there's little risk of a lost child here. Still, it's guaranteed yards.....



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