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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Saturday, November 14, 2009

Insensitive and Ignorant

Commentary By Ron Beasley

It's not too surprising but the narcissistic ignorant insensitive wingnuttery are upset because:

He's bowing again.

Obama has now done it again. Andrew Malcolm asks (and reports): "How low will he go? Obama gives Japan's Emperor Akihito a wow bow."

Obama's breach of protocol is of a piece with the substance of his
foreign policy. He means to teach Americans to bow before monarchs and
tyrants. He embodies the ideological multiculturalism that sets the
United States on the same plane as other regimes based on tribal
privilege and royal bloodlines. He gives expressive form to the idea
that the United States now willingly prostrates itself before the rest
of the world. He declares that the United States is a country like any
other, only worse, because we have so much for which to apologize.

I don't know if the Powerline crew has spent anytime in Japan but I have.  In the US we shake hands - in Japan they bow.  Not just to the emperor but to everyone you meet.  Is it really surrender when you demonstrate a little knowledge and respect for the culture of a country you are visiting?  In the wingnut world the answer is yes.  Is it any wonder that the rest of the world hates a country with so many pompous assholes?  I think not!

Remember this?

BushBow 

And at least Obama didn't do this:

Bush Kiss
 



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2 comments:

  1. HootsbuddyNovember 14, 2009 at 5:28 AM

    I cannot comment about Japanese customs because my Army assignment was to Korea. My guess is that all of Asia shares similar customs, but this You Tube video is a three-minute lesson in Korean New Year customs observed to this day.
    I learned to bow when I got there along with a few other protocols as well. Pouring one's own beverage, for example, is impolite, so when dining everyone stays alert to nearby glasses and cups. And one never hands anything to someone else with one hand. Good manners calls for two, but with friends and family it's okay to use one hand if the other one is symbolically extended, lightly touching the other at the wrist or forearm.
    All my life the shadow of The Ugly American made me uncomfortable. I rejoice when a president pays attention to protocol. And yes, for all his many shortcomings, that included George Bush.

    ReplyDelete
  2. HootsbuddyNovember 14, 2009 at 5:37 AM

    One more...
    Three bows in one minute.

    ReplyDelete

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