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.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Gregg Breinberg and the Chorus at PS22

By John Ballard



Thanks to a Tweet (h/t
Tracy Sefl) I just lost an hour of my morning at You Tube grazing the many little snips of PS22. If you have a weakness for kids chorus and music, don't go there.




From yesterday's Daily News...

A Staten Island native, [Gregg] Breinberg started the PS 22 chorus 10 years ago after studying music education at SUNY New Paltz. He never worries about getting fifth-graders interested in his more obscure song choices like "This Must Be the Place," by the Talking Heads because, he says, "I'm very passionate about what I do and the kids latch onto it and they want to work."



During a recent rehearsal the 50-plus 10-year-olds who make up this year's chorus patiently belted out song after song for an hour and half, eyes closed, heads swaying to the music as if they were singing in their own bedrooms with nobody watching.



All the hard work has paid off.



Today, Breinberg and his chorus are nearly as famous as their teenaged TV counterparts on "Glee." This year, they sang for the President at the White House Christmas tree lighting. They sang with rock legend Stevie Nicks. Most of all, they're famous for YouTube videos of their performances which, thanks to plugs from Perez Hilton and tweets from Ashton Kutcher, have seen millions of views.



The only difference between the TV and real-life singing groups?



Being a member of the PS 22 Chorus is cool.





Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)