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, May 8, 2010

Save a forest

Commentary By Ron Beasley



I've lost track of how many phone books I get every year but I do know they all face the same fate - they make the short trip from my front door to the recycling bin.  I see this as good news:



White Pages May Go Way of Rotary-Dialed Phone


The residential White Pages, those inches-thick tomes of fine-print
telephone listings that may be most useful as doorstops, could stop
landing with a thud on doorsteps across New York later this year.


Verizon, the dominant local phone company in the state, asked regulators on Friday to allow it to
end the annual delivery of millions of White Pages to all of its
customers in New York. The company estimates that it would save nearly
5,000 tons of paper by ending the automatic distribution of the books.


Only about one of every nine households uses the hard-copy listings
anymore, according to Verizon, which cited a 2008 Gallup survey. Most
have switched to looking up numbers online or calling directory
assistance. The phone book for many people, it seems, has gone from
indispensable tool to unavoidable nuisance.

I believe they are still making money on the yellow pages but much if not most of that activity is now online as well I would guess.  I don't know how many trees that would save - I suspect phone books are mostly made from recycled phone books, but it would still save energy.  This is a good move and a green move.



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1 comment:

  1. sfHeathMay 8, 2010 at 1:30 PM

    Does every home have internet access for online searches? What is the cost of directory assistance? I'd hate to further restrict access to public information for certain underprivileged people.
    While I have the same relationship with my phone book as you do, Ron, it seems to me an argument born of privilege. Isn't there a way to do an "opt-in" for phone book delivery? Cutting their print run by 8/9ths should save a significant amount of money and trees, yes?

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