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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Monday, September 13, 2010

A Florida Preacher Has Blood on his Hands

By John Ballard



Last week's international news flap over what should have been a non-story will soon disappear down the memory hole but unless and until Christians learn to do what they have been expecting Muslims to do for the last nine years, we can expect it to be repeated. It illustrates how quickly hatred, lies and misinformation can get out of control and how a media firestorm can result in injury and death in far away places.



Laura Sjoberg, who lives near the center of last week's madness, blogs this...



...some people in Gainesville, Florida are at least partly responsible for the deaths of some people in Afghanistan, who remain unnamed in Western news coverage. As citizens of the United States (or even other Western countries), we often convince ourselves that our individual political decisions do not affect how the world works, or other people that we don't know across that world. Terry Jones and Dove World showed that's not true - a couple of (fringe) people's politics affected a lot of people's lives, and ended (at least) two of them. The local is global, it seems; and the global is local. What we do with that, as scholars and as activists, seems to remain an open question. I, for one, think that the first priority should be making as aggressive statements about tolerance and respect as some make about intolerance and disrespect.




I fully agree.



And as someone calling myself Christian I am embarrassed, ashamed and disappointed at the deafening silence of what passes for a "Christian community" in America. As soon as the story started to get legs I waited helplessly for someone -- anyone in a position of leadership -- to speak out loudly enough to counterbalance the ugliness of sub-Christian messages and inflammatory scenes coming from this story.



Some have blamed "the media" and perhaps there is a grain or two of truth to that criticism. The media did a credible job of reporting, and at least one small church in Memphis by way of counterbalancing the narrative but blaming reporters is like blaming a prostitute for the misdeeds of married men. This was the best they could find to report another angle nearby.











Some enterprising news ferret found this story in a far-away Memphis suburb.









And this...



And speaking of tolerance, anyone notice that "Fox News" logo?

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2 comments:

  1. JRobertDuBoisSeptember 13, 2010 at 10:06 AM

    John,
    By now you've seen those in positions "of leadership" talking about how awful it is to let self-righteous, indulgent bigotry run riot. I actually wrote several pieces, beginning nearly a month ago (although my column doesn't go to press until the 1st - of September, in this case).
    I love that you coined the term "sub-Christian messages." In one of my pieces on this matter I specifically referred to it as "un-Christian," then provided some examples of how self-described followers of Jesus Christ are actually directed to behave toward others. (Don't worry, this isn't a holy roller blog at all - I'm a retired Navy SEAL with the agenda of pushing mutual respect for conflict reduction.)
    My own forum with these recent articles is: POWERFULPEACE.NET
    If you would prefer not to have some self-serving boob use your site to hawk his own, I fully understand and will respect your immediate Deletion of my comment. :)
    Ultimately, I'm just glad the "leaders" have caught up and are joining with our admonitions against general, lascivious badmouthing of the adherents of a major world religion. Disagreement is not permission to abuse.
    - Rob DuBois

    ReplyDelete
  2. John BallardSeptember 13, 2010 at 10:53 AM

    Thanks for your comment. I see no reason to delete or edit anything you wrote.
    Visiting your site lets me know that we both are on the side of the angels. Keep up the good work.
    Incidentally, this post is an afterthought to one I put up Sunday.

    ReplyDelete

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