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, October 30, 2010

Christopher Hitchens on His Cancer

By John Ballard


Listen to this NPR visit with Hitchens. H/T Vali Nasr



Hitchens says the doctors tell him he has a good chance of buying time � of "getting a stay" � but no doctor will tell him they can completely destroy the tumor.


"But I don't blame them. I'm sure if I was a physician I wouldn't do that, even if I thought I could. And I prefer to lowball it myself. Because then the only surprise I can get is a reasonably pleasant one," he says. "But I can just tell you that if you take the absolute aggregate of people who've got what I've got, only 5 percent of us live for five years."


�


[Responding to those who are praying for him he replies...] When you say, "Oh pray for me," do you mind if I ask, "What for?" ' A lot of them said, quite honestly, 'Not really for your recovery, but that you see the error of your ways.' Now I find that not as easy to be graceful about, because though it's put in a nice way, it's part of a phenomenon that I've always thought of as very disgusting, which is the belief of the religious � which they keep expressing � that surely now you're dying, your fears will overcome your reason. I hope I don't have to underline what's horrible about that. There's an element of blackmail to it. And an element of tremendous insecurity on their part; I mean they don't seem to feel they'd win the argument so easily with someone who's mentally and physically strong. By the way, I think they're right."




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1 comment:

  1. John BallardNovember 3, 2010 at 2:07 PM

    Thanks for sharing your experience. You dodged the bullet. I'm sure you're an inspiration to all you meet.
    Like Churchill said "There's nothing quite as exhilarating as being shot at and missed."

    ReplyDelete

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