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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Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Thanksgiving Day Guilty Pleasure

By John Ballard


Several years ago I came across an audio snip which is part of a two-hour Thanksgiving Day radio special first aired in 2001. And yes, the Twin Towers attack played into its inspiration.  In this holiday special John Birge has assembled in Giving Thanks -- A Celebration of fall, food and gratitude an exceptional collection of music and story telling.The entire two-hour broadcast is enshrined at this link and I hope the link will never go 404. The reader with two hours to invest can get drunk on the beauty of it all. (A note at the link announces it will be rebroadcast again this Thanksgiving Day on public radio stations subscribing to American Public Media.) I only did that once, but the part that sticks in my memory is the end of the second hour beginning at thirty-five minutes. Look for the second hour link on the home page. Once downloaded it is an easy matter to advance the time slider to 35:00 and listen to the timeless voice of Charles Laughton reading and telling stories before a live audience. During the next twenty minutes he does three presentations.


The opening reading is a poetic piece by Jack Kerouac, founding partner of the Beat generation and father to the Dirty Fucking Hippies that followed. Latter day atheists and agnostics may be surprised to hear this man speaking affectionately about God.


Laughton then tells a personal shaggy dog story that spans forty years, weaving together several threads at the end as only he could tell about it.


He concludes with a reading of Psalm 104. But his version is an actor's version which captures the artistic beauty of the language without losing spiritual gravity. The reader can look up official translations elsewhere, but a few years ago I made the following transcription of Charles Laughton's version. I cannot read it without hearing his voice in the background.


O LORD my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and majesty. Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain: who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever.

The waters stood above the mountains. At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away. They go down by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them.


He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth. And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart.


The trees of the LORD are full of sap, where the birds make their nests. As for the stork, the fir trees are her house.


Thou makest darkness, and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth.


O LORD, how manifold are thy works! The earth is full of thy riches. So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable. There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein.


He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth: he toucheth the hills, and they smoke.


I will sing unto the LORD as long as I live: I will be glad in the LORD.




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2 comments:

  1. kgusNovember 25, 2010 at 3:34 AM

    Thanks for the link, I never listen to holiday shows (even on NPR). What I've missed! Laughton was amazing, as always; are there such untold delights on all these holiday programs?

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  2. John BallardNovember 25, 2010 at 7:32 AM

    I don't know about all holiday programs but those that endure over a decade must have something to recommend them. In this case I caught Laughton by chance on the car radio four years ago. The story was about half over so when I got home but I immediately found it online and was caught forever, blogging about it the next day.
    Reading, listening and blogging are like beach combing for me. The best finds usually come unexpectedly.

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