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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Sunday, January 30, 2011

Why Egyptians Are Fed Up

By John Ballard


Ahmed Moor is a freelance journalist taken into custody by Egyptian police, later released because he passed himself off as an American tourist unable to speak Arabic. His gripping account vividly illustrates why the Egyptian protesters are so committed. H/T Arabist.


The other men were all hugging their knees and facing the back wall and I was told to the do the same. I was committed to my not understanding Arabic story, so I remained unresponsive. That earned me another blow to the face and some slaps on the back of the neck and head. But I didn�t move too much and managed to continue to watch the spectacle of modern day Egypt from the vantage point of a piss-covered floor. That seemed appropriate to me.

They brought in a skinny kid a little while after that. He gave them his name and told them he was born in 1993. One of the beefy psychopaths accused the boy of trying to throw a punch and began to choke him. He choked him until he lost consciousness. The legitimate representative of the Egyptian government then let the boy fall to the floor where he began to vomit on his side. None of the animals moved to help. Instead, they picked him up after he came to and cast him into our pile.


Noticing my distress, a demonstrator turned to me and whispered in English, �I�m very sorry. This is not Egypt. This is the president Hosni Mubarak.�


I felt like weeping. Here I was taking refuge behind the Leader of the Free World, and this man who had nothing and no one to protect him, who was very likely going to be badly hurt, thought it was important to comfort me. I didn�t know how to respond.




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