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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Friday, April 8, 2011

Sandmonkey at Tahrir Square

Posted by John
As Americans wait for a creaking, squeaking, dysfunctional old government rattletrap to get around to business, Egyptians are tending to some of their own.


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I started a post a while ago but realized it was like pissing in the ocean. I find this picture keeps my mind off the insanity at work here in America. Readers who are tired of the same old stuff on TV can go to hashtag #Tahrir for some real excitement. Or follow Mahmoud Saleem. It's late afternoon in Cairo so there will be a few more hours of excitement.


Compared with the Arab world Americans are politically handicapped. As reflected in how we spend money and the entertainment we like most Americans live in scientific ignorance, historical delusions and political detachment, content to let a handful of media-driven personalities determine their destiny.  Like the proverbial frog in the water, we continue to endure the discomfort, planning to jump to safety at the last minute.


Instead of composing a screed I plan to work in the yard today and clean up the garage. Ron's post is right. America is becoming a Banana Republic and it's too late to do much to change the outcome.



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