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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Thursday, May 24, 2012

HCR -- Dementia Awareness

By John Ballard


This was posted this morning at the Hospice and Nursing Homes Blog. Sometimes we need reminding that the people around us may have more going on inside than they let us know. Or that we want to find out.


I can tell you that for many there is nothing going on inside. But between that place -- the empty nothingness of Eternal Now -- and where they began, they experienced months and years of transitional events. We may not be able to change the destination but we do have a responsibility as bystanders to make their journey as emotionally free of pain as possible.




1 comment:

  1. John, thanks for your healthcare posts.
    I was, at one particular time, president of an organization that was important to a man who began acting strange. His wife told me that he had been diagnosed with Altzheimers and that she would appreciate it if he could continue with the organization and with other normal activities as long as he could.
    I don't know how many other people she told. I do know that he regularly attended our meetings and asked questions at lectures. Sometimes he asked the same question twice. Sometimes his questions didn't make sense.
    I never saw anyone act as though this was anything but normal. It's great that a community can be that supportive.

    ReplyDelete