Howlers: Loud as Thunder

From time to time, we have discussed the media and its behavior in connection with the California stem cell agency.

The other day, we ran across an apt, media-related commentary in Barbara Kingsolver's new novel, “The Lacuna.”

The remark was offered by one of her characters during a discussion of newspapers with Leon Trotsky in Mexico prior to World War II. One could say that it still applies more than 70 years later.

Here is how it went:

“It's true sir. The newspapers are like howlers on Isla Pixol.”

“What are these howlers?” Trotsky asked.

“A kind of monkey, very terrifying. They howl every morning: First one starts, then a neighbor hears it and starts his own howl, as if he can't help it. Soon the whole forest is bellowing, loud as thunder. It's their nature, probably they have do it, to hold their place in the forest. To tell the others no one has gotten the best of them.”