The only reason the Howler repeats himself is that our famously free press does. As for example:

This morning, the gods rocked with laughter: On Olympus, that is. Reason? On the front page of the New York Times, Sheryl Gay Stolberg penned a report about the way current health reform bills would deal with American health care spending. On Olympus, her opening paragraph produced some muffled laughter:

STOLBERG (11/10/09): As health care legislation moves toward a crucial airing in the Senate, the White House is facing a growing revolt from some Democrats and analysts who say the bills Congress is considering do not fulfill President Obama's promise to slow the runaway rise in health care spending.

Note that definition again: We’ll accept a rise in health care spending—it just can’t be a runaway rise! As Stolberg continued, the muffled laughter became full-throated—almost a roar:

STOLBERG (continuing directly): Mr. Obama has made cost containment a centerpiece of his health reform agenda, and in May he stood up at the White House with industry groups who pledged voluntary efforts to trim the growth of health care spending by 1.5 percent, or $2 trillion, over the next decade.

Can you see why the gods, and their guests, were now openly laughing? In the face of a “runaway rise in health care spending,” Stolberg almost seemed to suggest that a “trim” in growth, of 1.5 percent, somehow connected to the idea that “cost containment” was “a centerpiece” of Obama’s agenda! And then too, the gods, and their guests, had all seen the OECD figures—the figures which show the baseline of American health care spending. Can you see why the gods, and their guests, were now laughing hard at us mortals?

Total spending on health care, per person, 2007
United States: $7290
France: $3601
Germany: $3588
United Kingdom: $2992
Italy: $2686
Spain: $2671
Japan: $2581 (2006)

There’s the baseline for any future rise. In 2007, the U.S. spent 102 percent more than the French! In Stolberg’s account, it seems that we’re planning to “trim” 1.5 of those 102 points! But then, cost containment is a centerpiece of our health care agenda!

On Olympus, the sides of the gods are starting to split in the face of our culture’s year-long clowning—clowning which is mainly conducted at the very top of our “press corps.” Our advice: Surrender the prejudice of your youth! In a hundred different ways, you were told that “man” is “the rational animal!” As your society flounders and drowns, you—like the gods—can learn to see something quite different.

By contrast, here's how they do it in France: