Fun_People Archive
25 Mar
Quote of the day - 3/25/97 - stumping with the muriqui monkey

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 97 14:40:18 -0800
To: Fun_People
Subject: Quote of the day - 3/25/97 - stumping with the muriqui monkey

Forwarded-by: Keith Bostic <bostic@bostic.com>
Forwarded-by: Lisa Tucker <ltucker@brill.acomp.usf.edu>
Forwarded-by: qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca (Quote of the day)

The best description I ever found of what it's like to be a political
reporter appeared, curiously enough, in Natural History magazine, deftly
sandwiched into an article by a female biologist who studies the diet of
the muriqui monkey.  Anyone who has ever chased a politician around trying
to get a usable quote will be stunned by the accuracy of this scientific
account of the procedure:

	"Occasionally the feces land neatly in my glove, but more often
	they splatter uselessly in the tangled vegetation -- or else fall
	alongside another muriqui's feces, so that I cannot tell whose is
	whose.  So even though the muriquis defecate often and, in the
	case of adults abundantly each time, getting a clean sample
	sometimes means tailing one muriqui for up to six hours without
	pause."

	-- Molly Ivins in Nothing But Good Times Ahead, 1994

© 1997 Peter Langston