In Madrid, Spain, Francisco Ayala is now dead, so dearly loved for each of the 103 years that his not so inglorious life lasted.

The death of the illustrious writer, considered “one of 20th-century Spain’s most distinguished intellectuals” --in words of the long obituary published this week in the New York Times--  make you think of the longevity of the Man of Letters (Garcia Marquez, for example, just turned 81, and still drinks and eats like a lion in Havana), in overt contrast with the brevity of their well crafted words.

Jorge Luis Borges (Argentinean), Juan Rulfo (Mexican), Manuel Hernández (Spanish), Octavio Paz (Mexican), all of them Universal Spanish-language writers  --only matched in excellence and depth by theirEnglish-language counterparts here in the America (Whitman, Emerson, Longfellow)-- distinguished themselves for the a style that, even though they used the wordy Spanish-language to distill their masterpieces, was short, crisp, direct, and, above all, punchy.

At Twitter Age, where you are forced to compress your ideas to 140 strokes of the digital keyboard, the language lift itself up in the arduous effort and threatens to become almost Music, the ultimate form of Art.

Already well said by our famous national blogger Andrew Sullivan, this impending crisis of news media and journalistic enterprises in the US may be only the ‘first fruits’ of a “New Golden Age” of Journalism in America.

Crisis is only the foretaste of Opportunity, not only in the famous Chinese character, but also on the most profound dynamics of the Universe.

The New Media in America won’t be born, for sure, in the Old Mills inevitably collapsing under the pressure of their own weight and obsolescence, but in those others, yet to be become visible, “News Mills” of Journalism-- smaller, agile, efficient, and, above all, with great, swift quality.

Also with an unrelenting commitment to the Truth.

Franciso Ayala, who spoke courageously against Franco’s oppression, or in praise of Jefferssonian Liberty in the Americas  --where he lived and taught-- never stopped doing it that way, until he dropped dead, 103 years of age, this week ‘de Otoño’ in Madrid.

140 characters at a time-- had he lived long enough to type his intellect into a tiny Twitter keyboard.