外文时刊—为奴十二年

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外刊时文--New film: \"12 Years A Slave\" 新片上映：《为奴十二年》

New film: \"12 Years A Slave\" 新片上映：《为奴十二年》

Jan 9th 2014 / the Economist

EARLY in Steve McQueen’s “12 Years A Slave”, a Louisiana plantation-owner returns home with the two slaves he’s just bought, a man and a woman. Waiting on the veranda, his genteel wife notices that the woman is crying, and asks why. “Separated from her children,” sighs the husband, not unsympathetically. “Can’t be helped.”

在史蒂夫•麦奎因执导的电影《为奴十二年》开头，有位路易斯安那的种植园主带着他刚买的一男一女两个黑奴回家。他温文尔雅的妻子等在阳台上，看到那个女奴在哭泣，就问为什么。“她和孩子分开了，”做丈夫的叹了口气，不无同情地说，“没办法。”

Those last three words are the key to Mr McQueen’s devastating film, in that they, like so many other sequences, present slavery as the norm: long-established, legal and legitimized by scripture. To its mid-19th-century characters, there’s nothing unusual about keeping human beings asproperty, and no way that the institution can be changed. In the preceding scene, a jovial slave-trader (Paul Giamatti) is showing customers his wares. “This is a nigger of considerable talent,” he remarks, but there’s nothing in the way the line is spoken to suggest that anyone in the shop might be shocked. The trader sees his terrified, naked merchandise as no different from any other commodity. 这三个字成为麦奎因这部令人震惊的电影的关键词，像许多镜头表现的那样，人们把奴隶制视为常态：由来已久、合乎法律、天经地义。对于本片19世纪中期的角色来说，把人作为财产是很平常的事，没有办法改变这种制度。在前面的场景中，有个快活的奴隶贩子（保罗•吉亚玛提饰演）向主顾展示他的货品。他说，“这是个很有才华的黑鬼，”可是这里没有台词暗示店里的人可能受到惊吓。在奴隶贩子看来，赤裸受惊的黑奴和其他货色没什么不同。

In another astonishing scene, the hero, Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor, pictured), is hanged from a tree by a noose. For an agonizingly long time, he gulps for air, his feet only just touching the muddy ground. But Mr. McQueen doesn’t ratchet up

the tension with dramatic music or exploitative close-ups. He simply lets the ordeal carry on and on, while in the background, servants go about their business and children play. It’s not until the film is almost over that a Canadian laborer articulates the notion that slavery might be wrong. In the meantime, even Northup accepts that it’s a fact of life. His only complaint is that it shouldn’t be a fact of his life.

在另一幕惊人的场景中，主人公所罗门•诺瑟普（切瓦特•埃加福特饰演，如图）被绞索吊在树上。在令人痛苦的漫长折磨中，他大口喘着粗气，脚尖刚刚碰到泥泞的地面。但是麦奎因并没有用激动人心的音乐或突出的特写镜头加剧紧张

的气氛。他只是让这种残酷的折磨继续下去，在镜头的背景中，仆人干着自己的活儿，孩子们嬉戏玩耍。这种情形持续到影片即将结束，加拿大工人阐述奴隶制可能是错误的概念。与此同时，就连诺瑟普都认为，这是生活的现实。他唯一的抱怨是，这不该是他生活的现实。

Northup, upon whose memoir the film is based, begins the narrative as a free man. In 1841, he’s living as a respected, middle-class violinist with his wife and two children in Saratoga, New York. But after an elegant evening’s dining in Washington DC, he is kidnapped. He wakes to find himself chained up in a cell and informed that he’s a

“runaway nigger” from Georgia. When he objects, his jailer whips him viciously. Another prisoner then advises him that his only chance of survival is to keep quiet about his true identity.

在这本根据同名回忆录改编的电影中，诺瑟普作为自由人开始了他的讲述。1841年，他是位受人尊敬的中产阶级小提琴家，与他的妻子和两个孩子生活在纽约州萨拉托加。但是在华盛顿特区享用了精美的晚餐后，他遭到了绑架。当他醒来时，发现自己锁在囚室里，被告知他是从佐治亚州“逃跑的黑鬼”。他竭力反抗，却遭到了狱卒的狠毒鞭打。另一名囚犯劝告他，他唯一生存的机会就是对自己的真实身份保持沉默。

And so Northup is transported beyond the Mason-Dixon Line to a nightmarish new existence where he has no choice but to pick cotton, cut sugar cane and bide his time. His first owner treats him kindly—but he still treats him as a possession. His next owner seems to have some cloudy comprehension of the insanity of slavery, but he would rather blot out that comprehension with alcohol and fevered sadism than face it.

因此，诺瑟普被运往梅森 - 狄克逊线以南，到达噩梦般的新世界，他别无选择，只能摘棉花、砍甘蔗和等待时机。他的第一个主人待他态度和蔼——尽管他依然把诺瑟普当做自己的财产。他的下一个主人似乎对奴隶制的残暴有模糊的意识，但是他宁愿用酒精和狂热的虐待来遮掩这种意识，而不是直接面对。

Mr McQueen, the black British director of “Hunger” and “Shame”, and John Ridley, his African-American screenwriter, tell an extraordinary story of endurance, guile and hope, a story which could easily have inspired a conventional Hollywood melodrama. But they avoid all theshortcuts and clichés which a typical, issue-based film might have employed. There are no grandiloquent speeches to hammer home the message, and no captions or voice-overs to fill in the historical context. The performances are breathtaking, but they’re subtle and complex enough not to demand the viewer’s love or hatred. And, as horrific as the gory violence is, Mr McQueen doesn’t revel in it.

执导过电影《饥饿》和《羞耻》的英国黑人导演麦奎因和非洲裔美国编剧约翰•雷利讲述了忍耐、狡猾和希望的精彩故事，这个故事原本很容易落入传统好莱坞通俗剧的俗套。但是他们没有走捷径，也没有效仿典型事件电影可能采用的陈词滥调。本片没有用慷慨激昂的演说向观众传递信息，没有用字幕或配音代

替历史背景。演员的演技令人惊叹，但是他们的表演含蓄丰富，并不想唤起观众的爱或仇恨。血腥的暴力镜头极为可怕，但是麦奎因并不沉浸于这种场景。 Despite having won the Turner prize for his work as a video artist, he never lets the cinematography or editing draw attention to itself. Perhaps inspired by Hannah Arendt’s concept of “the banality of evil”, he prefers to take the viewer back in time to a period when slavery was mundane; he recreates its day-to-day practicalities and its offhand brutalities; and he leaves it to us to decide how to react. It’s unlikely that a moreaccomplished, mature or crushingly powerful film will be released in 2014. 作为影像艺术家，麦奎因凭借他的作品荣获过特纳奖，然而他从来没有通过电影艺术或镜头剪辑来吸引观众注意本片。也许他的创作灵感来自汉娜•阿伦特“平庸之恶”的概念，他更喜欢让观众重新回顾奴隶制平淡无奇的那个年代；他再现了奴隶制的日常实际和残酷暴行；他让我们自己决定如何反应。在2014年即将上映的电影中，不可能有比《为奴十二年》更出色、更成熟、更打动人心的影片。

McDonald’s University 麦当劳汉堡大学

BRITISH universities can be depressing. The dons moan about their pay and

students worry they will end up frying burgers—or jobless. Perhaps they should try visiting McDonald’s University in London’s East Finchley.

英国的大学可能正是不景气的时候，教师们抱怨着自己的薪水，学生们担心自己最后只能找到做汉堡包的工作——甚至待业在家。或许他们应当去瞧瞧伦敦东芬奇利区的麦当劳大学。

Students are often “rough and ready”, with poor qualifications and low self-esteem. But ambition-igniting murals display the ladder of opportunity that leads from the grill to the corner office (McDonald’s chief executives have always started at the bottom). A map of the world shows the seven counterpart universities. Cabinets display trophies such as the Sunday Times award for being one of Britain’s best 25 employers.

麦当劳大学招收的学生也不过“马马虎虎”，而且资历平庸、缺乏自尊，但学校里的壁画张贴着从烤架操作工到办公室高管之间一级级的跃升机会（麦当劳的主管往往都是从基层一点点干起的），让人燃起勃勃雄心。一张世界地图上标注着全球七所麦当劳汉堡大学。橱窗里展示着学校荣获的奖杯奖牌，比如《星期日泰晤士报》评选的全英最佳二十五名雇主奖等等。

McDonald’s is one of Britain’s biggest trainers. It gets about 1m applicants a year, accepting only one in 15, and spends £40m ($61m) a year on training. The Finchley campus, opened by Margaret Thatcher, then the local MP, in 19, is one of the

biggest training centers in Europe—many of the classrooms are equipped with booths

for interpreters. It is part of a bigger system. An employees’ web-portal, Our Lounge, provides training as well as details about that day’s shifts, and allows employees to compete against each other in work-related video games.

麦当劳是全英国最大的培训机构之一。每年麦当劳会收到100万份左右的求职申请，仅录取其中的十五分之一作为雇员，并出资4000万英镑（6100万美元）用于培训。在首相撒切尔夫人和当地国会议员的支持下，位于东芬奇利区的麦当劳汉堡大学于19年成立。这所学校是全欧洲规模数一数二的的培训中心，许多教室都配有专门的同传间。芬奇利校区仅仅是麦当劳庞大教育体系中的一个分支。麦当劳专属员工门户网站“我们的休息室（Our Lounge）”在提供训练

之余，还有每日轮班详情，员工还可以在网站上一起玩一些同工作有关的游戏。

The focus is on practicalities. A retired policeman conducts a fast-paced class on conflict management. He shows a video of a woman driven berserk by the fact that she cannot get chicken McNuggets at breakfast time. He asks the class if they have ever had a difficult customer, and every hand goes up. Students are then urged to share their advice.

培训的重点在于实用性。一名退休的在大学内教授冲突管理的快班课程。课上他放映了一段录像，一名女性顾客因早餐时间不能点麦乐鸡而大发雷霆。老师问全班同学是否碰到过这样难缠的顾客，每个同学都举手表示深有体会。之后，老师就要求学生们分享他们的处理建议。

Self-esteem and self-management are on the syllabus, too. Steven Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” is a popular text. A year-long apprenticeship program emphasizing English and math leads to a nationally recognized

qualification. McDonald’s has paid for almost 100 people to get degrees from Manchester Metropolitan University.

自我尊重、自我管理也在麦当劳汉堡大学的教学大纲之内。史蒂文.科维的“高效人士的七个习惯”是学校的通行教材。长达一年的学徒教学计划着重教授英语、数学，并授予国家认可的学历证书。迄今，麦当劳已经出资帮助近100名学员拿到了在曼彻斯特城市大学的学位。

The company professes to be unfazed by the fact that many alumni will end up working elsewhere. It needs to train people who might be managing a business with a £5m turnover by their mid-20s. It also needs to satisfy the company’s appetite for senior managers, one of whom will eventually control the entire global McDonald’s empire.

许多学员在毕业后并不任职于麦当劳，而这家快餐业巨头宣称并不为此感到烦恼。麦当劳需要培养出在二十五六岁就能够掌管500万英磅营业额业务的管理人员。同样，麦当劳汉堡大学更需要培养出一批高级经理储备，以满足公司的发展需要。未来，这些高级经理中终将有人来执掌整个麦当劳餐饮帝国。

Food firms and fat-fighters食品公司与减肥斗士

Five leading food companies have introduced a labeling scheme for their products in the British market, in an attempt to assuage critics who say they encourage obesity. But consumer groups are unhappy all the same. Is the food industry, like tobacco before it, about to be engulfed by a wave of lawsuitsbrought on health grounds?

五家业内领先的食品公司采取了一项方案，就是在其投入英国市场的食品上作出标注，力图堵住那些说他们鼓励肥胖的批评人士的嘴。不过，消费者团体也不开心。食品业会像之前的烟草一样，被卷入一场关乎健康的诉讼之中吗？

KEEPING fit requires a combination of healthy eating and regular exercise. On the second of these at least, the world’s food companies can claim to be setting a good example: they have been working up quite a sweat in their attempts to fend off assaults by governments, consumer groups and lawyers who accuse them of peddling products that encourage obesity. This week saw the unveiling of another industry initiative: five leading food producers—Danone, Kellogg, Nestlé, Kraft and PepsiCo—introduced a labeling scheme for the British market which will show “guideline daily amounts” for calories, fats, sugar and salt on packaging. The new labels will start to appear on the firms’ crisps, chocolate bars, cheese slices and the like over the next few months. A number of other food giants, such as Cadbury Schweppes and Masterfoods, have already started putting guideline labels on their products.

将健康的饮食习惯和经常性的锻炼二者结合才可以让身体保持健康。至少就第二点而言，全球的食品公司可以说是树立了一个很好的典范：为了避开、消费者团体以及律师们的抨击，食品公司四处兜售促进肥胖的产品，已经累得大汗淋漓了。本周，食品业的另一举措也公诸于世：五家业内领先的食品厂商——Danone, Kellogg, Nestlé, Kraft以及PepsiCo——在英国市场实施了一项商品标注计划，即在包装上标明卡路里（热量）、脂肪、糖和盐的“每日摄入量指南”。在接下来的几个月里，这些食品公司的土豆条、巧克力棒、干酪片等等包装上将开始出现这类新标注。其它许多食品业巨头如Cadbury Schweppes 和Masterfoods也已经着手在其产品上加入指导性标记。

The food companies say doing this will empower consumers, allowing them to make informed decisions about which foods are healthy. But consumer groups have cried foul. They point out that the Food Standards Agency, a government watchdog, is due to recommend a different type of labeling scheme next month: a “traffic light” system using colors to tell consumers whether products have low, medium or high levels of fat, salt and the like. The food firms, they say, have rushed to introduce their own, fuzzier guidelines first in a cynical attempt to undermine the government’s plan—which they fear might hurt their sales. In consumer tests, the traffic light performed better than rival labeling schemes.

这些食品公司说，这么做可以让消费者在确定何种食品为健康食品时心知肚明。但是消费者团体大声疾呼食品公司此举纯属犯规，他们指出，作为监督机构，食品标准局应该在下个月推出一项不同的标注措施——“红绿灯”方法，亦即应用不同颜色，提醒消费者

食品的脂肪、糖、盐分等含量是低、中等还是高。他们说，食品公司突然率先采用他们自定的那些模糊指南，是对计划的恣意破坏，他们害怕的计划会让他们的产品卖不出去。对消费者进行调查后显示，“红绿灯”方法比食品公司的标注方案效果要好。

Nevertheless, the food companies argue that the traffic-light system is too simplistic and likely to scare people away from certain products that are fine if consumed in moderation, or in conjunction with plenty of exercise — which most observers, including the medical profession, agree is crucial for anyone wanting to stay in shape. They also point out that they have competitors to worry about—namely the big supermarket chains with their own-label products. Last April, Tesco, the biggest of these, announced that it was rejecting the traffic-light system in favor of a less stark “signposting” approach. Its rivals fear that adopting color-coding could put them at a competitive disadvantage. Better labeling has become an important weapon of the food giants’ armory as they fight back against their critics but time tells which is favored by consumers.

然而，食品公司辩称，“红绿灯”方法过于简单，某些产品会因此吓跑消费者，而这些产品如果食用适量或者结合充分锻炼，对人都是十分有益的，而且包括医学专家在内的大多数观察人士都认为，这些食品对于任何想要保持好体形的人而言都至关重要。同时，他们还指出，他们要顾及一些竞争者，也就是那些对产品加上各自标注的大型超市连锁店的做法。去年四月，最大一家超市连锁店Tesco宣布，他们反对采用“红绿灯”方法，取而代之的是一种更为灵活的“路标”法。因此，食品公司担心，若采用颜色编码（也就是红绿灯法），会令他们在竞争中处于劣势。在食品业巨头们回击批评意见的过程中，更好的标注方式已经成为他们“武器库”中的一个“杀手锏”，但是消费者支持哪种标注方式，我们拭目以待。

The Pressure of Obesity 肥胖的压力

The pressure on the industry is most acute in America, which leads the world in obesity. The proportion of Americans characterized as overweight has risen steadily from 47% (bad enough in itself) in the late 1970s to around two-thirds, including over 30% who

are clinically obese. Fast-food chains’ American sales grew from about $6 billion in 1970 to an estimated $134 billion in 2005. Eric Schlosser, author of “Fast Food Nation”, an influential book attacking the industry, has pointed out that Americans spend more on fast food than they do on higher education, PCs or new cars—worrying, when a single meal at a KFC of less than a pound-weight of food plus a large Pepsi can top 1,600 calories, not far short of the daily intake recommended by the government for adults doing only “light physical activity”.

肥胖人数居世界首位的美国食品业承受的压力最大。上世纪70年代末期，美国人中超重人口所占比例从47%（这个数字本身已经糟糕透了）逐步增长到大约三分之二，其中包括30%以上临床肥胖症患者，而美国快餐连锁店的销售额则从1970年的60亿美元增加到2005年的大约1340亿美元。旨在抨击快餐业、颇具影响力的《快餐国度》一书作者埃里克•施罗

瑟曾指出，美国人吃快餐花的钱要比花在高等教育、个人电脑或者买新汽车上的钱多。令他感到担忧的是，在肯德基快餐店光吃一顿不到一磅重的餐点，再喝一大杯百事可乐，摄入热量就可能超过1600卡路里，这比美国为仅从事“轻度体力活动”的成人所推荐的每日摄取量并不低多少。

Where the United States leads, others are following. In the European Union, up to 27% of men are considered to be obese, and almost a quarter of all children are deemed overweight. Britain, with its love of burgers and packaged meals, is seen as following closest on America’s heels, but the rate of obesity has started to swell on the continent too. Some 11% of the adult population of France were obese in 2003, up from 8% in 1997 (the actual level may be higher still since the figures are based on polls asking people if they are fat, and self-reporting

produces underestimates). France has latched on to the fast-food culture: it is one of the biggest and most profitable European markets for McDonald’s.

凡是有美国带头的地方，别国都会亦步亦趋。在欧盟国家，高达27%的男性被认为患有肥胖症，几乎四分之一的儿童则被认为体重超常。爱吃汉堡包和打包食物的英国被看作是跟美国最贴近的“跟屁虫”，不过其“肥胖队伍”同样开始日益壮大。在法国，成人患肥胖症的比率从1997年的8%一下子增加到2003年的11%（由于统计数主要基于问卷调查，因此实际水平可能更高——自己说自己的情况往往导致低估实际水平嘛）。法国已经领悟了快餐文化的真谛：它就是麦当劳公司在欧洲最大、最赚钱的市场之一。

No wonder, then, that the past few years have been bad for food companies—and terrible for the fast-food lot. Attacks on the industry have changed the psychological climate in which it operates, and they may yet change the legislative climate too. So far, lawsuits brought on health-and-safety grounds have been more of a warning than a general threat. Nevertheless, some lawyers still see a similarity between the position of food companies now and that of tobacco companies in the 1960s and 1970s, when private lawsuits paved the way for a coordinated attack on “big tobacco” by attorneys-general. Worries about rising obesity rates among children, and fear

of subsequent legal actions, have caused companies to scale back their marketing of fatty food and soft drinks to minors.

那么，过去这几年食品公司的日子不太好过，而快餐业就更加糟糕。对食品业的抨击，已经带来了人们消费心理上的变化，或许也还将改变立法。迄今为止，基于健康安全的诉讼更多的是一种警醒，而没有对食品业形成真正的威胁。不过，有的律师仍然察觉到目前食品公司的处境与上世纪六、七十年代时的烟草公司有一定的相似之处。当时，众多个人诉讼为后来各州首席检察官针对“烟草业巨头”发动“协同攻击”铺平了道路。各家食品公司关注到儿童肥胖比例正日益增长，并担心被起诉，已经开始逐步缩减针对未成年人的高脂食品和软饮料的销售。

In several countries, government pronouncements and actions have added to the pressure on the industry. The British government’s push to introduce traffic-light labeling comes in the wake of a hard-hitting report from the House of Commons Health Select Committee, whose chairman said: “Thedevastating consequences of the epidemic of obesity are likely to have a profound impact over the next century.” In France, a law has been passed to impose a 1.5% tax on the

advertising budgets of food companies if they do not encourage healthy eating. The industry may claim, with some justification, that ultimate responsibility for bad diet rests with the individual, and that the amount of exercise you do is just as important as the amount of food you eat. But as long as governments, lawyers and health campaigners continue to pile on the pressure, it will have to work hard to convince them it is doing its bit to stop people piling on the pounds.

有几个国家已经发布有关声明并采取了一些举措，这让食品业感到压力倍增。英国国会下院健康特别委员会一份掷地有声的报告，迫使英国开始全力引入“红绿灯”标识方案。该委员会说：“肥胖症的流行所引发的破坏性后果很可能会对下个世纪产生深远影响。”法国也已通过一项法律，拟对不宣扬健康饮食的食品公司征收1.5%的广告预算税。食品业也许会略显理直气壮地申辩，不良饮食的根本责任应由消费者个人承担，每个人的运动量同进食多少同样重要。不过，只要、律师以及健康饮食倡议人士不停止施压，食品业就必须努力让他们确信，为了不让人们变得越来越胖，它正在尽自己的一份绵薄之力。

The Ageing of Britain’s Workforce 英国劳动力的老化

A RECENT BBC documentary, “The Town That Never Retired”, sought to show the effects of increasing the state pension age by puttingretirees back to work. Although the results were entertaining, they need not have bothered. Away from the

cameras, unprecedented numbers of older people are staying in work. Since the start of the recession that began in 2008, the number of 16- to 24-year-olds in work has fallen by 597,000. Over the same period the number of workers over the age of 65 has increased by 240,000.

BBC（英国广播公司）最近的一部纪录片<永不退休的城镇>，试图展现因增加领取国家退休金的年龄而将退休人员拉回工作的影响。虽然片子效果蛮逗趣，但影片制作者们本无须这么做。镜头之外，仍在工作的年长者们的数目空前巨大。自2008的经济萧条以来，16至24周岁的工作者们的数量下降了59,7000。同一时期，65周岁以上的工作者数量增加了24,0000。

The greying of the British workforce dates back to around 2001, since when

the proportion of older people working has nearly doubled. But it has accelerated since the start of the recession. There are several reasons why. Happily, people are living longer and healthier lives, which makes staying in work less daunting than it was. Less happily, low interest rates, a stagnant stock market and the end of many defined-benefitpension schemes (where employees are guaranteed a payout linked to earnings and service) make it a financial necessity. And changing attitudes, spurred by rules against age discrimination, are making it easier than ever.

英国劳动力的老化得追溯到2001年，自那时起，年长工作者的比例已经几近加倍。但是从大萧条时期开始加速。于此，有以下几点原因。首先，幸运的是，人们过着更长寿、更健康的生活，这使得继续工作不再像以前那样让人感到气馁。不幸的是，低的息率、萧条的股票市场及很多固定福利退休金计划的终结（在这些计划中，从业者根据自己的收入及服务可得到一笔津贴）使之成为财政上的必然。而且在反年龄歧视规则的驱动下，人们态度慢慢改变，这也使之较以往更容易。

Most older workers are simply hanging on at the office: 63% of workers over state pension age (currently 65 for men and a little over 61 for women) have been with their employer for more than ten years. Over two-thirds of them work part-time, mostly doing jobs that they once performed full-time. A big advantage is that they do not pay national insurance contributions—effectively a second income tax on younger workers.

很多年长工作者们仅是坚持待在办公室里：超过国家退休金年龄（当前是男性滿65周岁，女性61岁多一点）的工作者们，63%的人已工作了十年以上。这些人中，三分之二以上的人仅在部分时间工作，主要做他们曾在全职时所做的工作。一个很大的好处是他们不用再支付国民保险税—年轻工作者们的第二大所得税。

According to Stephen McNair, director of the Centre for Research into the Older Workforce, this flexibility explains why older workers have not suffered so much in the slump. Instead of slashing the workforce, as in previous recessions, many firms have halted recruitment and cut working hours. At small businesses in particular, keeping on older workers is cheaper and less risky than training replacements. Over half of workers over state pension age work for businesses with fewer than 25 employees (though this may also reflect poorer pension provision). 老化劳动力研究中心的主任斯蒂芬麦克纳（Stephen McNair）认为，这种弹性解释了为什么在经济衰退中年长工作者们并没有遭受太多影响。与之前的萧条时期不同的是，很多公司并没有大量裁员，而是采取不再招聘以及缩减工时的方式。尤其是在小公司里，保住老员工比训练新人更节省也能减少风险性。逾国家退休金年龄者中超过一半的人在少于25个职员的小企业工作（尽管这也反映了更差劲的养老金规划）。

Christopher Nieper, who owns David Nieper, a womenswear manufacturer based in Derbyshire, prizes his semi-retired workers, who can be employed at short notice and do not need to work full-time to survive. Retired machinists can fill in if there is a surge in orders; former sales advisers can work as part-time consultants. As his competitors have moved production abroad, depleting the pool of trained labour, retainingolder workers and their skills has become even more important.

一家总部位于德比郡的女装制造商的老板克里斯多夫，很珍视他的半退休员工们，这些人可在短时间内上工且并不需要全职工作来谋生。如果订单暴增，退休的机械师们也可以加入工作；之前的销售顾问们也可以继续担任兼职顾问。因克里斯多夫的对手们都已将生产放在国外，耗尽熟练的工人之后，留下老员工们和他们的技能已变得更为重要。

There is scope for the older workforce to expand. Workers over the age of 50 who are made unemployed find it harder to pick up new jobs, which could mean that more oldsters want to work than are able to. That would be good. The Office for Budget Responsibility, the fiscalwatchdog, reported on July 12th that an ageing, unproductive population is the biggest long-term threat to Britain’s economic health.

年长劳动力仍有扩大的空间。五十岁以上的失业人员越来越难找到工作，这意味着越来越多的上了年纪的人想要工作，多过能胜任工作的人。那也许是好事情。英国预算责任办公室，财政监察部门，在7月12日发布报告称，一个日渐老化的、不生产的群体是英国经济健康中最大的长远威胁。

Data from the OECD, a think-tank, shows that employment rates among workers approaching retirement age are split in Europe, with old workers hanging on best in the north. Government credit ratings follow a similar pattern. That Britain’s ageing workforce more closely resemblesGermany’s than Italy’s could prove the country’s salvation. 来自一个智囊团--经济合作与发展组织的数据表明，接近退休年龄的工人们的就业率在欧洲是不平衡的，在北部的老年员工就业情况情况最好。位于欧洲北部的国家的信用级别也最高。英国的老化劳动力更类似于德国而非意大利这一点可以表明这个国家的解救措施的作用。

Masculine traits——To get the girl

男性特征——为了获得异性

When two drunken men fight over a woman, alcohol and stupidity may not be the only things at work. Sadly, evolution may have shaped men to behave this way. Almost all of the traits considered to be masculine—big muscles, facial hair, square jaws, deep voices and a propensity to violence—evolved, it now seems, specifically for their usefulness in fighting off or intimidating other men, allowing the winner to get the girl.

当两个喝醉的男人为了一个女人而打斗时，起作用的可不止酒精和愚蠢。很遗憾，有可能是进化塑造了男人们的这种行为。几乎所有被视作具有雄性特征的特点(强健的肌肉、浓密的胡须、宽阔的下颚、低沉的声音、以及暴力倾向)得以进化，如今看来，这些特点都用在了击败或吓退其他男性的方面，从而让胜出者获得女性的亲睐。

That, at least, is the contention of David Puts, an anthropologist at Pennsylvania State University, in an upcoming paper in Evolution and Human Behavior. Dr Puts is looking at how

sexual selection gave rise to certain human traits. A trait is sexually selected if it evolved specifically to enhance mating success. They come in two main forms: weapons, such as an elk’s horns are used to fight off competitors; and ornaments, like a peacock’s tail, which are used to advertise genetic fitness to attract the opposite sex.

David Puts在他即将发表在《进化与人类行为》的论文中提出了以上观点，Dr Puts是宾夕法尼亚州立大学的人类学教授，他一直在关注性特征的选择作用是如何进化出某些特定的人类特征，这些特征进化出来是专门用来提高交配成功率的。这种进化演变成了两种形式：第一种是武器，比如麋鹿的角可以用来击退它们的竞争对手；另一种是装饰，比如孔雀的尾巴羽毛，可以显示自己的遗传优势以吸引异性。

Researchers have tended to consider human sexual selection through the lens of the female’s choice of her mate. But human males look a lot more like animals designed to battle with one another for access to females, says Dr Puts. On average, men have 40% more fat-free mass than women, which is similar to the difference in gorillas, a species in which males unquestionably compete with other males for exclusive sexual access to females. In species whose males do not fight for access to females, males are generally the same size as, or smaller than, females.

研究者往往通过女性对其配偶的选择反映来考虑人类的性选择。但是人类男性看起来更像是为了获得雌性打算互相争斗的动物，普特斯博士说道。平均来说，男性比女性多了40％的无脂肪组织，人类间的这种区别与大猩猩类似，为了独占雌性，该物种的雄性无疑会和其他雄性竞争。有些动物的雄性不必为了雌性而争斗，在这些物种当中，雄性体格一般和雌性一样大小，或者小于雌性。

The heavier brow and jaw of males might have developed to withstand blows from other males. (In prehistoric times, a broken jaw could have ended up being a fatal injury.) Heavy eyebrows, facial hair and deep voices all could serve to make a man more imposing to other men. Dr Puts does not dismissmate selection outright. Women are attracted to some of the same traits that are good for dominating other men because they signal that the man will sire sons who will also be successful at mating. But female choice probably is not the primary cause of the traits.

男性较宽厚的额头和下巴可能已经发展到能够承受其他男性的打击。（在史前时代，下颚的骨折最终可能会成为一个致命伤。）浓眉，脸毛和深沉的嗓音都能够使得一名男性比其他男性更加威风凛凛、仪表堂堂。普特斯博士没有完全排除配偶选择因素。有些男性都具有这样相同的特征：即善于支配其他男性，女性容易被这样的男性所吸引，因为这些特征表示这样的男性的后代也将会在寻找配偶上取得成功。但是，女性的选择不一定是导致这些特征产生的首要原因。

It is a disturbing idea to modern minds, harking back to old stereotypes about violent cavemen battling with clubs while a passive woman, fetching in furs, waits helplessly to see who will win her. But Dr Puts emphasizes that evolutionary biology is not destiny. Regardless of our evolutionary past, in modern societies men and women freely choose their mates. However, understanding the evolutionary pressures that made men the way they are could help us better understand male violence, including murder, domestic abuse, gang violence and perhaps even warfare.

回想起这样一种当时的景象，对于现代人而言是一个令人不安的想法，即，好斗的穴居人用棍棒打斗，而与此同时一名穿毛皮衣服，迷人却被动的女人，无助地等待着看谁会赢得她。但是普特斯博士强调，进化生物学并不是注定的。无管我们的进化过去如何，在现

代社会，男人和女人自由地选择自己的配偶。不过，进化压力导致男人变成这样，对于这个问题的认识能够帮助我们更好地理解男性的暴力行为，包括谋杀，家庭暴力，帮派暴力，甚至可能是对于战争的理解。

The Future of Telecommuting 远程办公的未来

“YOU can’t have everything you want, but you can have the things that really matter to you,” writes Marissa Mayer, the boss of Yahoo, in a blurb for a book called “Rebooting Work”. But not, it seems, if you are a Yahoo employee and working from home is really important to you. As part of her efforts to reboot the ailing internet firm, Ms Mayer has decreed that from June all the company’s staff will be expected to come into its offices to do their jobs.

雅虎公司老板玛丽莎•梅耶尔在《重新开始工作》一书的简介中写道“你不可能拥有你想要的一切，但是你能得到那些你真正在乎的。” 如果你是雅虎的员工，而在家工作对你又很重要，那情况似乎就不是她所说的这样。梅耶尔设法拯救一家境况不佳的互联网公司，作为努力的一部分，她已经下令从6月开始，所有公司的员工都要到办公室办公。

The news of Ms Mayer’s ban on telecommuting surfaced in the form of a memo to employees sent by Yahoo’s head of human resources. It waspromptly leaked to All Things D, a technology-industry blog, and unleashed a fevered debate in the blogosphere and on Twitter. Supporters saw it as the brave act of a boss determined to rid the company of slackers. Critics lambasted the firm for an antediluvian attitude towards the workplace.

关于废除远程办公，梅耶尔交由雅虎人力资源主管以备忘的形式，下达给员工。这个消息很快就泄露给科技产业博客All Things D, 并且在博客圈和上引发了一场激烈的讨论。支持者把它当做是老板决心清除公司懒鬼的勇敢行动。批评者则痛斥公司对待工作场所所持的守旧态度。

Among the latter was Sir Richard Branson, a British entrepreneur who wrote in a blog post that the decision was “a backwards step in an age when remote working is easier and more effective than ever”. “Yours truly has never worked out of an office,” added the bearded boss of the Virgin Group, “and never will.” On the other side, Donald Trump, an American television showman and property magnate, tweeted that Ms Mayer was “right to expect Yahoo employees to come to the workplace vs. working at home.”

持批评意见的英国企业家理查德•布兰森爵士, 在他的博客中写道：“在远程工作变得更简单和更有效率的时代，这个决定是这个时代的倒退。”“我就从来没在办公室工作”这个维京集团的大胡子老板增加了“也将永远不会”。另一方面，美国电视节目支持人兼地产大亨唐纳德•特朗普，在Tweeter上转发写道“梅耶尔让雅虎的员工在办公室而不是在家办公，这个决定做得很对。

The decision touched a raw nerve in Silicon Valley because it is in the midst of a bout of soul-searching about the workplace. Why, many people are asking, have so few women risen to the top

of the tech world? (Ms Mayer herself is a rare exception.) The news has also triggered a broader discussion about how much freedom workers should be given to decide where to spend their working hours.

这一决定触动了硅谷的神经，因为它正处在对工作场所深刻反思之中。很多人在问为什么只有这么少的女性能够位于顶级的科技世界？（梅耶尔本身是少数的例外）。这则消息也引发了一场广泛的讨论：在选择去哪里办公时，到底要给员工多大的自由。

Fans of telecommuting point out that it is on the rise almost everywhere. A survey of over 11,000 workers in 24 countries published last year by Ipsos, a polling firm, found that almost a fifth of respondents who said they are connected online to their workplaces telecommute frequently; 7% of those polled said they worked from home every day.

远程办公的粉丝指出，几乎在所有地方，远程办公都是呈上升趋势的。去年，调查公司Ipsos，对24个国家超过1万1千名员工的调查显示，几乎1/5的受访者表示，他们经常通过对办公室联网进行远程工作；同时7%的受访者说他们每天都在家办公。

Ipsos also discovered that telecommuting is more prevalent in emerging markets than in rich ones, but it is growing in the latter, too. According to figures published last October by the US Census Bureau, American workers who spend most of their time toiling from home rose from 3.6% of the workforce in 2005 to 4.3% in 2010. The bureau also noted that home-based work in computer, engineering and science is rising particularly fast, growing almost 70% between 2000 and 2010. Given that many technology firms produce the devices and software that make working from home a breeze, it seems sensible to let their employees use them.

Ipsos的调查也发现，远程办公在新兴市场比富裕市场更盛行，但后者仍在发展之中。根据美国人口统计局去年10月公布的数据，美国在家辛苦工作的员工从2005年占劳动力的3.6%上升到2010年的4.3%。该调查局同时指出在家办公，以从事计算机，工程和科学方面的工作上升尤其快速，在2000年到2010年期间，上升了大约70%。鉴于很多科技公司生产的设备和软件让在家工作如沐春风，让员工去使用他们，似乎是明智之举。

Why, then, has Ms Mayer put telecommuting on hold at Yahoo? The leaked memo said the habit has slowed the firm down and made it harder to have serendipitous meetings that can give birth to new ideas. Yet plenty of innovative technology firms such as move pretty fast while allowing some people to work from home. Banning telecommuting outright punishes good employees as well as bad, says Joan Williams, a professor at the University Of California Hastings College of the Law.

可是，为什么梅耶尔在雅虎搁置远程办公？外泄的备忘录中提到，这一习惯已经拖慢了公司的进度并且让召开诞生新想法的临时会议显得更困难。然而大量的创新科技公司如，虽允许一部分人在家办公，但也发展得特别快。加州大学黑斯廷斯法律学院教授琼•威廉姆斯说禁止远程办公虽惩罚了好员工，坏员工也难幸免于难。

A growing body of evidence suggests it harms productivity, too. A recent study by academics at Stanford University and the University of Beijing reports the results of an experiment at CTrip, an online travel company in China that is quoted on America’s NASDAQ stockmarket. The firm split some of its call-centre workers into two teams. One team worked at home for nine months; the other in the company’s offices. At the end of the period, the academics found the telecommuters had handled calls more efficiently, taken fewer breaks and had been 13% more productive than their peers. Job satisfaction was also much higher among the homeworkers. 越来越多的证据也指出，禁止远程办公降低了生产力。最近，斯坦福大学和北京大学的学者对携程旅行网做了一个实验，并公布了实验结果。携程旅行网是一家在美国纳斯达克上

市交易的中国在线旅游服务公司。该公司将呼叫中心的员工分成两组。一个团队在家里工作九个月,另一个则在公司的办公室办公。实验最后, 学者们发现远程工作者处理来电效率也高；休息时间更少；与另一组相比，工作成效也高出13%。在家办公的员工，他们对工作的满意度也更高。 Admittedly, Ms Mayer’s staffs are highly skilled people, such as programmers, who may need more face time with colleagues. They may also telecommute in exceptional circumstances. But insisting that everyone normally show up is risky at a time when tech firms are ruthlessly poaching talent from rivals. Since she took over at Yahoo last July, Ms Mayer has pushed her battered firm’s share price up 35%. Her latest decision could put those gains in peril. 诚然, 梅耶尔的员工是高技能人员,比如程序员,他们可能需要更多与同事面对面相处的时间；在特殊环境下，他们也可能远程办公。但必须确信，当科技公司正在无情挖墙脚之时，每个员工正常出勤也是危险的。自从她去年7月接管雅虎以来, 梅耶尔女士使遭受重创的公司股价上涨了35%，但她最新的决定可能会把这些收益付诸东流。

New Trend for Intellectual Property 知识产权新动向

The technology industry is at war over intellectual property. On May 7th the first round of a three-part fight between Oracle and Google over patentand copyright claims relating to the Java programming language ended in a decision that denied outright victory to either firm. Apple, Samsung and others are fighting over smartphone patents. and Yahoo! compete intensely for internet patents. Accusations abound that innovation is taking a back seat to lawsuit. Only the lawyers are smiling.

All of which makes this a good time to launch a new approach to trading intellectual property, says Gerard Pannekoek, the boss of IPXI, a newfinancial exchange that lets companies buy, sell and hedge patent rights, just like any other asset. The idea is to offer a patent or group of patents as “unit license rights” (ULRs), which can be bought and sold like shares. A ULR grants a one-time right to use a particular technology in a single product: a new type of airbag sensor in a car, say. If a company wants to use the technology in 100,000 cars, it buys 100,000 ULRs at the market price. ULRs are also expected to be traded on secondary markets. （黄色部分如何理解，可以借用后句的解释，这是一种很重要的理解能力）

国际知识产权交易所公司（IPXI）联席拉德•潘涅库克如是说到：这些纷争为知识产权交易创造了良机，这种新型金融交易像处置资产一样，可以让公司购买、出售并保有

专利权。该公司的构想是提供单个专利或打包成授权的专利组合，这些专利可以像股份一样买卖。一个授权专利组合允许在单件产品上一次性使用某个技术：这就是说，一个新式的安全气囊传感器仅能用于一辆轿车。若一家公司想在十万量轿车上都应用该技术，它就得按市场价购进同等数量的技术许可。授权的专利组合也可在二级市场上交易。 This is simpler, faster and cheaper than the lawyer-intensive process of

negotiating bilateral licenses for intellectual property, the high cost of whichdiscriminates against small companies, leaves patents unused on the shelf and hampers innovation. IPXI’s approach does not work for all types of intellectual property—it does not allow exclusive licensing, for example—but should make it easier for companies to make money from their inventions. “It’s a great form of stock value decline for start-ups,” suggests Mr. Pannekoek.

这种办法要比采用律师密集型的双边专利授权协商交易知识产权来的更快，也更简单、更廉价。司法协商费用高昂，对小企业不公，也会让专利束之高阁，从而有碍创新。然而，国际知识产权交易所公司的这种专利交易方式并不适用于所有类型的知识产权——打个比方来说，它就不允许独家授权——但这种方式让企业通过发明创造来获利更加容易。“对刚上市的公司来说，这种筹款方式能够很好地规避股权收益的减损。”潘涅库克先生这样表示。

The exchange has signed up 30 members including Philips, an electronics giant, and several universities and research laboratories. IPXI was set up in 2008 by Ocean Tomo, a merchant bank that specializes in intellectual property, and its investors include CBOE Holdings, the parent company of the Chicago Board Options Exchange. On May 4th IPXI published the rulebook that governs how the exchange will work, and it expects to open for business later this year. Its novel approach is ideal for the open, non-exclusive licensing of smartphone-related patents, says Ruud Peters, chief intellectual-property officer at Philips. Good news for innovators, perhaps, but bad news for lawyers?

目前该交易所公司的加盟成员已达30个，其中不乏电子巨头飞利浦，此外，数所大学和研究实验室也投身其中。国际知识产权交易所公司由Ocean Tomo于2008年组建，后者是一家专业服务于知识产权领域的商业银行，芝加哥期权交易所的母公司芝加哥期权交易控股集团（CBOE Holdings）是该银行的投资方之一。5月4日，国际知识产权交易所公司公布了一份规范，用以指导产权买卖，以期于今年晚些时候开放交易。飞利浦的首席知识产权官路德•彼得斯称这一新举措将不断开放与智能手机相关的专利、进一步破除独家授权，形势一片大好。对发明家们来说，这或许是个利好消息，可对那些律师来讲呢？

Delays in Italy 意大利的延误

In medicine speed is of the essence. If the ambulance arrives a minute late, the patient may be dead. Italian paramedics are no doubt as swift as those in other countries. But Italy’s health-care authorities are shamefully slow when it comes to paying suppliers—making it difficult for them to survive.

在医药领域，速度就是核心。如果救护车晚到一分钟，病人就可能死亡了。意大利的护理人员无疑同其他国家一样行动迅速。但谈到向供应商支付时，意大利的医疗机构就慢的令人羞耻了——简直让供应商们难以生存

“We’re still waiting to be paid for goods sold in 2009,” says Stefano Rimondi, the managing director of Bellco, a maker of equipment for dialysis withrevenues of more than €100m ($126m) and a workforce of 360 people. “We have one employee working full-time chasing up late payers,” he adds.

“我们还在等2009年出售的货物的付款，”Bellco公司的常务董事Stefano Rimondi说道。Bellco是一家渗透设备制造商，拥有360名员工，每年收入超过1亿欧元（1.26美元）。他补充道，“我们有一个员工全职专司向延迟付款人追讨款项”。

Bellco is not the only company to suffer. The 250 other members of Assobiomedica, a trade group for firms that supply medical equipment, are owed €5.6 billion; those of Farmindustria, which represents 200 pharmaceutical firms, are waiting for €4 billion. The record is held by one Neapolitan health authority: some of its suppliers have been waiting for more than four-and-a-half years. (此段中的专有名词可以不翻译，直接照抄)

Bellco不是唯一一家深受其害的公司。提供医疗设备的贸易组织，意大利生物医药联合会下属的250家公司有未付款56亿欧元；意大利制药工业协会下属的200家制药公司则有未付款40亿欧元。那不勒斯省中某市的卫生部门保持着相关记录：他的一些供应商已经等了至少四年半了。

Small Italian firms that rely on the home market are hit particularly hard. Often they cannot get bank financing at reasonable interest rates. And long delays in payment create all kinds of tax and accounting headaches.

一些依赖家庭市场的意大利企业尤其损失严重。他们通常不能以合理的利率从银行贷款。而长时间延误付款将导致税收和会计方面的一系列问题。

Suing late-payers doesn’t help much. Courts are at least as slow as health-care authorities. In five regions a law even blocks the use of courts tocompel authorities to cough up. “Once we were able to recover about €5m of interest a year, but now we’ve had to give up,” says the executive of a large American drugmaker, which had started to take legal action in 2007. Pharmaceutical firms cannot simply stay clear of the worst offenders: they are legally required to supply drugs even to notoriously slow authorities.

起诉延迟付款者也没有太大作用。的速度至少和医疗机构一样慢。甚至有一项法律在五个地区中禁止强制吐出资金。一家大型美国制药公司在2007年采取法律行动以后说道：“曾经我们可以收到一年大约500万欧元的利息，但现在我们放弃了”。制药公司不能对那些最糟糕的冒犯者们敬而远之：法律甚至要求这些为慢的臭名昭著的提供药品。

Desperate measures are also unlikely to help. Starting a boycott of late-paying authorities could trigger an antitrust investigation. And paying sweeteners to move invoices to the top of the list can land you behind bars.

令人绝望的法规同样很难起到作用。启动对延迟付款的联合抵制将触发反垄断调查。而通过贿赂使账单排到列表最顶端的举动将使你锒铛入狱。

Some suppliers are pinning their hopes on new European Union legislation which requires health-care authorities to settle bills within 60 days; it takes effect in March next year. Yet Mr

Rimondi would be shocked if things improved: “Some clause will be dreamed up so that the directive can bedodged in Italy.”

一些供应商寄希望于要求医疗机构在60天内付款的欧盟监管新条例；此条例将于明年三月份生效。但如果情况真的有所改进的话，Rimondi先生会感到震惊，“将有一些条款被设计出来，让意大利逃过监管。”

2D Codes 二维码

Cereal boxes are, by and large, poor works of literature. Yet many people sit at breakfast reading them over and over again. Last year Kellogg’s realized it could make its packets more entertaining—and guessed that people also had their phones to hand (anything beats talking to the family). The cornflake-maker put 2D codes, better known as QR (for quick response) codes, on its Crunchy Nut boxes in America. When scanned, these took cereal-eaters to a video of dawn in, say, Washington State. The idea was to push cereal as an all-day snack: “It’s morning somewhere.”

早餐麦片包装盒上的文字说明一般平淡无奇，不会文采飞扬，但还是有很多人会在吃早餐时反复浏览。直到去年，麦片品牌凯乐格（Kellogg’s）才意识到，他们可以使产品的包装盒变得更有趣。他们推测人们在吃早餐时，往往不是边吃边与家人聊天，而是随手拿着自己的手机玩。基于此，凯乐格在其在美国出售的Crunchy Nut麦片的包装盒上加上了二维码，或称QR码（QR即快速反应“Quick Response”之意）。例如，人们扫描后，程序将自动播放华盛顿州的黎明景象。这个创意的口号是“处处是黎明”，旨在将麦片打造成全天可享用的小吃。

QR codes—squares of black-and-white patterns—have much to recommend them. They store far more information than plain, old bar codes. For example, they can fit in web addresses and logos. And they are cheap.

QR码是一组在正方形平面上分布的黑白相间的图案，值得推荐。比起以前常见的条形码，QR码数据容量更大。例如，它可以记录网址或徽标。同时，QR码成本较低。

Over the past year, QR codes have quietly slipped into the marketing mainstream. Three-quarters of American online retailers surveyed by Forrester, a research firm, use them. In April nearly 20% of smartphone users in America scanned one, up from 14% in May last year. According to comScore, another research company, more than two-thirds of Americans and Europeans who scan QR codes do so in order to obtain information about a product. Japanese smartphone-owners, by contrast, are most likely to download a discount coupon or a special offer.

过去一年中，QR码悄然进入主流市场。弗雷斯特研究公司（Forrester）的调查显示，四分之三美国网络零售商使用QR码。今年四月，美国20%的智能手机用户用手机扫描了QR码，而去年五月这个比例为14%。根据另一家研究公司comScore的数据显示，在扫描QR码的美国人和欧洲人中，有三分之二是

为了获取产品信息。相比之下，日本手机用户扫描QR码，更多的是为了下载打折券或特价优惠。.

Scanlife, a provider of QR code services, saw the number of unique users

scanning codes through its system triple in the year to March. One reason for the rise is the proliferation of smartphones with high-quality cameras and the corresponding decline in data charges. It also took time for people to realize why advertisements contained mutant crosswords. And perhaps most important, marketers have only now worked out how best to use QR codes. Simply sending customers to the company website is not enough, says Melissa Parrish, an analyst at Forrester. In-store

promotions are catching on. Coupons are always popular. Real-world treasure hunts have also been successful.

二维码提供商Scanlife发现，截止今年三月，使用他们的系统扫描QR码用户增长了两倍之多。一个原因是持有高质量摄像头的智能手机的人数激增，同时，手机上网数据流量的价格降低。另一个原因就是经过一段时间，人们开始接受广告中出现的与纵横字谜有些相像的QR码。最重要的原因是，市场营销公司目前想出了充分利用QR码进行营销的办法。弗雷斯特研究公司分析师梅利莎·帕里什表示，现在仅仅向消费者提供本公司的网址是不够的。店内促销开始兴起，优惠券营销始终流行，类似于“真实寻宝”的营销也已获得成功。 For marketers, QR codes bridge the gap between offline and online worlds.

Customers who use them are, in effect, asking to be told more about the company. The success of a campaign is easy to measure by the number of scans. Expect to see a lot more of those funny little black-and-white patches.

在市场营销人员看来，QR码可以连接网络与现实世界。

实际上，通过扫描QR码，消费者希望更多地了解提供产品的公司；而通过QR码被扫描的次数，公司也可以很容易了解到其营销活动是否成功。未来，我们希望这些有趣的、黑白图案相间的QR码越来越多。

All work and no pay? 只给工作，不付报酬？

YOUNGSTERS enter the office of Inspiring Interns through what looks like a wardrobe door. The reference to C.S. Lewis’s “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” is deliberate: the company wants them to feel transported into a magical new world where they might actually find a job.

年轻人们进入Inspiring Interns公司办公室之前，要穿过一处貌似衣橱门的入口。这是参照C•S•刘易斯的小说《狮子•女巫•魔衣橱》有意为之：这家公司想让年轻人觉得，他们就像是穿越到一个充满魔力的新世界中，在这里他们也许真能找到一份工作。

With unemployment rife throughout the rich world, more and more young people are seeking internships. Many firms, nervous about the future, are reluctant to hire permanent staff until they have tested them. Intern-recruitment agencies are popping up to help. Inspiring Interns, a London firm, boasts that it can provide competent interns within three days. It processes 300 applicants a day, and claims that 65% of the interns it has placed have been hired.

随着失业潮在富裕国家蔓延，越来越多的年轻人正在寻找实习机会。很多对前景感到忧虑的公司，不愿意雇佣长期职员，除非那人已经是经过考验。实习招聘代理公司应运而生，为此事助力。Inspiring Interns这家位于伦敦的公司，自夸它可以在三天内提供能胜任岗位的实习生。它每天要处理300个求职申请，并声称由它安排的实习生中65%已被雇佣。

Many intern candidates have no previous job experience and only a vague notion of what work involves. Inspiring Interns screens them with personality tests, coaches them on interview technique and urges them to make a video-clip curriculum vitae. Many internships are unpaid; the firm charges employers £500 ($779) a month for each intern plus 10% of the starting salary if an intern is hired permanently. Ben Rosen, who founded Inspiring Interns with £20,000, says it grossed around £1m last year.

很多实习应聘者没有工作经验，对于工作只有一个模糊的概念。Inspiring Interns通过个性测试对应聘者进行筛选，对他们的面试技巧进行指导，并督促他们制作一个视频简历。大量的实习工作是没有工资的，因此这家公司按照每个实习生每月500英镑（779美元）向雇主收取费用，如果实习生被雇为长期职员，另外加收起薪的10%。本•罗斯以2万英镑创立了Inspiring Interns，他说公司去年税前收入约为100万英镑。

Other intern agencies are more specialized. Instant Impact Interns, a British start-up, focuses on students from Oxford, Cambridge and other leading universities. It keeps its fees flexible so that small businesses and charities can afford them. It also insists that its interns are paid. Rob Blythe, one of the founders, predicts it will reap £100,000 in its first financial year.

其他实习招聘代理公司更加专业化。Instant Impact Interns是英国的一家新兴企业，专注于代理牛津、剑桥及其它一流大学的学生实习业务。它坚持弹性收费制，以便使小公司和慈善组织能够承受。它也坚称由它介绍的实习生都有报酬。公司创始人之一的罗布•布莱斯预测，公司第一财年的收入将达到10万英镑。

The intern market is more developed in America. Intern Bridge, a Texan firm founded in 2005 by Richard Bottner, himself a former intern, claims to have worked with 80% of Fortune 100 firms. It helps them design internships, and conducts surveys of interns. It found last year that 77% of unpaid interns were forced to take second jobs, which could have affected their performance.

美国的实习市场更加成熟。理查德•巴特纳于2005年在德克萨斯州创立了Intern Bridge公司，他自己也曾做过实习生，公司称与《财富》杂志100强公司中的80%有合作关系。它帮助这些公司设计实习工作，并考察实习生。它发现，去年没有薪酬的实习生中77%不得不从事兼职，这使得他们的工作表现受到了影响。

Softies such as Ross Perlin, the author of “Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy”, complain that unpaid internships are exploitative. They also fret that only well-heeled youngsters can afford to work for nothing. If an internship is the first step on the career ladder, the less affluent will never climb it. 诸如《实习生国度：如何在美好新经济下劳无所得学无所成》一书作者罗斯•佩林这样菩萨心肠的人抱怨道，没有薪酬的实习工作是种剥削。他们也为此感到焦躁不安，因为只有家境富裕的年轻人才能负担得起光工作零收入。如果说实习工作是职业阶梯的第一步，那么出身困窘家庭的人将永远无法攀爬上去。

Others disagree. “Anything that gives people an opportunity to gain experience is a good thing,” shrugs Jim Tapper of Korn/Ferry Whitehead Mann, a headhunter. Official statistics about internships are scanty, but surveys by the National Association of Colleges and Employers suggest that they work quite well. The average hourly wage for an intern studying for a bachelor’s degree in America is $16.21, though arty organizations typically pay nothing.

另一些人不同意了。“能够给你机会获得经验的，就是好事，”猎头公司Korn/Ferry

Whitehead Mann的吉姆•坦铂耸耸肩说到。关于实习的官方统计数据较为稀缺，但是美国全国大学与雇主协会的调查显示，实习生的表现非常不错。在美国，尽管艺术类组织一般不付工资，在校本科生的平均实习时薪还是达到了16.21美元。

Most important, more than 60% of interns in America are eventually offered full-time jobs. Staff who first work as interns are also more likely to stick around than those who do not. Companies benefit by knowing the people they hire. And youngsters benefit from knowing their employers. Had C.S. Lewis’s Edmund first interned for the White Witch, he might never have agreed to work for her.

最为重要的是，美国超过60%的实习生最终得到了全职工作。由实习生做起的职员与那些没有实习过的相比，留在公司的可能性也更大。公司得利，因为了解了雇员。年轻人获益，因为了解了雇主。要是C•S•刘易斯笔下的爱德蒙一开始在白女巫手下实习过，他就绝不会同意为她卖命了。

外刊时文---Fight for Euthanasia为安乐死而战

Fight for Euthanasia为安乐死而战

For most people, death starts to become interesting only with the first intimations of their mortality. As they work through the seven ages of man, their thoughts may increasingly turn to the dependence, indignity and pain that afflict so many at the end of their lives. Many reach adulthood without seeing a corpse, or even the recognizably animal carcass from which their next steak or chop will be cut. Death, for them, is disgusting, best not thought about. But not for Jack Kevorkian. He was fascinated by it.

只有第一次被正式告知他们必定要死了，大多数人才开始关注死亡。随着熬过了七年，他们的想法可能会逐渐转向在生命的末端令其备受折磨的不自主、无尊严和痛苦。很多人是没有见过尸体而长大成人的，甚至没有见过熟悉的动物尸体，而他们的下一顿肉排或排骨就是从这些动物的尸体上切下来的。死亡，对人们而言是极其令人厌恶的，最好不要想它。然而对于杰克•凯沃尔吉安来说却不是。他对死亡着了迷。

It is not clear when this fascination began, but the would-be-Dr Kevorkian surely had it by the time he was attending the University of Michigan Medical School. It was there that he first proposed that condemned prisoners should, with their permission, be executed under anesthesia to enable doctors to experiment on their bodies, before going on to harvest their organs and use them for research. A few years later, after serving as a military doctor in Korea, he would carry out studies of the human eye just as life leaves the body (the blood vessels in the cornea become invisible). By this time, hardly surprisingly, he was working as a pathologist.

这种嗜好是从什么时候开始的，并不清楚，但是想当医生的凯沃尔吉安，在进入密歇根大学医学院之前确实已经有了这种兴趣。在大学里，他第一次建议，死刑犯经本人同意应该在麻醉下被处死，以使医生能够在他们的身体上做实验，然后再收割他们的器官用于研究。几年后，他在朝鲜战争中担任军医。在人正当死亡的时刻，他对人眼进行了研究，这时角膜里的血管变得极小难以辨认。到此，就几乎不令人惊讶了，他的工作是一名病理学家。

The job, however, did not bring satisfaction. Perhaps this was because his interest in

death coexisted with two other passions. One was artistic, an urge that took him from Michigan, the state to which his Armenian parents had emigrated a few years before his birth, to California. There Dr Kevorkian painted, wrote, played the flute and made a film about Handel’s “Messiah”, while earning a meager living as a jobbing pathologist. He also appeared before members of the state legislature, at their request, to tell them of the merits of letting prisoners on death row choose execution by anesthetic.

然而这一工作并未使他满意，可能是因为除了死亡，他还有另外两个兴趣。一个是艺术，这个兴趣促使他从密歇根搬到了加利福尼亚。他的父母是亚美尼亚人，在他出生前几年，他们移居到了密歇根。在加利福尼亚，在当打零工的病理学家赚取微薄生计的同时，他画画、写作、吹笛子，还拍了一部关于韩德尔的“弥赛亚”的电影。他还应州议员们的要求，为他们讲述让死囚犯选择麻醉处死的优点。

That experience, or rather the ensuing chaos, seems to have awakened another passion, this one for publicity. It was the relish with which Dr Kevorkian courted controversy that provided the potency of the campaign for assisted suicide which occupied the last three decades of his life.

这一经历，或是随后发生的骚动，似乎激发了他的另一个嗜好——宣传。这一嗜好为他进行支持辅助自杀的活动提供了力量，但也招致了争议。他的最后三十年都在为支持辅助自杀而奋斗。

The theory was laid out in a series of articles on euthanasia for a German journal, Medicine and Law. The practice followed, starting with advertisements in Detroit newspapers for “death with dignity” provided by a “doctor consultant for the terminally ill”. Soon came the Mercitron and the Thanatron, “suicide machines” that enabled “clients” to inject themselves with drugs or to release a dose of lethal carbon monoxide, turning the blood cherry red and suffusing the cheeks in death with a misleadingly healthy glow. Over 130 people died painlessly with the help of these machines and the doctor who invented them.

这一理论在给德国《医学与法学》杂志的一系列关于安乐死的文章中被阐述。接着他以“绝症患者咨询医生”的名义，给底特律各报纸提供《有尊严的死》的宣传文章。很快名为“Mercitron”和“Thanatron” 的“自杀机器”被发明出来，“自杀机器”能够使“客户”给自己注射药物或释放致命剂量的一氧化碳。在死亡过程中，一氧化碳使血液变成樱桃红色，使去世人的面颊充满类似健康的红晕。有130多人在“自杀机器”和发明它们的医生的帮助下无痛苦的死去。

Though criticized by lawyers, clergymen and the American Medical Association, Dr

Kevorkian proved difficult to stop. Frequently arrested, he would argue persuasively that he was merely helping unhappy people to carry out their own wishes. Jurors in three trials acquitted him, perhaps making him think he would forever remain beyond the reach of

the prosecutors and legislators he so loved to taunt. From the first, he made no effort to conceal his role in helping people die, sometimes notifying the police after the event and even having it filmed. Indeed, it was the televising of a tape of him actually administering a lethal injection that eventually put him in prison. But even then he publicly regretted not his actions but only his decision to conduct his own defense.

尽管被律师、牧师和美国医学会谴责，但实际证明这难以使凯沃尔吉安医生停止。虽然被多次拘捕，但他总是有说服力地据理力争，他只是在帮助不幸的人们实现他们的愿望。

在三个审判中陪审员都宣布他无罪，这可能使他认为，他喜欢奚落的那些公诉人和议员们永远也管不着他。自始，他就没有力图隐瞒自己在帮助人们死亡中的角色，有时在事后他会通知，甚至拍成影片。实际上，在电视上播放的一部他实施致命注射的录像带最终使他进了监狱。即使这时他也没有明显地为自己的行为感到懊悔，他只是决定为自己辩护。

The judge who sentenced him said the trial was not about the political or moral correctness of euthanasia, it was about breaking the law. “You had the audacity to go on national television,” she said, “and dare the legal system to stop you. Well, sir, consider yourself stopped.” He was, though he was released on parole after only eight years of a 10-25-year sentence.

判决他的法官说，判决无关安乐死的政治或道德的正确性，而事关是否违法。她说：“你敢上国家电视台，敢挑战阻止你的法律制度。那么，好，先生，考虑自己停下来吧。”他被判了10-25年的徒刑，然而在仅仅服刑八年后他就被假释了。

外刊时文---HIV in India 印度的艾滋病

HIV in India印度的艾滋病

LIFE is priceless to those who possess it. Policymakers, though, must take a

more hard-headed approach. That is particularly—if unfairly—true in poorer parts of the world. It is important for the authorities to understand the cost-effectiveness of a health program, so that its value can be compared with that of other claims on the public purse.

对那些活着的人来说，生命是无价之宝。然而在面对生命时，决策者需要有更加精明冷静的头脑。尽管有些不公平，但在世界上，越是贫穷的地方越是如此。对当局来说，十分重要的一点是掌握健康计划的成本效益，这样就能对该计划的价值与其他需动用公共资金的项目的价值进行对比。

How to go about doing this is illustrated by a paper published in the Public Library of Science by Kartik Venkatesh of Brown University and Jessica Becker of Yale. Dr Venkatesh and Dr Becker asked themselves if it would be a good idea for the

government of India to try, at regular intervals, to test the country’s population for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, in order to treat those who unknowingly harbor it. The short answer is that, if it were feasible, it would be.

来自美国布朗大学的Kartik Venkatesh和耶鲁大学的Jessica Becker在公共科学图书馆上发表了一篇文章，他们在文章中对如何估算成本效益进行了解释。Venkatesh博士和Becker博士思考了这样一个问题：对印度来说，为了治疗那些并不知道自己已经携带HIV病毒的患者，定期检测全国HIV病毒（导致艾滋病的病毒）携带者的人数是否是一个好主意。最简短的回答是，如果可行，这将会是个好主意。

Though HIV in India has not turned into the widespread epidemic some experts feared it would a few years ago, it is reckoned to affect about 2.4m people, many of whom do not realize they are infected. If they were identified, these people could be given antiretroviral drugs to stop the symptoms of AIDS developing. That would also have the bonus of reducing the chance of their passing the virus on.

几年前一些专家曾担心HIV将成为印度广泛传播的流行病，尽管还没到这种程度，但据估计印度的HIV病毒携带者约有240万，其中很多人还不知道自己是

病毒携带者之一。如果找出这些人，那么就能用抗逆转录病毒药物来阻止艾滋病症状的发展。这样做还有一个好处就是能降低艾滋病病毒继续传播的几率。

The calculations made by Dr Venkatesh and Dr Becker rely on a model developed by the World Health Organization and already in use in America, France, South Africa and elsewhere. It values lives extended and saved, and further infections and other treatment avoided. It then balances those against the costs of testing people and of giving drugs to those who test positive (plus the inevitable extra non-HIV spending that typically follows testing).

Venkatesh博士和Becker博士在计算时使用的是由世界卫生组织所创建的一种模型，该模型已在美国、法国、南非以及其他一些地区得到应用。人们可以用它对延长的寿命、被拯救的生命、省去的进一步的感染和治疗进行估价。然后再用它对所节省的资金与为人们进行检测以及给那些检测呈阳性的人提供药物所花的钱（还要加上检测后通常不可避免一笔额外花费，即花在HIV以外的其他病种上的钱）进行权衡。

The price at which an extra year of life saved is deemed cost-effective is anything less than triple the annual GDP per person of the country in question. In India that is $3,900. Anything below parity ($1,300 per year of life) counts as very cost-effective. According to Dr Venkatesh and Dr Becker, testing Indian adults every five years would cost $1,900 per year of life saved, and would thus pay offhandsomely.

如果让一个人多活一年所花的钱不超过该国家每年人均GDP的三倍，那么就被视为是划算的。在印度，这笔钱为3900美元。任何低于年人均GDP的（多活一年为1300美元）都被认为是非常划算的。根据Venkatesh博士和Becker博士的研究，为了助人健康生活一年，每五年对印度的成年人进行检测所花的钱为1900美元，因此这样做是物有所值的。

Whether it could actually be done is another matter. But India takes AIDS

seriously and the fact that the epidemic has not run out of control in the way that was once feared is at least in part the consequence of the country’s policies. The will to test therefore probably exists. Dr Venkatesh and Dr Becker suggest it would be worth finding the means, as well.

然而这种做法能否付诸实践又是另外一回事。但印度人十分重视艾滋病的防治，这种传染病没有像人们所害怕的那样一发而不可收拾也是受国家的影响。因此，印度还是有可能会采取这种做法的。Venkatesh博士和Becker博士称找到防治的方法同样也是很有用的。

外刊时文--Apples to Britain英国的苹果

Apples to Britain 英国的苹果

GLINTING greenly from the corners of the Beatles’ album covers is an apple. With its shiny, acid-colored skin, it is recognizable as a Granny Smith. Once popular enough to have a Pantone paint color named after them, today they are declining. Britons are eating other varieties—if they are eating apples at all.

甲壳虫乐队专辑封面的角落里有一个绿油油的苹果，鲜亮扎眼，很容易就能看出那是个澳洲青苹果。澳洲青苹果曾风靡一时，连潘通色卡（Pantone）的一款油漆都以它命名，但如今销量却在下降。现在英国人吃的是其他品种的苹果，当然，前提是他们还吃苹果。

Consumption of fruit overall is down, but the decline of apples is sharp. In June year-on-year sales by volume were down 6.3%, according to Kantar, a market-research firm. Rising prices have kept spending up (apples are 15% pricier than a year ago) but that cannot persist.

目前，水果的消费量总体有所下降，但苹果的消费量却急剧下滑。据市场调查公司坎塔尔（Kantar）称，与去年同期相比7月份的销售额按体积计算下降了6.3%。虽然苹果价格在不断上涨（比一年前高出15%），总销售额得以持平，但这种状况并不能持久。

Apple-eaters are ageing. Under-30s eat an average of 100 grams per week; the over-75s munch 195 grams. English Apples and Pears, the industry’s trade association, has released recipes for dishes such as Polish apple cake and Indian lamb dhansak using Bramleys, a sour cooking apple also in decline, to try and encourage immigrants to eat more of them.

而且苹果食用群体正在老龄化。30岁以下人群每周平均吃苹果100克，75岁以上人群则是195克。为尝试鼓励移民吃更多的苹果，行业贸易协会——英国苹果与雪梨协会发布了一些菜式的菜谱，如波兰苹果蛋糕、用布拉姆列苹果做的印度羊肉丹沙克等。布拉姆列苹果是一种用于煮食的苹果，味酸，其销量同样在下降。

And tastes are changing. Until three years ago Paul Mansfield, a farmer in Kent, grew mostly Cox’s, an English apple first grown in 1825 and once Britain’s favorite. Now Gala and Braeburn, developed in New Zealand, are his biggest crops. Almost 50% more land was devoted to Gala apples in 2012 than in 2009. Braeburn apple trees were up 70%.

英国人吃苹果的品味也在改变。保尔曼斯菲尔德(Paul Mansfield)是肯特一名农场主。3年前，他种的大多是Cox苹果，这种英国苹果最初在1825年被种植，曾是英国人的挚爱。现在，他种得最多的是在新西兰培育的品种Gala和

Braeburn苹果。2012年，Gala的种植面积比2009年的多出将近50%。Braeburn苹果树的数目则增长了70%。

Consumers relish such apples because they are sweet and crunchy, says Adrian Barlow of English Apples and Pears. Supermarkets like them because apples such as Gala are grown in both the northern and southern hemispheres, so they can be stocked all year round. Growers like them because they have longer seasons than traditional English apples. Prices are similar but yields are higher and more reliable. Only about 65% of the fruit of a Cox’s apple tree can be sold as “class one”. For modern varieties the proportion can be as high as 90%.

这些品种的苹果肉质甜美爽脆，所以获得消费者的青睐，英国苹果与雪梨协会的艾德里安巴洛（Adrian Barlow）说道。像Gala这些品种南北半球都有种植，全年均可采购，所以超市喜欢这些品种。果农也对此类品种宠爱有加，因为它们的时令比传统的英国苹果品种更长。这些品种与别的品种价格不相上下，但产量更高，且更稳定。Cox苹果树所产的果实只有65%可被列为“一等品”出售，而这个比例在那些现代品种中可达90%。

Rising fastest, though, are apples such as Jazz and Pink Lady. These are sweet and crunchy, too, but otherwise quite different products. Pink Lady, now the fourth most popular apple in Britain, is a trademark. Only fruit that passes strict quality controls can be sold under its name, and British farmers are not licensed to grow it. Distributors pay into a central pot to fund marketing. Pink Lady has sponsored a transatlantic rowing team and sent women to the North Pole. This is working. Sales are flourishing. It is the best-known apple brand among women. Others are following suit. Joya, launched in January 2012, is aimed at sporty youngsters.

不过，销量增长最快的是诸如“爵士”和“粉红女郎”这些品种。这些品种肉质同样甜美爽脆，但在其他方面却大有不同。“粉红女郎”是一个商标，如今它是英国受欢迎程度排名第四的苹果品种。只有通过严格质量控制的苹果才能以此商标之名出售，而且英国的果农不能种植这个品种。品牌的营销费用则由经销商集资。“粉红女郎”赞助了一个横渡大西洋划船队，还派了女性到南极去。这些手段很有效，其销量芝麻开花节节高。在女性消费者中，“粉红女郎”是知名度最高的苹果品牌。其他品牌也在效仿“粉红女郎”的做法。2012年1月成立的Joya则以热爱运动的年轻人为目标。

With their heavy branding and quality control, apples are becoming more like

processed foods, says Kate Evans, a breeder at Washington State University. But not in all ways. Recipes for chocolate bars can be developed, tested and tweaked fairly easily, she explains, and production can be ramped up swiftly. With an apple, adjusting the flavor or texture is difficult: “it is what it is,” says Ms Evans. Malus aforethought.

华盛顿州大学的育种员凯特埃文斯（Kate Evans）说，大量的品牌宣传和质量控制使苹果越来越像加工食品。但并不完全如此。人们可以很轻易地研发、试验、修改巧克力棒的配方，她解释道，而且产量可以快速增加。但对于苹果，要改变其味道和口感就难了：“苹果是怎样就怎样了。”凯特埃文斯说道。谋而后动，苹果亦然。

外刊时文---AN Exit from Euro? 退出欧元区？

AN Exit from Euro? 退出欧元区？

We start with the most basic question of all: can one or more countries leave (or be forced out of) the euro, both legally and practically?

首先，一个最根本的问题是：一国或多国退出（或被迫退出）欧元区，这是合法并可行的吗？

As a matter of legal principle, the answer is no, because when countries joined the euro the conversion of their former currencies was supposed to be “irrevocable”: a Hotel

California that you can never leave. Indeed, a legal opinion published by the ECB in 2009 argued that because European treaties did not conceive of the possibility of a country leaving the euro, an exit would require them to leave the European Union (EU) as well. That would exacerbate the economic pain because the departing state would lose access to both the single market and valuable regional-support funds.

从法律原则的角度看，答案是否定的。因为各国加入欧元时，从本国货币转向欧元的过程应该是不可逆转的，就像加州旅馆这首歌里唱的一样永远“不能离开”。的确，2009年由ECB发表的一份法律意见书称，由于该欧洲条约并未考虑一国退出欧元区的可能，所以一旦退出欧元区就等于也要离开欧盟。那么，退出国将失去单一市场的准入权以及宝贵的区域援助基金，从而使其经济困境更为深重。

But we think this argument of legal impossibility is overstated. European laws are in constant flux because of the ease with which new agreements can supersede old ones. The Maastricht treaty of 1992 banned bail-outs, but you have yourself authorized two agreements allowing them: the temporary rescue fund and the permanent European

Stability Mechanism, whose legality our constitutional court is considering at the moment. Similarly, we think that it will be possible to find a way round the supposedly binding rule that a country exiting the euro would also have to leave the EU.【此段逻辑是考研最常见的：类比】

但是，这种认为退出欧元在法律意义上不成立的观点过于夸大了。欧洲的各种协议能自如地更新换代，因此欧洲法律是不断变迁的。1992年的《马斯特里赫特条约》禁止紧急救助行为，但我们已经达成了建立两个纾困组织的协议：临时援救基金和欧洲稳定机制，我们的制庭正在对其合法性进行审议。同样，我们也相信一定有办法避开“退出欧元的国家必须退出欧盟”这一貌似极富约束力的法规。

What about the practical obstacles to an exit? There are two main ones. First, it would take several months to design, print and distribute an entirely new currency, leaving a departing country bereft of

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