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土拨鼠是谁的代言人?
http://www.sina.com.cn 2005/02/07 11:49  北京青年报

  February 2 is the day for a classic bit of American silliness. In Punxsutawney, a pleasant Pennsylvanian town of about 7,000 people in the hills 130 kilometers northeast of Pittsburgh, there lives a plump groundhog by the name of Phil. (A groundhog, also known as a woodchuck, is a sort of North American marmot.) Phil has his own little house and a constant supply of food, for he is a municipal rodent, a town mascot who also serves as an official weather prophet. On the morning of February 2, Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney, Phil is invited to step out of his lair. If he sees his shadow, in other words if the sky is clear and bright, local people believe -- or at least they profess to believe -- that there will be another six weeks of hard winter. If Phil casts no shadow because the sky is overcast, the prognosis is for mild weather and an early spring.

  So why does cartoonist Mike Luckovich portray groundhog Phil confessing before reporters that he accepted money from the White House? President Bush is an optimist, especially about his own projects, and he likes other people to be optimistic too. Recently it was revealed that the Department of Education had paid a syndicated columnist $240,000 to write in support of a widely criticized Bush law usually referred to as "No Child Left Behind".

  Columnists offer opinion, but it is supposed to be their own opinion, arrived at independently. Why read columnists otherwise? Here was a columnist saying nice things about a controversial piece of legislation in return for a hefty chunk of cash. This was propaganda masquerading as an expression of critical intelligence. A White House willing to splash money around could probably generate quite a wave of phony optimism about any number of subjects dear to the president's heart. And if George W. Bush wants the public to think it's springtime in America, who better to put on the secret White House payroll than Phil the groundhog?

漫画赏析:土拨鼠是谁的代言人(图)

  -美国社会热点/名家漫画赏析 WD White(美)———

  2月2日是美国人犯傻的经典之作上演的日子。在距宾夕法尼亚州匹兹堡市东北方向130公里处有一片小山丘,山间有座人口约7000人的宜人小镇彭瑟托尼,那里住着一只长得圆滚滚的土拨鼠,它的大名叫菲尔。(土拨鼠在英文中还被称作woodchuck,是北美旱獭的一种)。菲尔有它自己的小房子,食物供给从来不断,因为这位啮齿动物可是只“镇鼠”,是该镇的吉祥物,是官方的预知天气的先知。在2月2日,也就是彭瑟托尼镇的土拨鼠节的上午,人们请菲尔走出它的窝,如果它能看到自己的影子,也就是说天空晴朗无云,当地人就会相信(或者说至少他们表示相信)未来还有6周的寒冬;如果是阴天,菲尔没有投下影子,就预示着天气温煦,春天早到。

  那么,漫画家麦克·卢科维奇为什么在画中描绘土拨鼠菲尔在记者面前承认自己收受了白宫的钱呢?布什总统是位乐天派,尤其是对他自己的计划极为乐观,而且,他喜欢别人也同样乐观。据最近透露出来的消息,美国教育部曾向一位向多家报刊同时供稿的专栏作家支付24万美元,请他撰文支持布什的一项广遭批评的法令,该法令通常被称为“不让一个孩子掉队”法。

  专栏作家们提供观点,但应该是他们自己独立得出的观点,不然为什么要读他们的文章呢?可现在,一位专栏作家为了回报一大笔钱,就为一项有争议的法令说好话,这是伪装成评论界精英意见的宣传鼓噪。一个随意撒钱的政府对布什喜欢的任何事都可能制造出一波虚假的乐观主义浪潮。那么,如果乔治·W·布什想要公众以为春天来了,谁会比土拨鼠菲尔更适合成为白宫的秘密雇员呢?




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