When will the US economy rebound from the collapse of the tech bubble in 2001? For the many Americans anxious about their jobs or their future prospects, the fact that the economy is already recovering from recession is cold comfort①. Productivity has soared, but the number of new jobs has not, at least not yet, and politicians fret about the consequences of a 'jobless recovery'. The good news is that hiring is up; the bad news is that it's restaurants, providers of ill-paid service sector jobs, not Silicon Valley tech firms, that are doing the hiring.
Clay Bennett's cartoon for the ChristianScienceMonitor shows us a middle-class American family seated for a big meal. In the foreground is a cornucopia (a symbol of abundance that is a common decorative motif at Thanksgiving) labeled 'economy'. The US economy is indeed producing abundantly, but who is benefiting? The main course, in Bennett's view, should be jobs, not dividends, but when the father lifts the cover of the serving dish②, it is a tin of Spam that the baffled family behold.
Spam (the name is a registered trademark) is a commercial meat product that entered the market in 1937, late in the Great Depression. Ready-to-eat chopped SPiced hAM ('SPAM') was pressed into a firm loaf and canned. The product was cheap and, at a time when cash was tight, popular. Soldiers ate a lot of it in World War II. After the war, Americans shipped tons of it to impoverished Europeans as relief supplies.
Today Spam is still manufactured, but its fans are mostly children. Among adults it is widely associated with poverty, though harried mothers appreciate its convenience as emergency lunch fare for kids.
Interestingly, the word 'spam' (no cap③) is also used nowadays to mean unsolicited commercial e-mail. The Monty Python Show, a TV comedy series with tens of millions of viewers during the 1970s and 1980s, frequently featured a group of Vikings who at social gatherings would sing 'Spam!' in answer to every question. Eventually all other conversation ceased; hence the use of 'spam' for unwanted e-mail that buries e-mail of significance. Why 'Spam'? Monty Python comedians were geniuses of the absurd who took a lot of material from the world of British schools after World War II; Spam would have been tediously familiar to British viewers of a certain age.
什么時候美國經濟才能從2001年高科技泡沫的破滅中反彈回來？對于很多為工作或是為前途憂慮的美國人來說，經濟已經從蕭條中復蘇這一事實也難以令人感到寬慰。生產力已經飆升，但新的就業(yè)崗位的數量并沒有飆升，至少是現在還沒有，政界人士擔心出現“沒有就業(yè)崗位的復蘇”這樣的結果。最近的好消息是雇工數量有所增加，壞消息是增加雇工的地方是餐廳———只能提供低工資的服務行業(yè)，而不是硅谷高科技公司。
克雷·拜內特為《基督教科學箴言報》所畫的這幅漫畫為我們展示了美國一中產階級家庭正坐在餐桌旁等待豐盛的飯菜。在靠前的地方有一個羊角狀器皿(羊角是豐饒的象征，是感恩節(jié)時很普遍的裝飾圖案)，上寫著“經濟”二字，美國經濟的確在大幅增長，但是誰受益呢？在拜內特看來，“主菜”應該是提供就業(yè)機會，而不是提高股東的紅利分配。但是，當父親打開主菜的蓋子時，困惑的一家人所看到的是只是一聽Spam牌的罐頭肉。
Spam(一注冊商標的名字)是1937年美國經濟大蕭條后期進入市場的肉制品，這種可即食的切好的香料火腿肉(Spam是各取“加了香料的”與“火腿”兩個英文單詞的一部分合并而成)被壓成很實的肉塊然后罐裝，其價格在當時很便宜，在人們沒錢的時代很受歡迎。在二次大戰(zhàn)期間士兵們吃了大量的Spam，二戰(zhàn)之后，美國人成噸成噸地把它們運往歐洲作為窮人的救濟品。
今天，Spam肉罐頭還在生產，但喜歡吃它的人主要是孩子，盡管煩事纏身的母親們很欣賞它的方便，在來不及準備時可作為孩子們的午餐，但成人消費者多為窮人。
有意思的是，spam(s小寫)一詞在當今時代還用來指那些不請自來的廣告性電子郵件。在七十和八十年代擁有數千萬熱心觀眾的英國幽默電視連續(xù)劇Monty Python Show常常以一撥兒北歐海盜為主角，在公共集會中，他們對每一個問題都用吟唱“Spam”來做回答以壓制別人，最后，所有的談話都停止了，因此人們就用spam來指那些把有用信息淹沒的垃圾郵件。但為什么要唱Spam呢？Monty Python的喜劇演員們是一群搞笑天才，他們從二戰(zhàn)后英國校園生活中汲取了大量素材，對于一定年齡的英國觀眾來說，Spam肯定是熟悉得不能再熟悉了。
Clay Bennett's cartoon for the ChristianScienceMonitor shows us a middle-class American family seated for a big meal. In the foreground is a cornucopia (a symbol of abundance that is a common decorative motif at Thanksgiving) labeled 'economy'. The US economy is indeed producing abundantly, but who is benefiting? The main course, in Bennett's view, should be jobs, not dividends, but when the father lifts the cover of the serving dish②, it is a tin of Spam that the baffled family behold.
Spam (the name is a registered trademark) is a commercial meat product that entered the market in 1937, late in the Great Depression. Ready-to-eat chopped SPiced hAM ('SPAM') was pressed into a firm loaf and canned. The product was cheap and, at a time when cash was tight, popular. Soldiers ate a lot of it in World War II. After the war, Americans shipped tons of it to impoverished Europeans as relief supplies.
Today Spam is still manufactured, but its fans are mostly children. Among adults it is widely associated with poverty, though harried mothers appreciate its convenience as emergency lunch fare for kids.
Interestingly, the word 'spam' (no cap③) is also used nowadays to mean unsolicited commercial e-mail. The Monty Python Show, a TV comedy series with tens of millions of viewers during the 1970s and 1980s, frequently featured a group of Vikings who at social gatherings would sing 'Spam!' in answer to every question. Eventually all other conversation ceased; hence the use of 'spam' for unwanted e-mail that buries e-mail of significance. Why 'Spam'? Monty Python comedians were geniuses of the absurd who took a lot of material from the world of British schools after World War II; Spam would have been tediously familiar to British viewers of a certain age.
什么時候美國經濟才能從2001年高科技泡沫的破滅中反彈回來？對于很多為工作或是為前途憂慮的美國人來說，經濟已經從蕭條中復蘇這一事實也難以令人感到寬慰。生產力已經飆升，但新的就業(yè)崗位的數量并沒有飆升，至少是現在還沒有，政界人士擔心出現“沒有就業(yè)崗位的復蘇”這樣的結果。最近的好消息是雇工數量有所增加，壞消息是增加雇工的地方是餐廳———只能提供低工資的服務行業(yè)，而不是硅谷高科技公司。
克雷·拜內特為《基督教科學箴言報》所畫的這幅漫畫為我們展示了美國一中產階級家庭正坐在餐桌旁等待豐盛的飯菜。在靠前的地方有一個羊角狀器皿(羊角是豐饒的象征，是感恩節(jié)時很普遍的裝飾圖案)，上寫著“經濟”二字，美國經濟的確在大幅增長，但是誰受益呢？在拜內特看來，“主菜”應該是提供就業(yè)機會，而不是提高股東的紅利分配。但是，當父親打開主菜的蓋子時，困惑的一家人所看到的是只是一聽Spam牌的罐頭肉。
Spam(一注冊商標的名字)是1937年美國經濟大蕭條后期進入市場的肉制品，這種可即食的切好的香料火腿肉(Spam是各取“加了香料的”與“火腿”兩個英文單詞的一部分合并而成)被壓成很實的肉塊然后罐裝，其價格在當時很便宜，在人們沒錢的時代很受歡迎。在二次大戰(zhàn)期間士兵們吃了大量的Spam，二戰(zhàn)之后，美國人成噸成噸地把它們運往歐洲作為窮人的救濟品。
今天，Spam肉罐頭還在生產，但喜歡吃它的人主要是孩子，盡管煩事纏身的母親們很欣賞它的方便，在來不及準備時可作為孩子們的午餐，但成人消費者多為窮人。
有意思的是，spam(s小寫)一詞在當今時代還用來指那些不請自來的廣告性電子郵件。在七十和八十年代擁有數千萬熱心觀眾的英國幽默電視連續(xù)劇Monty Python Show常常以一撥兒北歐海盜為主角，在公共集會中，他們對每一個問題都用吟唱“Spam”來做回答以壓制別人，最后，所有的談話都停止了，因此人們就用spam來指那些把有用信息淹沒的垃圾郵件。但為什么要唱Spam呢？Monty Python的喜劇演員們是一群搞笑天才，他們從二戰(zhàn)后英國校園生活中汲取了大量素材，對于一定年齡的英國觀眾來說，Spam肯定是熟悉得不能再熟悉了。