【正文】 the pages stained, flecked, and tattered around the edges。 這本書沒了封面，封底用幾條紙片粘牢，有好幾層，如今都泛黃了，書頁上污跡斑斑，邊角處都破碎了；書中花哨的插圖脫了頁，但都保存良好，夾在書里。他一直珍藏著這本書，或許還枕著這本沒了封面的書睡覺：他7歲時就沒了母親。 母親則從西弗吉尼亞帶來了那套狄更斯：那套書看上去也慘不忍睹—— 她告訴我，我還沒出生，這些書就歷經(jīng)水火之災(zāi)，可現(xiàn)在它們還是整齊地排列在那兒—— 后來我意識到，是等著我去讀。 9 I was presented, from as early as I can remember, with books of my own, which appeared on my birthday and Christmas morning. Indeed, my parents could not give me books enough. They must have sacrificed to give me on my sixth or seventh birthday — it was after I became a reader for myselfthe tenvolume set of Our Wonder World. These were beautifully made, heavy books I would lie down with on the floor in front of the dining room hearth, and more often than the rest volume 5, Every Child39。 and there was Aesop and Reynard the Fox。 a whack of Pilgrim39。 I located myself in these pages and could go straight to the stories and pictures I loved。s Yellow Dwarf in full color making his terrifying appearance flanked by turkeys. Now that volume is as worn and backless and hanging apart as my father39。 and the only fort was to think I could ask my mother to do it for me.我父母真的是送給我再多的書都嫌不夠。那套書真漂亮，厚厚的，我總是帶著它躺在餐廳壁爐前的地板上，讀得最多的是第5卷：《兒童故事》。每篇故事都有精彩的插圖。如今這冊書已經(jīng)跟父親那本損壞的《桑福徳與默頓》一樣，又破又舊，最后幾頁掉了，書頁散了。m the only child I know of who grew up with this treasure in the house. I used to ask others, Did you have Our Wonder World? I39。 在所有認(rèn)識的孩子們當(dāng)中，我想自己是惟一有家藏寶庫伴隨著長大的孩子。 我感激父母通過認(rèn)識字母對我—— 早在我要求之時，而沒有讓我等待—— 進(jìn)行文字啟蒙，教我閱讀和拼寫。t hear. As my eyes followed the sentence, a voice was saying it silently to me. It isn39。s voice, or the voice of any person I can identify, certainly not my own. It is human, but inward, and it is inwardly that I listen to it. It is to me the voice of the story or the poem itself. The cadence, whatever it is that asks you to believe, the feeling that resides in the printed word, reaches me through the readervoice: I have supposed, but never found out, that this is the case with all readers — to read as listeners — and with all writers, to write as listeners. It may be part of the desire to write.t know. By now I don39。 從最初聽故事，到后來自己開始讀書，從來沒有一行讀過的字我不聞其聲。那不是母親的聲音，也不是我能辨認(rèn)的某個人的聲音，當(dāng)然也不是我本人的聲音。對我而言，那就是故事本身的聲音，就是詩本身的聲音。那或許是寫作欲望的一部分。我不知道我相信到這個程度是否對頭。我寫著，那聲音傳入耳內(nèi)，于是我聞聲而動，加以修改。Let39。 如果有一件事，既能增進(jìn)健康、減少患上食物引起的疾病的危險，又有助于保護(hù)環(huán)境、保護(hù)千萬動物安全生存，你做不做？m referring to is the choice you make every time you sit down to a meal. 一百多萬加拿大人已經(jīng)行動起來：他們決定不吃肉。 素食品的銷售額大大增加，前所未有。 animal foods increase it.一項又一項的研究都揭示了同樣的基本事實(shí)：果蔬降低患慢性病的危險；肉類食品則增加這種危險。 6 The American Dietetic Association says: Scientific data suggest positive relationships between a vegetarian diet and reduced risk for several chronic degenerative diseases.”ve been running the human biological engine on the wrong fuel.” 據(jù)威爾夫大學(xué)營養(yǎng)科學(xué)教授布魯斯?霍拉勃稱，這一“不合適的養(yǎng)料”致使加拿大每年用于治療變性疾病的費(fèi)用高達(dá)4000億（加）元。 9 Animal foods have serious nutritional drawbacks: They are devoid of fiber, contain far too much saturated fat and cholesterol, and may even carry traces of hormones, steroids and antibiotics. It makes little difference whether you eat beef, pork, chicken or fish.牛肉、豬肉、雞肉或魚肉都一樣。 10 Animal foods are also gaining notoriety as breeding grounds for E. coli, campylobacter and other bacteria that cause illness. According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, six out of ten chickens are infected with salmonella. It39。 Russian roulette with your health.據(jù)加拿大食品檢驗機(jī)構(gòu)稱，十分之六的雞染有沙門氏菌。t governments doing anything about this? Unfortunately, they have bowed to pressure from powerful lobby groups such as theBeefInformationCenter, the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency and the Dairy Farmers of Canada. According to documents retrieved through the Freedom of Information Act, these groups forced changes toCanada39。 既然如此，政府為什么不采取任何措施？很遺憾，政府屈服于強(qiáng)有力的院外活動集團(tuán)的壓力，如牛肉信息中心、加拿大禽蛋營銷公司、加拿大乳牛場場主協(xié)會等。 這并不奇怪。 健康和食品安全是選擇素食生活方式令人信服的理由，但此外還有更為重大的因素要考慮。 想一想培育、飼養(yǎng)、建牲畜欄、運(yùn)輸、加工和包裝加拿大每年宰殺的5億頭牲畜所需的巨大資源。阿爾伯達(dá)農(nóng)業(yè)署估計，生產(chǎn)肉耗費(fèi)的能源比生產(chǎn)谷物多10－20倍。 15 Less than a quarter of our agricultural land is used to feed people directly. The rest is devoted to grazing and growing food for animals. Ecosystems of forest, wetland and grassland have been decimated to fuel the demand for land. Using so much land heightens topsoil loss, the use of harsh fertilizers and pesticides, and the need for irrigation water from dammed rivers. If people can shift away from meat, much of this land could be converted back to wilderness.其余的都用來放牧和種飼料。土地的大量利用加劇了表土的流失，增加了會帶來負(fù)面作用的化肥和殺蟲劑的施用，增加了從筑有水壩的河流中引水灌溉的需求。 問題在于，動物在把植物轉(zhuǎn)化為可食用的肉類這方面的效率很低。 我們把這么多資源耗費(fèi)在動物身上，又得到什么回報呢？糞肥—— 據(jù)官方資料，僅加拿大，就以每秒10,000多公斤的速度排出。安大略省農(nóng)業(yè)部估測，一家大型禽蛋工廠每星期可產(chǎn)出50－100噸禽糞。 18 And where does it go? In the 1992 Ontario Groundwater Survey, 43 per cent of tested wells were contaminated with agricultural runoff containing fecal coliform bacteria and nitrates. Earlier this month, charges were laid against a largeAlbertafeedlot operator for dumping 30 million litres of cattle manure into theBowRiver, killing everything in its path, as a news story described it.本月初，阿爾伯達(dá)一家大型圍欄肥育地經(jīng)營者被指控將3千萬升牛糞排入博河，“沿途生靈悉數(shù)被毀”，一則新聞這么報道。 19 And then there is methane, a primary contributing gas in global warming and ozone layer depletion. Excluding natural sources, 27 per cent ofCanada39。s methane es from livestock.不把天然沼氣資源包括在內(nèi)，加拿大27%的沼氣、全世界20%的沼氣都來自牲畜。 20 John Robbins, author of the Pulitzer prizenominated book Diet for a New America (Group West), said it best when he stated: Eating lower on the food chain is perhaps the most potent single act we can take to halt the destruction of our environment and preserve our natural resources.”s factoryfarmed animals live short, miserable, unnatural lives.當(dāng)今工廠化農(nóng)場的牲畜壽命極短，過著悲慘的、不正常的生活，這已是公認(rèn)的事實(shí)。 22 As part of my research at theUniversityofWaterloo, I toured some of the country39。 作為我在沃特盧大學(xué)研究工作的一部分，我參觀過一些全國最大的“加工”廠。 我見到“固執(zhí)”的牛被打、尖叫著的豬在屠宰室被人用電卡鉗追逐。 24 I looked on in utter shock as a cow missed the stun gun and was hoisted fully conscious upside down by it