(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
I'm Mary Tillotson. And I'm Steve Ember with the VOA Special English program PEOPLE IN AMERICA. Today, we tell about advice writer Ann Landers. Many newspapers in the United States have writers who give advice. Some are experts about issues like gardening, food, health or money. People will write to the expert about a problem and he or she will try to solve it. There also are advice writers who deal with the more personal issues in life. They answer questions about all kinds of things—love, children, mental health problems, morals. This was the kind of advice column that Esther Lederer wrote. She wrote it under the name of Ann Landers.
Mrs. Lederer did not study to become a newspaper writer. In fact, she did not finish her university studies at Morningside College, in Sioux City, Iowa. She was born in Sioux City on July fourth, nineteen eighteen. Her parents named her Esther Pauline Friedman. Esther's younger sister was born a few minutes later. She was given the same two first names in opposite order--Pauline Esther. The twins, Eppie and Popo as they were called, had two older sisters. Their father, Abraham Friedman, had come to the United States from Russia. He sold chickens when he first arrived. Soon, he became a successful businessman who owned movie theaters in several states. Eppie said she owed a lot to her parents and her childhood in the Middle West. She says both provided her with morals and values that helped her a lot in life.
Eppie Friedman was in college when she met Jules Lederer. She left school to marry him in nineteen thirty-nine. Mister Lederer was a businessman. He helped establish a car service called Budget Rent-A-Car. It became very successful. Mister and Mrs. Lederer had their first and only child, Margo, in nineteen forty. For years Eppie Lederer was happy to stay home and raise her child while her husband's business grew. They lived in Wisconsin at first. Mrs. Lederer became politically active in the Democratic Party there. In nineteen fifty-five, the Lederers moved to Chicago, Illinois. That same year, the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper held a competition among its employees. The paper wanted to find a replacement for its advice columnist who wrote under the name Ann Landers. Eppie Lederer heard about the competition from a friend at the paper and decided to enter. She was one of thirty people who sought the job. The competition was simple. Competitors were given several letters from people requesting help on different issues. The person who wrote the answers the newspaper officials liked best would win the job.
Mrs. Lederer used the help of powerful friends to decide the best advice. For example, one letter writer asked about a tree that dropped nuts on her property. The tree grew on land owned by someone else. The letter writer wanted to know what she could do with the nuts. Eppie Lederer decided that this was really a legal question so she sought help from a friend who knew about the law. That friend just happened to be a judge on the United States Supreme Court! Another letter was about a Roman Catholic Church issue. So Eppie Lederer talked to the president of a famous Catholic university, Notre Dame. The Chicago Sun Times reportedly called Mrs. Lederer a few days after the competition ended. When she answered the telephone a newspaper official said "Good Morning, Ann Landers."
The new Ann Landers discovered the job was not easy. She reportedly was deeply affected by many of the sad letters she received from troubled people. Mrs. Lederer later said that one Sun-Times editor helped her harden herself to those stories. He said she must separate herself from her readers and their problems. She said she would not have been successful in her work if it were not for that advice. Ann Landers' popularity grew quickly. She immediately established herself as different from advice writers of the past. She became known for her easy writing style and her often funny answers. She related to her readers as if they were old friends. She seemed to say exactly what she thought, even when doing so might hurt the feelings of those seeking help. Most people considered Ann Landers' advice to be good, common sense.
For example, early in her work a young person wrote to ask Ann Landers' opinion of sexual activity among teenagers. She explained her objection to such activity by saying, "a lemon squeezed too many times is considered garbage." As Ann Landers gained fame so did many of her words. People began to repeat some her short, pointed sentences. One of the most famous of these was when she told readers to "wake up and smell the coffee." She would use this comment when advice seekers seemed to be denying situations that made them unhappy or uncomfortable. Another well known Ann Landers saying was "forty lashes with a wet noodle." She would say this if she believed someone had done something mean, dishonest or just stupid. Ann Landers did not protect herself from such criticism, however. She often published letters from readers who argued against advice she had given. When she agreed with their criticism, she sometimes ordered the forty lashes for herself!
Ann Landers took a lot of risks in her column. She spoke out about many issues that some people considered offensive or socially unacceptable. She discussed homosexuality, alcoholism, drug dependency and mistreatment of children by parents, to list a few. Ann Landers also spoke out on political issues. She expressed her strong opposition to American involvement in the conflict in Vietnam. She was a major supporter of gun control and the right of a woman to choose to end a pregnancy. She also supported using animals in medical research. These opinions made her an enemy of several groups, including the National Rifle Association, abortion opponents, and animal protection organizations. But, their pressure did not appear to worry Ann Landers. In fact, she once said she felt proud that these groups hated her. Her political activism was sometimes powerful. She expressed her support of legislation for cancer research in her column in nineteen seventy-one. President Richard Nixon received hundreds of thousands of copies of the column from Ann Landers readers. He soon signed the one hundred million dollar National Cancer Act.
In nineteen seventy-five, Eppie Lederer's life changed. Her husband, Jules, told her he was involved with another woman. That relationship had been going on for several years. Mister and Mrs.Lederer separated. This experience affected Ann Landers' advice about seriously troubled marriages. She had always advised couples to stay together to avoid hurting their children. After her separation from her husband she wrote a column about her decision to end her marriage. She received tens of thousands of letters from her readers offering their support and sympathy. Ann Landers continued to suggest that a husband and wife in a troubled marriage seek counseling. But she was now more willing to consider that a marriage might be beyond repair. Eppie Lederer's sister Popo also became an advice columnist. Her column was called "Dear Abby." Like Ann Landers, Dear Abby was published in thousands of newspapers. Some reports say the competition between the two advice columns led to a dispute between the twin sisters. They reportedly did not speak for five years.
Eppie Lederer's daughter, Margo Howard, is an advice columnist as well. But, neither her daughter or her sister won the kind of fame and following that Ann Landers did. Her column appeared in The Chicago Tribune and about one thousand two hundred other newspapers around the world. Her advice reached tens of millions of people every day. That was her goal. She said having many readers was more important to her than winning a famous prize. In January, two thousand two, doctors discovered that Eppie Lederer had multiple myeloma. It is a very serious form of cancer of the bone marrow. Her death came just six months later, on June twenty-second. She was eighty-three. Eppie Lederer owned the rights to the Ann Landers name and did not want it to be used after she died. So millions of people around the world have received the last words of advice from Ann Landers.
重点解析
1.deal with 处理
I can't deal with your personal problems.
我不能处理你的个人问题。
2.under the name of 以…的名义
She attended the lecture under the name of her sister.
她以她姐姐的名字参加了演讲。
3.columnist 专栏作家
Clarence Page is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune.
克拉伦斯·佩奇是《芝加哥论坛报》的专栏记者。
4.happen to be 碰巧是；恰巧是
I happen to be an aficionado of the opera, and I love art museums
碰巧我是个歌剧迷，而且我爱去艺术博物馆。
5.separate from 分离；把…和…分开
Keep your social life separate from the job.
把你的生活和工作分清楚。
6.speak out 畅所欲言；大胆地说
Viktor Shklovsky spoke out in defence of the book
维克多·什科洛夫斯基为这本书公开辩护。
参考译文
我是玛丽·蒂洛森。我是史蒂夫·恩贝尔。这里是VOA慢速英语栏目《美国人物志》。今天我们将讲述建议专栏作家安·兰德斯的故事。在美国很多报社都一些为读者提建议的作家。一些作家是解决园艺、食品、健康或理财问题的专家。人们给这些专家写信提问，然后专家会尝试帮助解决问题。还有一些是处理更加私密问题的建议作家。他们回答各种问题，比如爱、孩子、心理健康问题和道德问题。埃丝特·莱德尔写的就是这种建议专栏。她在该专栏的笔名为安·兰德斯。莱德尔太太为成为一名报纸作家而进行专门的学习。其实，她都没有完成莫宁赛德学院的大学课程，这所大学位于爱荷华州苏城。
1918年7月4日，她在苏城出生。她的父母给她取名为埃丝特·波林·弗里德曼。埃丝特的妹妹比她晚几分钟出生，她的名字和姐姐的正好相反，她叫波林·埃丝特。这对双胞胎，爱贝和波波有两个姐姐。她们的父亲亚伯拉罕·弗里德曼从俄罗斯来到美国。刚到这里时，他以买小鸡为生。很快，他成为了一名成功的商人，几个州的电影院都归他所有。爱贝说她很感激她的父母和她在中西部的童年。她说两者带给她的道德品行和价值观对她有很大帮助。爱贝·弗里德曼在大学时期遇到了朱尔斯·莱德尔。1939年，她辍学和他结婚了。莱德尔先生是一位商人。他帮助成立了一家汽车服务公司—Budget Rent-A-Car。公司非常成功。1940年，莱德尔夫妇第一个也是唯一一个孩子出生了。
多年来，爱贝·莱德尔开心地在家里带孩子，而她的丈夫则经营着生意。起初，他们住在威斯康星州。在那里莱德尔太太活跃在民主党中。1955年，莱德尔夫妇搬到伊利诺斯州芝加哥。同年，《芝加哥太阳报》在员工间举办了一场比赛。报社想要为笔名为安·莱德尔的建议专栏作家寻找替补人选。爱贝·莱德尔从一个报社朋友那听说了这个比赛并决定参加比赛。她是三十个参加比赛的人之一。比赛很简单。报社给了参赛者几封读者的来信，这些读者想要寻求帮助。报社的领导最喜欢谁的回信，谁就可以获得这份工作。莱德尔太太在一些有影响力的朋友的帮助下给出了最好的建议。例如，一位写信者的问题是一棵树上结出的坚果掉在了自己家院里。但这棵树是别人家的。这位写信者想知道她该怎么处理这些坚果。爱贝·莱德尔认为这是一个法律问题，所以她从一位懂法的朋友那寻求帮助。那位朋友恰好是美国高等法院的一名法官！另一封信是关于罗马天主教会的问题。所以爱贝·莱德尔和一所著名天主教大学圣母大学的校长进行了交谈。
据称《芝加哥太阳报》在比赛结束后几天就给莱德尔太太打了电话。当她接起电话时，报社的官员说”早上好，安·兰德斯。”这位新的安·兰德斯发现这份工作并不容易。据称她收到了很多深受困扰的读者的来信，而这些悲伤的来信深深的影响了她。之后莱德尔太太表示《芝加哥太阳报》的一位编辑帮助她在面对那些故事时变得更加坚强。他说她必须将自己和读者以及读者的问题分割开来。她说如果不是因为他的建议，她不会取得成功。
安·兰德斯的知名度迅速上升。她即刻形成了自己与众不同的风格，和以往的建议专栏作家很不一样。她以自己简单的写作风格和有趣的回答而出名。她和读者的关系像是老朋友一样。她会表达出自己真实的想法，即便这么做会伤害到求助者的感情。大部分人认为安·兰德斯的建议是很棒，也成为了人们的常识。例如，在她的早期回信中，一位年轻人写信询问安·兰德斯关于青少年性行为的看法。她解释了自己对这种行为的反对，她说，“一颗被挤压太多次的柠檬会被认为是垃圾。”
安·兰德斯名声大噪，她说的一些话也很出名。人们开始反复引用她简单精辟的句子。其中名言之一是她告诉读者“醒醒吧，面对现实。”当寻求建议的读者拒绝面对让他们不开心或不适的现实时，她就会用上这句话。另一句名言是“用一个根湿面条抽打四十下。”如果她认为某人做了刻薄、不诚实或愚蠢的事情时，她就会这么说。但安·兰德斯对那些批评并不防范。她经常会将那些质疑她建议的读者的来信刊登出来。当她同意他们的批评时，她也会给自己四十鞭子！在专栏中，安·兰德斯冒了很多险。她大胆地说出了很多问题，一些人会认为这些问题很具攻击性或是不被社会所接受。例如，她会讨论同性恋、酗酒、药瘾、父母虐待等问题。
安·兰德斯还谈论政治问题。她对美国参加越战表示强烈反对。她是枪支管控以及女性终止妊娠权利的主要支持者。她还支持动物药物研究。这些观点让她成为几个组织的敌人，包括美国步枪协会、堕胎反对组织以及动物保护组织。但他们的压力并没有影响到安·兰德斯。其实她曾说过，她为这些组织痛恨她而感到自豪。她的政治实践主义有时非常有力。1971年，她在自己的专栏中表达了对癌症研究立法的支持理查德·尼克松总统收到了成千上万封安·兰德斯的读者寄来的专栏复印件。很快他便签署了价值一亿美元国家癌症法案。
1975年，爱贝·莱德尔的生活发生了改变。她的丈夫朱尔斯告诉她，他和别人的女人有婚外情。那段恋情已经维系了几年。莱德尔夫妇分开了。这一经历影响了安·兰德斯对陷入严重婚姻问题所给出的建议。之前她一直建议夫妻不要离婚，不要伤害他们的孩子。和丈夫离婚后，她写了一篇专栏宣布了她离婚的消息。她收到了数万读者的支持和同情。安·兰德斯继续建议那些出现婚姻问题的夫妻去寻求咨询。但现在她更愿意认为婚姻或许是无法修复的。
爱贝·莱德尔的姐姐也成为了一名建议专栏作家。她的专栏名为《Dear Abby》。和安·兰德斯一样，《Dear Abby》也在数千报纸上发表。一些报道称两个建议专栏的竞争导致了双胞胎姐妹的争吵。据称，她们五年没讲过话。爱贝·莱德尔的女儿玛戈·霍华德也是一名建议专栏作家。但她的女儿和妹妹都没有取得她那样的名气。她的专栏登上了《加哥论坛报》和全球约1200多家其他报社报纸。她的建议每天抵达至数千万人手中。这是她的目标。她说拥有众多读者比获得著名奖项更加重要。2002年1月，医生发现爱贝·莱德尔患上了多发性骨髓瘤。这是一种非常严重的骨髓癌症。仅六个月后，也就是在6月22日，她去世了，年83岁。爱贝·莱德尔获得了安·兰德斯的笔名权，在她去世后，这个笔名就不再使用了。所全世界数百万人收到了安·兰德斯的遗言。
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