Can't Have a Job If You're Dead

　　Finding a job in Brazil may be tough, especially when your records say that you are dead, as 25-year-old unemployed driver Marcio Freitas da Silva discovered. The problem is that when another man of the same name and age died three years ago, coroners wrote the names of the living da Silva's parents in the death certificate, "murdering" him for official records. "It's a humiliating situation when others make mistakes and I have to prove that I'm alive," da Silva told Globo television, complaining that he had been told during his ordeal that a dead man "cannot drive vehicles on federal highways." The civil registry office has already revitalized da Silva, but the new documents, issued late last year, have not reached most government offices. Globo showed an election official eagerly explaining to da Silva that, alive or not, he could not vote while his record said he was dead.





找不到工作的“死者” 

　　25岁的失业司机马西奥·弗雷塔斯·达·席尔瓦发现，在巴西找份工作不太容易，尤其是在你已经被有关记录宣布为死人之后。问题出在三年之前：当时有一个跟达·席尔瓦同名同龄的人死了，而验尸官把活着的这位达·席尔瓦的双亲姓名填在了死亡证书上，就此在官方记录上“谋杀”了他。“这样的处境令人难堪——别人犯了错误，而我却必须去证明自己还活着，”达·席尔瓦对环球电视说。他抱怨道，在找工作的艰苦历程中，别人曾对他说一个死人“不能在联邦高速公路上驾驶交通工具。”巴西的公民登记处已经“复活”了达·席尔瓦，但去年年底发出的新文件还没有到达大多数的政府部门。环球电视的报道中有这样的镜头：一名选举事务官员正在急切地向达·席尔瓦解释，不管是死是活，他都不能参加投票——只要记录显示他已经死了。


　　Remarks：这从一个方面解释了为什么我们害怕有一天会被电脑或机器统治——在越来越电脑化的世界里，很多时候，活生生的人(或事实)已经不如机械的“记录”有说服力了。

来源：《英语学习》