美国《时代》周刊2005年的年度人物可能压根不是一个人。

    本周一，《时代》周刊举行了年度人物提名小组讨论会，会上讨论了谁将成为12月19日出版的《时代》周刊的封面人物，大自然母亲在非正式候选者名单中名列榜首。

    12月18日之前，年度人物的人选将一直保密。届时，结果将公布在《时代》杂志的网站上，但广大美国民众都会热衷于猜测到底谁符合当选的要求，“当选者应该是本年度对新闻和人们生活影响最大的人，不管这种影响是好是坏，而且他也最能体现当年发生的重要事件，无论是好是坏。”

    大自然母亲制造了各种自然灾害，从亚洲海啸到卡特里娜飓风，再到巴基斯坦地震，引起了方方面面的变化，从总统的种族政策、石油到基础设施和领导能力，美国国家广播公司新闻主播布赖恩·威廉姆斯说，他是年度评选小组的成员之一。

    “她暴露了我们整个体系中存在的许多缺陷和裂痕，”他说。

    其他候选人包括被称为“对紧急事件第一个做出反应”的阿诺瑞中将，卡特里娜飓风发生后，他是负责军事救援行动的指挥官；伊拉克基地组织头目、约旦人扎卡维；美国国务卿赖斯；微软公司创始人比尔·盖茨因出资抗击疟疾而榜上有名；还有哈里波特系列丛书的作者J·K·罗琳。

    “年度人物”不总是一个人。“美国大兵”曾荣获2003年《时代》年度人物；1988年，当选者是“危机中的地球”；而在1966年，当选者则是“全美25岁以下的年轻人”。

    《时代》周刊年度人物评选的传统开始于1927年该杂志编辑上遇到的一次尴尬。当时《时代》周刊因为一时疏忽没有把飞行员查尔斯·林德博格那次具有历史意义的独自横跨大西洋飞行作为封面故事，于是在那一年年底，杂志编辑决定评选林德博格为年度风云人物来补偿过失。

    有一些臭名昭著的人物也曾“榜上有名”，比如1938年的当选者是阿道夫·希特勒。《时代》周刊2004年年度人物是美国总统布什。

    Time magazine's annual "Person of the Year" for 2005 may not be a person at all.

    Mother Nature topped the unofficial list of nominees at a panel discussion held on Monday by the weekly magazine to debate who will grace the cover of the issue that hits newsstands on December 19.

    The choice is supposed to remain a secret until December 18, when it will be disclosed on the magazine's Web site, but it does become a parlour game in America to ponder who fits the criteria as "the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or for ill, and embodied what was important about the year, for better or for worse."

    Mother Nature -- encompassing natural disasters from the Asian tsunami to Hurricane Katrina and the Pakistan earthquake -- evokes issues ranging from presidential politics to race to oil to infrastructure and leadership, said NBC news anchor Brian Williams, one of the panellists gathered to debate the annual selection.

    "It has laid bare so many cracks and fissures in our system," he said.

    Other suggestions included so-called first responders to emergencies; Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, commander of military relief operations after Katrina; Jordanian-born Abu Musab al Zarqawi, leader of al Qaeda in Iraq; U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates for the money he has donated to fight malaria; and J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books.

    The person of the year is not always a person. Time selected "The American Soldier" in 2003, the "Endangered Earth" in 1988 and "The 25 and Under Generation" in 1966. 　

    The tradition grew out of an editorial embarrassment in 1927 when Time failed to put pilot Charles Lindbergh on its cover after his historic solo trans-Atlantic flight. At the end of that year, the editors decided to make him man of the year to remedy the oversight.

    Some selections have been notoriously unpopular with Time readers, such as Adolf Hitler in 1938. Time's 2004 Person of the Year was U.S. President George W. Bush.