Sunday, July 31, 2005


Let them eat yellowcake

During every Baby Boomer's childhood, the operative parental injunction for fussy eaters was, "Eat your food.  People are starving in Europe."  Presumably this was a reference to Berliners picking through the postwar rubble.

These days, with Europeans vying with Americans for obesity honors, the famine venue has shifted to nations like Niger, hitherto best know  for false allegations by the Bush regime that the country was supplying yellowcake uranium for Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program -- which later triggered the continuing scandal over the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame by Karl Rove.

This weekend, in an unintentional slap in the face to the people of Niger, ESPN's broadcast from Las Vegas featured the Alka Seltzer US Open of Competitive Eating, a sporting event that rivals for excitement ESPN's previous broadcasts of the National Spelling Bee and the World Series of Poker.

While the commentators provided expert analysis on such little-known athletic attributes as jaw speed, esophagous width, cheek size and stomach capacity, the competitors literally stuffed their faces with such comestibles as salad, chili, spaghetti bolognese, and potato skins, racing against each other to see who could injest the most within a predetermined time period.

Contrary to what one might suppose, the largest competitors did not turn out to be the fastest eaters.  The champion is a diminutive young man from Japan named Takeru Kobayashi.  He's a legend in the world of competitive eating and has been winning the Nathan's hot dog eating championship in Brooklyn for years.  Kobayashi seems to have the uncanny ability to inhale his food, leaving his opponents choking and sputtering in his wake.

Presumably if the ratings for this Competitive Eating event turn out to be high enough, ESPN will follow it with the US Open of Competitive Regurgitating and Excreting, sponsored by Pepto-Bismol and Ex-lax .  It will not be broadcast in Niger.


11:20:10 AM