Eating

Stories about eating are forever in the news.  And July 4th can be counted on to give us news of the Coney Island hot dog eating contest at Nathan's. This is when the invited eat an ungodly number of hot dogs, each with a bun, and someone is declared a winner after 10 minutes of supervised and televised gluttony.

For the past several years the event has been won by Joey Chestnut, who for some reason is not a champion NASCAR driver, but rather a champion chomper.

But for the true followers of the sport, this year's story was dominated by the ex-champion, Takereu Kobayashi, who won the title six straight times between 2001 and 2006.  Due to a dispute with the promoters, and after crashing the event last year and getting arrested, Mr. Kobayashi staged his own contest, simultaneous to the one held in Brooklyn.  He ate more hot dogs than Mr. Chestnut, apparently under exact circumstances, but of course is not recognized as the winner.  His was a non-sanctioned event.

The news stories were as much about him as they were about the main event at Surf and Stillwell Avenues. And in one of these stories the life of a champion eater is further revealed.  They apparently don't just eat hot dogs, but compete with other forms of food, or at least what can be ingested, digested, and doesn't kill them. Yet.

The mental capacity of a cow is probably something someone has seldom thought about.  You assume they might be dumb, but hey, they're so useful, in so many ways that the question of turning to them for teaching has likely never come up.

I don't have a basis for more comparative anatomy, but perhaps none is needed.  In one news story Mr. Kobayashi is described as holding "the record for eating cow brains-57 in 15 minutes."

Mr. Kobayashi is a champion eater, but 57 brains in 15 minutes makes you wonder how big can a cow's brain be to begin with?  No wonder they don't go very far.

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