THE VOMITORIUM, PLEASE...

There's something about the International Federation of Competitive Eating, which sanctions such world-consuming events as Nathan's Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog-Eating Contest and the Krystal Square Off World Hamburger Eating Championship, that gives me an unsettling gut feeling, sort of like swallowing a few dozen hamburgers after dipping them in water so I can swallow them faster to win an eating competition.

Maybe it's just the idea of competitive eating itself, which makes literally gross mockery of worthy human endeavor, balanced living and altruistic behavior, like cutting 700 million dollars off of food stamps while giving Bill Gates a billion-dollar tax cut. But of course, Takeru Kobayashi isn't a Republican.

The news that Kobayashi, who hails from Echo's Nagano Prefecture - and who has held the Nathan’s Hot Dog-scarfing crown for several years now - has won the Krystal Hamburger crown for the second year in a row (by eating 67 water-dipped hamburgers), just doesn’t seem to be the kind of thing you'd want to wave a flag about, but I suppose they will, up in Nagano...

Perhaps I'm just being a bit oversane...