Where Man Eats Dog Homos Homini Lupus Est

And this has nothing to do with Korea. Nada!
Last night, immediately before the World Cup semi final Germany: Italy, the ESPN (on the web) featured another grand sporting event: the hot-dog eating competition on Coney Island. N.Y. The venue was packed, even the Mayor of New York Bloomberg was there choking his dog.

Fast eating competitions are nothing new, of course. I remember watching a hotdog eating competition in Toronto. What I don't remember is being saddened and disguested by this 'sport.'

Contestants of all shapes, sizes, skin colour, complete with one token woman, had 12 minutes to inhale as many hot dogs as possible. The winner was the previous world-record holding dog-eater from Japan, a certain Kobayashi, nicknamed "the Tsunami." More distaste to something that's already hard to swallow, anyone? He ate - brace yourselves - a total of 53.5 hotdogs, failing to break his own record of 54 dogs last year (complete with hot dog buns, of course).
A long row of people were attacking their junk food like a pack of hungry wolves, only 10 times worse. To watch it is humiliating: the dogs are chomped down at an utterly unbelievable speed; the contestants dip them in water to make them soggy and easier to swallow (can it get more unappetizing - a wet dog?). There's even a vegetarian guy in the competition who foresakes his 'principles' for the sake of this sport. Yes, dears, that's what they call it right there on the ESPN: sport. Also used are most unlikely words: hard training, fine sportsmen and - my favourite! - fine eaters.

I am not holier than thou, but c'mon, in the world of millions of people starving to have such competitions is indecent.

The ridiculousness of the event was made more striking since it aired minutes before the semi-final World Cup match Germany : Italy. I know what you might be thinking: what's the difference, to all their own fun. I don't see soccer as sacred or more important to humanity then hot dog eating. Heck, this cup shows that all nations' fans are more nationalistic and less brotherly than ever.
Nevertheless, watching the fit elegant players perform their nimble foot dance is aesthetically pleasing - and there's something to be said about the aesthetics.

All those lean muscles sweeping across the soccer field may also inspire a couch potato or two to get off their namesake and into the gym as soon as the World Cup is over. The players, - their greed, nationalism and arrogance aside, - are fine specimen of the male human. They don't train gobbling up hundreds of hot dogs and promoting obesity that's spreading all over the world at a terrifying rate. They train running and weight lifting, tackling that ball for hours on end - and for their efforts they look way yummier than the soggy ESPN hot dogs and the 'fine eaters' who abuse them.

Shame, shame! Millions are spent on organizing such ridiculous events - and all this in the country where millions hover just above the poverty line, and in the world where millions are starving. "Panis et circenses" for ME, MYSELF and ME - and the Emperor happily obliges spreading his empire across the starving planet.
All those hot dogs gave me a bad case of indigestion. A series of disjointed dreams kept haunting in the early morning hours. In one of the dreams I go to a high school reunion, but instead of the expected festivities we were forced to take a test in Latin. If any of you had Latin in high-school, you'll know the pain of memorizing the Latin grammar and proverbs. In my dream I was panicking because something big depended on my success (alas, I can't remember what). Just as I was about to throw in the towel, a female voice started whispering the phrases to my ear and my hand started producing them in the most elegant curvy panmanship, like my mother's used to be in the few letters that she sent me.

Me writing Latin is not nearly as weird as it'd be if I had never studied Latin. I had to suffer through 2 years of it in high school. To tell the truth, I only say "suffer" because that's what people usually say about studying Latin -- in reality I enjoyed it - minus the tests of course. I liked the sparcity and precision of a Latin phrase, its cleverness and the truth behind it. It was about twenty years ago when I had to learn the phrases. Out of the blue, they broke out of the cobwebbed corners of my memory to play cameos in my dreams: Historia Magistra Vitae Est, Mens Sana in Corpore Sanum, Dum Spiro Spero, Omnia Mea Maecum Porto, and on and on. The dream was interrupted by another dream which involved a young handsome relative of mine who's a priest -and a very scholarly one at that. He's been attending all kinds of Catholic grad schools in Rome, Vienna, and people say with his looks and talent he'll end up being the Pope one day. Well, in my dream, he was dead and burried and I was digging him out. The moment I swept the dirt off his pale face he opened his amazing green eyes, smiled at me and said: 'you can do this with everyone.' Selfishly, I left him in his coffin and started running to the graves of my mother and grandmother ecstatic that I'd be able to revive them. But I never made it. I woke up, only to fall asleep again and dream about students stealing the exam sheets from my office.
Those hot dogs, eh? They should come with a warning: "May cause nightmare."