Self-Evident

I can only imagine what George Washington would think of the fact that ESPN provided LIVE coverage of the Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest today. Coverage which I, Atta J. Turk, watched a good portion of, for the same reason I watch all sorts of bizarre things that I see on the teebee or the internets.

But I think the main reason I kept it on is because of the sheer ridiculousness of the announcers. The "analyst" -- yes, an analyst for competitive eating, go figure -- was so earnest and over-the-top in his treating this unholy gluttony as a competitive sport it was hysterical.

I swear at one point, the two competitors were described thusly.

The Japanese Guy, who is a "stick" but wins this every year was described as being "Michael Jordan", "Tiger Woods" and "Babe Ruth". Now the last one, I could see, given the Babe's passion for hotdogs, but otherwise, um, no.

But the American challenger, my hand to all that is holy, was described as "setting a standard for Italian American athletes like Joe DiMaggio, Mario Andretti, or Alberto Tomba".

Now, think about that for a minute -- not only are those asinine comparison's but Alberto Tomba is straight-Italian, there's no "American" in there.

Such are the inanities of our age.