OPINION:
I was horrified by the Times’ front-page article on Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, which ran along with a photo of contestant Joey Chestnut stuffing food into his mouth, his cheeks already bulging with food (“No hero like him,” July 4). A hero? No way!
The article states that event organizer and host George Shea would be introducing each competitor. Mr Chestnut, it said, would “try to eat more than 70 hot dogs … as millions of people watch. To Chestnut and Mr. Shea, there’s no better way to celebrate American independence.”
There ought to be a law against eating contests. What is their redeeming social value when many people don’t have enough to eat and others battle the medical issues caused by obesity?
Compare this article with an editorial in the previous day’s issue of the Times: “The sacrifices for independence” (B2 ). Columnist Michael McKenna reminds readers of “the cost of the American Revolution paid by those who fought it … The British captured five signers [of the Declaration of Independence] during the war …The British destroyed homes and property. … Thomas Jefferson was forced to flee for his life when the British under Gen. Benedict Arnold invaded Virginia … Men died in their doorways, and they died far from home. They died under bushes, and they bled to death in the arms of their compatriots. They died from disease in the camps and prisons. Still they thought all the death and injury and illness were worth it.”
The signers of the Declaration, who pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor, did not risk everything to enable 21st-century Americans to gorge themselves in eating contests on July 4. Our Founders and those who made the ultimate sacrifice in the Revolution must be turning over in their graves.
DIANE ISABELLE REINKE
Silver Spring, Maryland
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