Shame

"When they were filled, he said unto his disciples,

Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost." John 6:12

It's a story the news media normally reserves for the "less serious" portion of the broadcast. You know, those last five minutes of the newscast where surfing dogs and what celebrities like to drive take center stage. The casual and humorous treatment of what is a tragic endorsement of gluttony and waste make the focus and main complaint of this post both exasperating and upsetting. What am I referring to? How about those insufferable eating contests that actually have an international organization (International Federation of Competitive Eating) that oversees speed-gorging tournaments. American speed-eater Joey Chestnut (featured here on the left) of San Jose, California is the current world record holder for competitive eating, stuffing 59 hot dogs in just ten minutes. Oh, Joey, you make both your parents and country so proud! I'm sure you don't regurgitate a morsel of food after a splurge of that magnitude.

I don't mean to sound rigid, but these contests make a sport out of misuse and squander at the expense of human beings around the world who go without food, not to mention those who actually starve to death. There are varying global statistics on the yearly number of people who are malnourished, but most evaluations place the number between 840 and 854 million human beings, which includes up to 16,000 children dying each day of starvation.

Remember this picture from 1993?