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|Genesis Brʾeišyt
Leviticus Wayiqra
Deuteronomy Devarim
Followed by Book of Jeremiah
|Exodus Šemot
Numbers Bəmidbar
Genre Religious text
|Similar Religious Texts, Biblical books, Other books
The wisdom of solomon entire book the book of wisdom
The Book of Wisdom (or Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom, Book of the Wisdom of Solomon), is one of the books of the Bible. It is considered scripture, classified as deuterocanonical (meaning "second canon", "secondary canon", or "of secondary authority") by the Roman Catholic Church and similarly, anagignoskomenon (Gr. ἀναγιγνωσκόμενον, meaning "that which is to be read") by the Eastern Orthodox Church. Protestant churches generally consider it to be non-canonical (apocryphal), and thus not Biblical "scripture". It is one of the seven Sapiential or wisdom books included within the Septuagint, along with Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs (Song of Solomon), Job, and Sirach.
- The wisdom of solomon entire book the book of wisdom
- Canonicity
- Date and authorship
- Philosophical influences
- Relation to other Jewish writings
- Passover Hagaddah
- Jewish Liturgy
- Personification of Wisdom
- Wisdom 2
- References
The Book of Wisdom should not be confused with the Wisdom of Sirach, a work from the 2nd century BC, originally written in Hebrew.
Eusebius wrote in his Church History that Bishop Melito of Sardis in the 2nd century AD considered Wisdom of Solomon as part of the Old Testament (without necessarily using the term "canonical"), and that it was considered canonical by Jews and Christians. On the other hand, the contrary claim has been made: "In the catalogue of Melito, presented by Eusebius, after Proverbs, the word Wisdom occurs, which nearly all commentators have been of opinion is only another name for the same book, and not the name of the book now called 'The Wisdom of Solomon'." An Aramaic translation of the Wisdom of Solomon is mentioned by Naḥmanides in the preface to his commentary on the Pentateuch.
Athanasius writes that the book of Wisdom and three other deuterocanonical books, while not being part of the Canon, "were appointed by the Fathers to be read".
Epiphanius of Salamis (c. 385 AD) mentions that the Wisdom of Solomon was of disputed canonicity.
Augustine (c. 397 AD) writes in his book On Christian Doctrine (Book II Chapter 8) that the Wisdom of Solomon and other deuterocanonical books are Canonical books.
According to the monk Rufinus of Aquileia (c. 400 AD), the book of Solomon and other deuterocanonical books were not called Canonical but Ecclesiastical books.
Pope Innocent I (405 AD) sent a letter to the bishop of Toulouse citing the book of Solomon as a part of the Old Testament Canon.
The Decretum Gelasianum which is a work written by an anonymous scholar between 519 and 553 contains a list of books of Scripture presented as having been made Canonical by the Council of Rome under Pope Damasus I, bishop of Rome 366-383. This list mentions too the book of Solomon as a part of the Old Testament Canon.
The Synod of Hippo (in 393), followed by the Councils of Carthage (in 397 and 419), the Council of Florence (in 1442) and finally the Council of Trent (in 1546) listed the book of Solomon as a Canonical book.
Date and authorship
The book is believed to have been written in Greek language, but in a style patterned on that of Hebrew verse. Although the author's name is nowhere given in the text, the writer was traditionally believed to be King Solomon because of references such as that found in IX:7–8, "Thou hast chosen me to be a king of thy people, and a judge of thy sons and daughters: Thou hast commanded me to build a temple upon thy holy mount..." The formulation here is similar to that of Ecclesiastes I:12, "I, Koheleth, was king in Jerusalem over Israel," which also fails to denote Solomon by name, but leaves no doubt as to whom the reader should identify as the author. The early Christian community showed some awareness that the book was not actually authored by Solomon, as the Muratorian fragment notes that the book was "written by the friends of Solomon in his honour."
The traditional attribution of The Book of Wisdom to Solomon has been soundly rejected in modern times. Says the Catholic Encyclopedia: "at the present day, it is freely admitted that Solomon is not the writer of the Book of Wisdom, which has been ascribed to him because its author, through a literary fiction, speaks as if he were the Son of David." Although the book of Wisdom is also called the Wisdom of Solomon, it was most likely composed centuries after the death of King Solomon. Scholars believe that the book represents the most literary post-classical Greek language found in the Septuagint, having been written during the Jewish Hellenistic period (the 2nd or 1st century BC). The author of the text appears well versed in the popular philosophical, religious, and ethical writings adopted by Hellenistic Alexandria.
Evangelical biblical scholar Peter Enns proposed in his essay "Wisdom of Solomon and Biblical Interpretation in the Second Temple Period" that the author of Wisdom of Solomon was an Alexandrian Jew during the silent persecution initiated in Egypt under Caesar Augustus. During this period the Jews lost their citizenship and the surrounding culture started to worship the Emperor as a god which, according to Enns, is clearly hinted at by the unique choice of the word "sebasma" for "idol" – a word that is a clear reference to Sebastos, the Greek form for Latin title "Augustus". As such, the Book of Wisdom is an encouragement to refuse any compromise with idolatry and an exhortation for the rulers of the world, where the author identifies himself with Solomon to judge the contemporary world. Enns maintains that an identification of Pseudo-Solomon with Philo of Alexandria (as proposed by Jerome and others) is simply wrong, both because of some theological and stylistic grounds and because of the different character of the persecution against the Jews, as Caligula was a violent persecutor while Pseudo-Solomon addresses a non-violent persecution or discrimination. Peter Enns's theory identifies the author of Wisdom of Solomon as an Alexandrian Jew writing c. 26 BC. Some commentaries (such as the Jerusalem Bible ) mention Wisdom 14:22 ("Afterward it was not enough for them to err about the knowledge of God, but they live in great strife due to ignorance, and they call such great evils peace.") as a clear reference and condemnation of the so-called "Pax Romana" (starting in 29 BC under Caesar Augustus). The exclusive use of references to events prior to the Solomonic kingdom is a literary device the author used to make his work appear to be a genuine piece of Solomonic literature. The fact that Wisdom of Solomon is listed as one of the "five books of Solomon" at the Council of Carthage doesn't mean that the Council Fathers meant it to be a genuine work of the powerful king of Israel, because this list comprises Ecclesiasticus, whose author is mentioned by name as Jesus son of Sirach: the words "of Solomon" probably meant all wisdom literature in general, Solomon being the clearest representative for this virtue.
Philosophical influences
The philosophical influences on the Book of Wisdom may include those of Middle-Platonism. Some religious and ethical influences may also stem from Stoicism, found in the writings of the Alexandrian Jew, Philo, to whom Book of Wisdom has on occasion been wrongly attributed. (This is evident in the use of the four Stoic ideals, borrowed from Plato.) A sorites appears in Chapter 6 (v. 17–20). This logical form is also called chain-inference, "of which the Stoics were very fond."
One passage (Wis. 8:2–18) has notable similarity to Virtue's speech to Heracles in Xenophon's Memorabilia, Book 2, 1:37.
Relation to other Jewish writings
Although the Book of Wisdom is non-canonical in the Rabbinical Jewish tradition, the work was at least known to medieval Jews, as Rabbi Moses ben Nachman (Ramban) attests. That it was known to ancient Jews as well is trivially true, as that was the milieu of its composition.
Passover Hagaddah
According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, the last section (9:18–19:22) is devoid of all connection with what precedes it. The speaker is no longer Solomon, but the author or the saints (16:28, 18:6 et passim), who recite the history of Israel's redemption from Egypt and other enemies. In like manner, the words are not addressed to the kings of the earth (9:18; 10:20; 11:4, 9, 17, 21; et passim), but to God, the deliverer from the Red Sea. The whole appears on close observation to be part of a Passover Haggadah recited in Egypt with reference to Gentile surroundings, and it accordingly abounds in genuine haggadic passages of an ancient character.
Jewish Liturgy
It is of some interest that the philosophy which the Book of Wisdom in Chapter II puts in the mouths of the "ungodly," presumably the Epicureans, bears strong literary resemblance to a prominent passage from the Jewish High Holiday liturgy, "Man begins from dust and ends in dust" (אדם יסודו מעפר וסופו לעפר) from the Unetanneh Tokef prayer (cf. Genesis 3:19: כי עפר אתה ואל עפר תשוב). The relevant verses from Book of Wisdom (II:2–5) read in part, "the breath in our nostrils is as smoke... our body shall be turned to ashes, and our spirit shall vanish as the soft air... our life shall pass away as the trace of a cloud... and shall be dispersed as a mist... for our time is a very shadow that passeth away." The Unetanneh Tokef prayer seems to offer a close parallel: "As to man, his origin is dust and his end is dust... he is like a broken vessel of clay, like withering grass, a fading flower, a passing shadow, a drifting cloud, a fleeting breath, scattering dust, a transient dream."
If this similarity is more than coincidence or the common citation of a third text, such as Isaiah 40:7, it would not be the only instance of Apocryphal influences on the Jewish liturgy. Elements of Ben Sira are also found in the High Holiday service and other prayers.
Personification of Wisdom
There are found in the Book of Wisdom and other books of the wisdom literature to Wisdom as a personification with divine attributes.
In chapter seven, Wisdom is said to be "the fashioner of all things" (v. 22). Because she fashions all things, is "an associate in his [God's] works" (8:4), and is a "pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty" (7:25), Wisdom is eternal and one in being (consubstantial) with the Father. Because Wisdom is God's "creative agent", she must be intimately identified with God himself. One indication that personified Wisdom refers to the Messiah is the paraphrasing of Wis 7:26 in Heb 1:3a. Wis 7:26 says that "she is a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness." The author of Hebrews says of Christ: "He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power." Much like the Word is characterized in the prologue to the Gospel of John, wisdom is described as "a breath of the power of God... [that] renews all things... passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God... [and is] the active cause of all things, ...the fashioner of what exists" (Wis 7:25,27,8:5-6).
Furthermore, Wisdom speaks of personified Wisdom in a Trinitarian way at 9:17: "Who has learned your counsel, unless you have given wisdom and sent your holy spirit from on high?". The next verse says that salvation is an act of Wisdom. In Christianity salvation is an activity reserved for God, but it is here given to Wisdom, thus identifying them with one another.
Wisdom 2
Some may see the second chapter of the Book of Wisdom (Wisdom 2) as building up to a prophecy of Christ's passion. First the ungodly men are described (Wis 1:16–2:9), followed by their plotting against the righteous man (2:10–20). The passage describes in detail the treatment of Jesus by the Jewish authorities. The first indication for some that it is a prophecy of the Messiah is in verse 11. Where the RSV reads "weak", the Greek has "achreston" (ἄχρηστον), which some may claim is a play on the title Christos (Χριστός). Verse 12 is a quotation from the LXX version of Is 3:10; Is 3:10 was allegedly taken to refer to Jesus in the 1st-century Epistle of Barnabas. On the whole, this treatment of the suffering of the righteous man is heavily indebted to Isaiah; particularly the fourth Suffering Servant song (Is 52:13–53:12). Verse 13 uses pais (παῖς), child or servant, from Is 52:13. Verse 15 says his very sight is a burden, referencing Is 53:2. In verse 16 he calls God his father, which is thought to be based on a poor understanding of pais as in Is 52:13. Verse 18 is comparable to Is 42:1. Verse 19 makes reference to Is 53:7. A final reference to the Messiah is the righteous man's "shameful death" in verse 20. This death has been identified with Jesus' death on a cross, a cursed death hanging on a tree.
In the realm of Bible criticism and theology, all sorts of opinions are held by all sorts of persons. Some opine that the Gospel of Matthew may contain allusions to the Wisdom of Solomon in the structuring of Matthew's Passion Narrative. Supposed parallels between Wisdom and Matthew include the theme of testing, and the mocking of a servant of God's claim to be protected by God. Matthew's gospel teaches that Jesus is the suffering servant of God.
As another example of the myriad opinions and interpretations of the Bible: while some think that Wis 2:17–18, "Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life; for if the righteous man is God's son, he will help him, and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries," was an influence on Mt 27:43, "He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him; for he said, 'I am the Son of God.'" others see it as a reference to Ps 22:8 "He trusted on the LORD that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him."


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THIRTEEN's American Masters Launches Season 27 with Sister Rosetta Tharpe: The Godmother of Rock & Roll Premiering Friday, February 22 on PBS
New documentary celebrates unsung gospel guitar hero in honor of
Black History Month
Preview videos & connect with other cultural icons at pbs.org/americanmasters
American Masters opens its 27th season with the story of African-American gospel singer and guitar virtuoso Sister Rosetta Tharpe (March 20, 1915 – October 9, 1973). One of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Tharpe may not be a household name today, but the flamboyant superstar, with her spectacular playing on the newly electrified guitar, played a pivotal role in the creation of rock 'n' roll. Emmy®-winning filmmaker Mick Csáky uncovers her life, music and lasting influence in American Masters Sister Rosetta Tharpe: The Godmother of Rock & Roll, premiering nationally Friday, February 22 at 9 pm (ET) on PBS (check local listings) in honor of Black History Month.
Southern-born, Chicago-raised and New York-made, Sister Rosetta rose from poverty to become one of the world's most popular gospel singers and the first to cross over successfully into mainstream popular music. She introduced the spiritual passion of gospel into the secular world of rock 'n' roll, inspiring some of its greatest stars, including Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Little Richard. A natural-born performer and a rebel, "She could play the guitar like nobody else … nobody!" says Lottie Henry, a member of Tharpe's back-up vocal group The Rosettes. "Elvis loved Rosetta Tharpe," attests Gordon Stoker of The Jordanaires, who performed with both Sister Rosetta and Elvis. "Not only did he dig her guitar playing but he dug her singing too."
The child of poor cotton pickers, Sister Rosetta was born in Cotton Plant, Ark. At the age of six, she was taken by her evangelist mother Katie Bell to Chicago to join the Church of God in Christ, where she developed her distinctive performing style. In 1938, at the age of 23, she briefly left the church for show business, causing huge controversy when she performed songs laden with sexual innuendo in New York City venues such as the famed Cotton Club and Café Society, where she immediately became a favorite of both Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington. However, Sister Rosetta soon returned to her gospel roots and performed in packed churches and theatres throughout America and Europe, becoming one of America's most distinctive recording stars on radio and television during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.
American Masters Sister Rosetta Tharpe: The Godmother of Rock & Roll features archival performances and new interviews with Joe Boyd, tour manager of the 1964 American Folk, Blues and Gospel Caravan; Howard Carroll of gospel group The Dixie Hummingbirds, which toured frequently with Tharpe; Anthony Heilbut, gospel record producer and writer; life-long friend Roxie Moore; Ira Tucker, Jr., son of The Dixie Hummingbirds' Ira Tucker, Sr.; Tharpe biographer Gayle Wald; and others.
"I like to call Sister Rosetta Tharpe 'The Godmother of Rock & Roll' because of the huge influence she has had on so many popular musicians during the past 70 years — from Elvis, Johnny Cash and Etta James to Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townshend, Tom Jones, and Eric Clapton, through to the present," said Csáky, whose past films for American Masters include Bob Marley: Rebel Music (2001), which he executive produced, and Plácido Domingo: A Musical Life (1995), which he produced and directed.
"It is my great pleasure to present this British-made film about such a uniquely American woman. Sister Rosetta is unfortunately not known to many of us now, but we have all benefited from her gifts in the music she so deeply influenced," said Susan Lacy, creator and executive producer of American Masters.
Since its 1986 premiere, American Masters has earned 24 Emmy Awards — including eight for Outstanding Non-Fiction Series since 1999 and five for Outstanding Non-Fiction Special — 12 Peabodys, an Oscar, three Grammys, and two Producers Guild Awards. Now in its 27th season on PBS, the series is a production of THIRTEEN. WNET is the parent company of THIRTEEN and WLIW21, New York's public television stations, and operator of NJTV. For 50 years, THIRTEEN has been making the most of the rich resources and passionate people of New York and the world, reaching millions of people with on-air and online programming that celebrates arts and culture, offers insightful commentary on the news of the day, explores the worlds of science and nature, and invites students of all ages to have fun while learning.
To take American Masters beyond the television broadcast and further explore the themes, stories and personalities of masters past and present, the companion website (http://pbs.org/americanmasters) offers streaming video of select films, interviews, essays, photographs, outtakes, and other resources.
American Masters Sister Rosetta Tharpe: The Godmother of Rock & Roll is a production of Antelope South. A presentation of American Masters for THIRTEEN. Mick Csáky is writer, producer, and director. Tom Herington is editor. Gayle Wald is editorial consultant and Michael Miles is cameraman. Pauline Black is narrator. Susan Lacy is American Masters series creator and executive producer.
American Masters is made possible by the support of the National Endowment for the Arts and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding is provided by Rosalind P. Walter, Anne Ray Charitable Trust, Cheryl and Philip Milstein Family, The Blanche & Irving Laurie Foundation, Rolf and Elizabeth Rosenthal, Jack Rudin, The André and Elizabeth Kertész Foundation, Michael & Helen Schaffer Foundation, and public television viewers.
About WNET
In 2013, WNET is celebrating the 50th Anniversary of THIRTEEN, New York's flagship public media provider. As the parent company of THIRTEEN and WLIW21 and operator of NJTV, WNET brings quality arts, education and public affairs programming to over 5 million viewers each week. WNET produces and presents such acclaimed PBS series as Nature, Great Performances, American Masters, Need to Know, Charlie Rose and a range of documentaries, children's programs, and local news and cultural offerings available on air and online. Pioneers in educational programming, WNET has created such groundbreaking series as Get the Math, Oh Noah! and Cyberchase and provides tools for educators that bring compelling content to life in the classroom and at home. WNET highlights the tri-state's unique culture and diverse communities through NYC-ARTS, Reel 13, NJ Today and MetroFocus, the multi-platform news magazine focusing on the New York region
PhotosSorry, photography is no longer in rights for the web. Please contact Thirteen's Communications Department at 212.560.3022.

subset: commoncrawl


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Walk into any doctor's office around the country and chances are that you'll be the one in the hot seat. In fact, you probably assume that it's your M.D.'s responsibility to ask the questions, and it's your job to answer them. But your health—indeed, your very life—might depend on whether you ask a few key questions of your own.
"Do I really need this test?"
"Doctors often adhere to a better-safe-than-sorry philosophy, ordering tests just to protect themselves in the event of a lawsuit," says David Sandmire, M.D., coauthor of Medical Tests That Can Save Your Life. A full 16 percent of prostate-cancer screenings, for example, are unnecessary, say Harvard researchers. Since 80 percent of PSA results are false positives, thousands of men undergo needless biopsies each year. Another overused procedure: CT scans. The radiation from these tests causes an estimated 5,695 cancer cases a year, say British researchers. (See if you Really Need a PSA Test.)
"Where would you send your wife or children?"
Like our tax code and the judicial system, medicine is supposed to treat everyone equally, but it's clear that some people receive better treatment than others. "General practitioners who work within a particular system routinely refer patients to specialists within that health-care system," says Kevin Soden, M.D., coauthor of Special Treatment: How to Get the Same High-Quality Health Care Your Doctor Gets. "However, often times the best surgeon is in a completely different facility on the other side of town, and you can bet that's where your doctor would send his family."
More From Men's Health
"How many surgeries do you perform each year?"
Nowhere is the saying "practice makes perfect" more applicable than in the operating room. Urologists who perform more than 40 prostatectomies a year, for example, experience 50 percent fewer complications than those who perform fewer than 40. The same goes for hospitals performing more than 200 coronary bypass surgeries a year, according to a report in the journal Circulation. Bottom line: Your health hinges on your surgeon's experience.
"Can I schedule my surgery for the morning?"
Arrive early and you'll get the undivided attention of an alert medical staff. A study of 90,000 surgeries by researchers at Duke University found that patients who had operations in the morning were four times less likely to have anesthesia complications—nausea, post-op pain, fluctuating blood pressure—than those who had them in the afternoon.
"If I get sick, will you see me in the hospital?"
In the past 10 years, the number of hospitalists—a new breed of physicians who specialize in inpatient care—has grown from a few hundred to nearly 20,000. "So if you require hospitalization, odds are your primary-care physician won't be at your bedside," says Evan Scott Levine, M.D., author of What Your Doctor Won't (or Can't) Tell You. "You'll be dealing with a new doctor who doesn't know you or your medical history." Make sure your GP makes hospital calls.
"Do you earn bonuses based on performance?"
Before you schedule a surgery, check the hospital's physician reward system. Insurance companies reimburse hospitals based on the type of treatment provided, not the length of your stay. As a result, "Many hospitals pay their physicians bonuses based on how quickly they move patients out the door," says Dr. Levine. "Quality of care is sacrificed in the interest of increasing patient turnover."
"When did you graduate from medical school?"
In an analysis of 62 studies, researchers at Harvard Medical School discovered that doctors who have been out of medical school for more than 20 years were up to 48 percent less likely to stay up-to-date on developments in their fields. They are equally likely to be unaware of current treatment guidelines, such as prescribing aspirin to treat angina (chest pain caused by decreased blood flow to the heart). If you don't want to ask your doctor directly, check out how long it has been since he graduated at healthgrades.com.
"What the hell does that say?"
No doctor would prescribe Zoloft for high cholesterol, but that's what you might end up with if your pharmacist can't read Zocor in your doctor's chicken scratch. Poor penmanship isn't just an old stereotype; it's responsible for up to 61 percent of medication errors and more than 1.5 million patient injuries per year, according to a report from the National Academies of Sciences' Institute of Medicine. "If you can't read a prescription, chances are your pharmacist can't either," says Dr. Soden. "Get your doctor to print out the name of the medication."
"Will you remove that wedding ring?"
When scientists at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, analyzed the hands of 66 nurses, they found that those with wedding rings had 10 times more bacteria than those without. "Bacterial infections are the leading cause of death in American hospitals; about 98,000 people die from them each year," says Dr. Soden. "That means you can contract a secondary infection at the hospital."
"What else can I do to treat my condition?"
Studies suggest that diet and exercise are essential for treating and preventing everything from heart attacks to prostate cancer, yet only one in six doctors discusses how to use nutrition to prevent disease, according to a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Researchers in Colorado, meanwhile, found that only 28 percent of doctors mention exercise to their patients. Many primary-care physicians work with dietitians and trainers who can help treat patients with lifestyle-influenced health problems, such as type 2 diabetes. So even if your doctor doesn't have answers regarding nutrition and exercise, he likely knows someone who does.
Trevor Thieme is a Los Angeles-based writer and strength coach, and a former fitness editor at Men's Health. When not helping others get in shape, he splits his time between surfing, skiing, hiking, mountain biking, and trying to keep up with his seven year-old daughter.


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If NASA wants to land on an asteroid by 2025, it's going to need better ion thrusters.
You know, ion thrusters, the engines from Star Wars. TIE fighter, after all, stands for twin ion engine.
The agency's fiscal 2015 budget, released Tuesday, includes $133 million for the early stages of its mission to send astronauts to land on, capture, and redirect an asteroid. Included in its goals for the year? "Advancing solar electric propulsion and capture systems."
Solar electric propulsion is NASAspeak for ion thrusters, which hit xenon gas with an electrical charge, then emit it as exhaust at speeds of nearly 19 miles per second, propelling the spacecraft. That can send a ship at 10 times the speed of chemical propellants, though with much slower acceleration.
ion thruster in action. (Courtesy of NASA)
NASA's plan is to use its advanced ion thrusters to send a long-range ship equipped with robotics to capture an asteroid. That ship will then pull the asteroid closer to Earth, where astronauts can land on and study it.
The agency's previous budget asked for $105 million for the asteroid program.
Quelle: Nextgov
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S. Korean Churches Urge Prayers After N. Korean Attack
Church leaders in South Korea have asked for prayers after North Korea fired dozens of artillery shells on Tuesday, killing two South Korean marines and injuring more than a dozen people.
It was the first direct artillery attack on South Korean territory since the 1953 Korean War Armistice Agreement, according to South Korea's Yonhap News Agency.
The Christian Council of Korea's general secretary, the Rev. Kim Woon-Tae, said he couldn't help but feel shocked and worried after hearing the news.
He noted that it hasn't been long since a South Korean warship, the Cheonan, was sunk. It is suspected that North Korea torpedoed the warship that killed 46 sailors in March.
Some 100 artillery rounds were fired at Yeonpyeong Island Tuesday afternoon. The island is home to more than 1,600 residents, mostly fishermen and their families, and a marine corps base. South Korea's soldiers responded with more than 80 rounds of artillery. The exchange of fire lasted for about an hour.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said retaliation is needed, calling the provocation "an invasion of South Korean territory," as reported by Yonhap.
"I think enormous retaliation is going to be necessary to make North Korea incapable of provoking us again," he said, according to the South Korean news agency.
Stephen Bosworth, the U.S. special envoy on North Korean denuclearization, has urged restraint on both sides.
The United States condemned the attack and called on North Korea to halt "its belligerent action and to fully abide by the terms of the Armistice Agreement."
The 1953 agreement was intended to be a temporary measure of truce but has remained in place today with no peace treaty ever signed.
Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in Southern California has urged prayers.
In an early tweet, he stated, "Our South Korean churches ask for prayer as North Korea fired artillery shells across the border injuring 4 soldiers."
Meanwhile, CCK's Kim said he's praying for stability, peace and cooperation on the Korean peninsula as tensions remain high.
CCK has a membership of 63 denominations representing 10 million Christians in South Korea.


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Jewelry That Men Are Allowed to Wear
When you encounter the word jewelry what you immediately think about at first is that this is an item that can only be worn by women. That is why your reaction to your mom's gift to you of a bracelet is that of a complete surprise. Your immediate thought is that bracelets are only for women. But actually there are jewelry items that men can wear while they are out and about. You can read further to find out about it.
When one speaks of rings people usually think that the only rings for men that they can wear are their weddings rings. But if you make a quick search about you will find information on the other rings for men. If you search the topic on rings for men on the internet you would easily be able to find out about it.
Another kind of rings for men that men can put on their finger is the signet ring. What makes this ring special is that there are symbols that are engraved on it representing the family that one comes from. That is why they wear it proudly. Another type of ring that men can wear on their finger is their frat ring or university ring.
If you find yourself wanting to wear a ring that isn't any of those mentioned above of course you have the freedom to do so. But be sure that you choose rings for men that are simple and classic.
2. Bracelets
You might have an idea that such piece of jewelry can be worn by women only but men can wear them too. If you read up on it you will realize that this has become quite a trend for different people recently. There are different kinds of it that you can find being sold today to men.
Beaded bracelets
When it comes to this type of bracelet many men opt to wear the black ones because it makes them look more manly.
Leather bracelets
This is the most widely used type of bracelet among men. It is actually easy to match this bracelet with any outfit.
Bracelet Cuffs
Bracelet cuffs can be made out of different metals. When you wear this then you need to wear it on the arm that doesn't have your watch.
This is perhaps the most popular piece of jewelry that men wear. However not a lot of men see their watch as a form of jewelry. There are many designs and styles of watches that are available in stores now for men.
4. Cufflinks
This kind of jewelry is usually worn during formal events such as a black tie event.
5. Tie Clips
These serve the purpose of keeping your tie in place. Just because it serves a function does not mean that it need to be boring. You can make yours not boring by putting an engraving on it.
A 10-Point Plan for (Without Being Overwhelmed)
Jewelry That Men Are Allowed to Wear


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Hi, I'm a beginner in java.
I have to write a program that takes a string containing a sentence or a set of sentences, and counts the number of words in the sentence that meet or exceed a specified minimum length (in letters). For example, if the minimum length entered is 4, your program should only count words that are at least 4 letters long.
Input the string and the minimum word length (integer), in that order, and output the word count (integer). Words will be separated by one or more spaces. Non-letter characters (spaces, punctuation, digits, etc.) may be present, but should not count towards the length of words.
This is the code that I have written:
public class WordCount { public static void main(String [] args){ System.out.println("Enter a sentence:"); String sentence = IO.readString(); System.out.println("Enter the word length limit"); int limit = IO.readInt(); int sentencelength = sentence.length(); System.out.println("The sentence length is:" + sentencelength); int lettercount = 0; int finalcount = 0; for (int i=0; i < sentencelength; i++){ if (sentence.charAt(i) == ' '){ if (lettercount >= limit){ finalcount ++; lettercount = 0; } }else{ if(Character.isLetter(sentence.charAt(i))){ lettercount ++; } } } System.out.println("The number of words with a length of" + limit); IO.outputIntAnswer(finalcount); } }
If I input the string "The cow jumped over the barn and under the moon" and I input a limit of 2, my output should be 10. But my program is outputting 9. I figured out [by using system.out.println()]that my program does not count the letters of the last word in a sentence. How do I fix this bug?
Sorry, I'm new to this forum. I didn't know how to post my code. Is this better?


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Article from the American magazine Sexology October 1964 – Found at modernmechanix.com
A distinguished psychiatrist replies to a reader who suggests wife-swapping as a means of increasing married happiness.
By Walter R. Stokes, M.D., LL.B.
Letter from a reader:
In your March 1963 issue, under the title "Question of the Month," you published a letter from one of your readers in which he confessed his desire that he and his wife hare extramarital sexual relations by mutual consent. Your reply was very interesting.
But, maybe due to a lack of experience on your part with situations like this, the sexual aspect was not discussed clearly enough. In my opinion many others have the same desires as your letter writer.
I consider myself experienced in this matter, and I am sure that my opinion could be of some help to you. I am 50 years old and my wife is 44, and we have been married for 27 years. We have been very happy. With the years our love toward each other has improved and our sexual life is very active and we both enjoy it.
Fifteen years ago I noticed that thinking of my wife having sexual relations with another man would sexually arouse me, and 1 let her know this. I noticed that she also was sexually aroused when I talked to her about the matter. As time passed we thought more and more about this.
But the time came when the thought of this was not enough. Very carefully we began to plan a way in which we could put our thoughts into action. We became friendly with other married couples that felt the same way we do.
Right now, we know of a few married couples who feel this way and every so often we get together and dance and play games. Eventually we indulge in sexual activities, exchanging wives. This is done delicately, and without any drinking. I can assure you that each couple is happily married, and we all love our wives, and of course they love their husbands. We don't feel any jealousy or guilt for doing this.
For myself, I can tell you that after having this adventure I love my wife more. I consider her faithful, pure and affectionate. I enjoy seeing her enjoying sexual relations with another man, and in our home we are very happy. Everybody respects us. Our friends are also happy. All of them are very well educated.
I hope that this experience will help others that have the same feelings to face them and find the way to satisfy their desires.
Reply by Dr. Walter R. Stokes
After careful and thoughtful reading of the above letter, I am obliged to question the wisdom of seeking to enhance marital sexual enjoyment by the means advocated in it. I raise no conventional moral question. My concern is with the practical soundness and workability of the behaviour described.
The writer of the letter makes wife-changing seem a simple, pleasing kind of behaviour if the participants are free from a conventional moralistic outlook. However, from much professional observation of sex activities of this kind I am sceptical about their soundness and cannot join in approving.
I have known of several couples who have engaged in this type of behaviour by mutual consent and for the same reasons given here. But in each instance unhappy and tragic complications have ultimately arisen and the marriage has broken up.
The reasons for this are two-fold. First, there is the question as to why a man and woman who are maturely response to each other should feel a need for this kind of stimulation. Most psychiatrists feel that it arises from ungratified childhood sex curiosity and may be related to unconscious homosexual urges.
My second reason for challenging the soundness of this behaviour is the heavy risk that one of the spouses may become seriously attached to an extra-marital partner, after which interest in the spouse rapidly wanes and the marriage goes on the rocks. I have known this to occur repeatedly.
For these reasons I am emphatic in discouraging this type of behaviour.
Now retired after over 30 years of psychiatric practice, Rd. Stokes is a Fellow of the Amer. Assoc. of Marriage Counsellors and a distinguished pioneer in sex education and marriage counselling. He is author of "Married Love in Today's World."


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LAS VEGAS — Smartphones and tablets are taking the world by storm, but the consumer electronics industry as a whole is in a rut and is expected to stay there.
The dollar value of global sales of tech products fell an estimated 1 percent last year, according to joint research from the Consumer Electronics Association and GfK, a German market research firm. This year, electronics sales are expected to grow just 4 percent.
"We're really struggling to achieve any significant level of growth across mature markets," said Steve Bambridge, business director of boutique research at GfK.
The forecast could put something of a damper on the Consumer Electronics Show, which is officially set to kick off here on Monday night with a keynote speech from Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs. The gigantic show serves as a platform for tech companies to show off their new products for the coming year.
And things actually may be worse than projected. Some reports indicate that holiday sales in the United States were lower than previously expected. If so, the estimated growth rate for North American tech sales — about 1 percent last year and 3 percent this year — could be even less, said Steve Koenig, director of industry analysis at CEA. That would also lead to lower sales around the globe.
Last year, the two organizations predicted that tech sales would grow 5 percent in 2012. But economic troubles in major markets, including the United States, Western Europe and Japan, weighed on the sector last year and will continue to do so in 2013.
Two bright spots for the tech industry have been smartphones and tablets. The dollar value of tablet sales grew 60 percent in 2012 from the year before while smartphones grew 38 percent. Together, the two products now account for some 40 percent of spending on electronics worldwide.
But the success of those products has been something of a double-edged sword for the industry as a whole. Sales of essentially every other major technology product, from feature phones to flat-screen televisions to car navigation devices, fell last year. In many cases, those declines can be attributed or linked to the success of smartphones and tablets.
Bambridge noted that during the holiday season, sales of laptops plunged 20 percent or more in Western Europe while tablet sales grew more than 100 percent. The success of tablets has also come amid plunging sales of small-screen televisions, those with display sizes of 20 inches or less.
"Are they cannibalizing the purchase of other tech devices? To some extent that's true," Bambridge said.
Contact Troy Wolverton at 408-840-4285. Follow him at Twitter.com/troywolv.


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Announcement 2003-74
From TaxAlmanac
You Are Here: Main Page > Tax Research Resources > Announcements > Announcement 2003-74
Internal Revenue Bulletin:
December 1, 2003
Announcement 2003-74
Suspension of Tax-Exempt Status of Organizations Identified With Terrorism
I. Purpose
This announcement is a public notice of the suspension under section 501(p) of the Internal Revenue Code of the federal tax exemption of certain organizations that have been designated as supporting or engaging in terrorist activity or supporting terrorism. Contributions made to an organization during the period that the organization's tax-exempt status is suspended are not deductible for federal tax purposes.
II. Background
The federal government has designated a number of organizations as supporting or engaging in terrorist activity or supporting terrorism under the Immigration and Nationality Act, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, and the United Nations Participation Act of 1945. Federal law prohibits most contributions to organizations that have been so designated.
Section 501(p) of the Code was enacted as part of the Military Family Tax Relief Act of 2003 (P.L. 108-121), effective November 11, 2003. Section 501(p)(1) suspends the exemption from tax under section 501(a) of any organization described in section 501(p)(2). An organization is described in section 501(p)(2) if the organization is designated or otherwise individually identified (1) under certain provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act as a terrorist organization or foreign terrorist organization; (2) in or pursuant to an Executive Order which is related to terrorism and issued under the authority of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act or section 5 of the United Nations Participation Act of 1945 for the purpose of imposing on such organization an economic or other sanction; or (3) in or pursuant to an Executive Order issued under the authority of any federal law, if the organization is designated or otherwise individually identified in or pursuant to the Executive Order as supporting or engaging in terrorist activity (as defined in the Immigration and Nationality Act) or supporting terrorism (as defined in the Foreign Relations Authorization Act) and the Executive Order refers to section 501(p)(2).
Under section 501(p)(3) of the Code, suspension of an organization's tax exemption begins on the date of the first publication of a designation or identification with respect to the organization, as described above, or the date on which section 501(p) was enacted, whichever is later. This suspension continues until all designations and identifications of the organization are rescinded under the law or Executive Order under which such designation or identification was made.
Under section 501(p)(4) of the Code, no deduction is allowed under any provision of the Internal Revenue Code for any contribution to an organization during any period in which the organization's tax exemption is suspended under section 501(p). Thus, for example, no charitable contribution deduction is allowed under section 170 (relating to the income tax), section 545(b)(2) (relating to undistributed personal holding company income), section 556(b)(2) (relating to undistributed foreign personal holding company income), section 642(c) (relating to charitable set asides), section 2055 (relating to the estate tax), section 2106(a)(2) (relating to the estate tax for nonresident aliens) and section 2522 (relating to the gift tax) for contributions made to the organization during the suspension period.
Prior to the effective date of suspension of exemption under section 501(p), the three organizations listed below were designated under Executive Order 13224, entitled "Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions With Persons Who Commit, Threaten To Commit, or Support Terrorism." Contributions made to these organizations in violation of the Executive Order prior to this suspension are not tax deductible under the Internal Revenue Code.
III. Notice of Suspensions and Nondeductibility of Contributions
Organizations whose tax exemption has been suspended under section 501(p) and the effective date of such suspension are listed below. Contributions made to these organizations during the period of suspension are not deductible for federal tax purposes.
|Organization Name
|Effective Date
|Benevolence International Foundation, Inc.
|Palos Hills, Illinois
|November 11, 2003
|Global Relief Foundation, Inc.
|Bridgeview, Illinois
|November 11, 2003
|Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development
|Richardson, Texas
|November 11, 2003
IV. Federal Tax Filings
An organization whose exempt status has been suspended under section 501(p) does not file Form 990 and is required to file the appropriate Federal income tax returns for the taxable periods beginning on the date of the suspension. The organization must continue to file all other appropriate federal tax returns, including employment tax returns, and may also have to file federal unemployment tax returns.
V. Contact Information
For additional information regarding the designation or identification of an organization described in section 501(p)(2), contact the Compliance Division at the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the U.S. Treasury Department at 202-622-2490. Additional information is also available for download from the Office's Internet Home Page at www.treas.gov/ofac.
For additional information regarding the suspension of the federal tax exemption of an organization under section 501(p), contact Robert Fontenrose at (202) 283-9484 at the Internal Revenue Service.


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This post comes to us from Sean Sullivan, my dear friend, Associate Publisher ofHouse BeautifulGood HousekeepingSpectacularly DeliciousBallFreshTECH Automatic Jam & Jelly Makerpresentation
, one of 's sister magazines, whose blog, , is devoted to helping you cook food at home that is definitely both spectacular and delicious. Among his specialties are jam, jelly, preserves, and marmalades. So when the folks from paid us a visit to introduce us to their new , I immediately invited Sean to sit in on the . And who better than Sean, consummate jam maker, to try it out and report back?
Lots of people wish they knew how to make their own fruit preserves but balk at the perceived difficulty. Memories (real or imagined) of grandmothers putting up jams and preserves combined with the explosion in popularity of local and artisanal foods fuel these home-preserving desires. And while I have no scientific evidence to prove this theory, it could be that home-made jam is associated with other domestic arts that have fallen out of favor like darning socks and laborious scrubbing with steel wool and lye soap.
The Ball FreshTECH Automatic Jam & Jelly Maker ($100) seems designed for just such people. This new countertop plug-in appliance is an innovative introduction to the world of jam and jelly making. It's easy to use and produces great results. If you know how to cut up fruit and use a measuring cup you're ready for making your own jam. For the record, making jam the old-fashioned way is not terribly difficult. Most likely, the biggest stumbling blocks are the need to sterilize the canning jars and lids and the subsequent processing in a boiling water bath to ensure long-term shelf-stable safety. While the FreshTECH doesn't alleviate these steps, the ease of cooking the jam does lessen the worry that the recipe won't work out. Also, since it only makes relatively small batches, four or five ½-pint jars, the results are pretty easy to store in the refrigerator or give to friends for immediate consumption.
More From Good Housekeeping
What sets theFreshTECH
1. The cooking vessel eliminates the question as to what type of pot to use.
2. The automatic settings allow you to cook at the proper temperature without the boil-overs that can occur when the heat gets too high. In stove-top cooking boil-overs are an ever-present danger avoided only by constant vigilance and energetic stirring.
3. Thanks to the continuous automatic stirring paddle, the fruit cooks evenly and will not scorch and you're unshackled from the stove. Note: This is not a "set it and forget it" appliance. Don't wander out of earshot during the cooking because a series of beeps prompt you when to add the sugar and when the jam is done. You don't want to miss these cues.
4. The nonstick surfaces of the cooking pan and the paddle make clean-up easy.
What's the difference between jam and jelly? When making jam the fruit is broken down before cooking either by chopping into small pieces (peaches, pears, plums, cherries) or smashing with a potato masher (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries). The fruit is cooked with sugar. A small amount of commercial pectin shores up the jam, resulting in bits of fruit suspended in a loose jellied liquid. Pectin is a naturally occurring fruit-based derivative.
Jelly takes a similar path but it is a little bit trickier. It requires extracting the juice from cooked fruit, best done with a jelly bag-- the mere mention of which is enough to send would-be jelly makers heading for the hills. You can make home-made jelly with store-bought unsweetened 100% fruit juices but where's the pride in that? What most people want is the satisfaction of "I made this myself!" Since jams are thicker, fruitier, and richer, given a choice most people will opt for jam over jelly any day. Jellies are firm and perky. Jams are luscious and opulent. So my FreshTECH try-outs were only with jam recipes.
What's the difference between powdered and liquid pectin? Not much, save the all-important timing of when to add it. When using powdered pectin (BallBall FreshTECH
has cornered this market) it's added to the fruit at the beginning of the cooking process and the sugar is added only after the fruit comes to a full boil. Liquid pectin (the Certo brand rules this category) requires a different cooking sequence. Fruit and sugar go in first and when that mixture reaches full boil the liquid pectin is added. In my experience the results of making jam with either type of pectin are the same. The jam and jelly maker is engineered only for powdered pectin which is Ball's specialty, as noted above. This simplifies things for the novice as the question of powdered vs. liquid is answered loud and clear.
All jams and jellies require accurate measurements of fruit, sugar, pectin, and any other ingredients indicated in the recipe. This fruit/sugar ratio will vary slightly according to the types of fruit used. This is no time to take liberties. Playing fast and loose with the measurements is a recipe for certain failure. Change the measurements or add the pectin in the wrong sequence and jam will not thicken and jelly will not gel.
Now that I've imparted my jam and jelly making wisdom, let me return to the Ball FreshTECH Automatic Jam & Jelly Maker. Cutting up fruit is easy. Measuring cut up fruit is easy. Plugging in the FreshTECH is easy (no assembly required). Measuring a few tablespoons of pectin is easy. Pushing the start button is easy. Adding the sugar when the machine beeps is easy. Letting the jam cook while the paddle turns is easy, no stirring required. Knowing that the jam is done when the machine beeps again is easy. Enjoying home-made jam is a delight, as is sharing the fruits of your "labors" with friends and family. Is the Ball FreshTECH faddish or fabulous? The verdict: Fabulous!
One last thing: It's easy to turn a standard jam recipe into a spectacular one with the judicious addition of a very small quantity of flavorings. TheFreshTECH"Strawberry Lemon Marmalade"
comes with recipes created for the machine. Its pear jam recipe reaches new heights with the addition of the scrapings of a vanilla bean, turning it into yummy "Vanilla Pear Jam". Ball's strawberry-lemon jam is easily intensified by swapping out grated lemon zest for strips of lemon rind that have been preboiled separately, making a decadent .
Once you've been bitten by the jam and jelly bug, try some of my other original recipes at Spectacularly Delicious.
If I haven't convinced you to invest in the Ball, try the Good HousekeepingTest Kitchen's triple-tested recipes for Three-Berry or Ginger-Peach jams made in a skillet.
Want to learn how the Good Housekeeping Research Institute puts put consumer products to the test and keep you safe? Sign up for a tour of the famous Good Housekeeping Research Institute. If you visit, be sure to say hello to Sharon and Paul when you come by the Kitchen Appliances & Technology Lab
Sharon has been with the GHI since 1987, when she was hired as an assistant primarily to develop recipes for the magazine's column on microwave cooking. Before joining GHI, she was a chef in restaurants in the World Trade Center.


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A new version of the BlackBerry Tablet OS will soon be available to all BlackBerry PlayBook tablet users, to address a security issue raised by Adobe about its Flash Player, Research In Motion said Sunday.
The new version of the operating system, version 22.214.171.1242, will contain an updated version of the Flash Player, RIM said in a blog post.
Adobe issued an update last week for its Flash Player to deal with a cross-site scripting vulnerability. The problem could be exploited to perform actions on behalf of a BlackBerry PlayBook tablet user on any Website or web mail provider if the user visits a malicious website that loads Adobe Flash content, RIM said on a support page.
The PlayBook's operating system is built from the ground up to run Adobe Flash.
Users who purchase and activate a BlackBerry PlayBook tablet on or after June 12 will automatically be updated to the latest version as part of the BlackBerry PlayBook setup process.
Existing users will automatically receive a software update notification on their device, or they can manually check for the software update, RIM said.
The company said that there are no known reports of PlayBook users being affected by the Adobe Flash issue, but advised all users to update the operating system.
RIM last month recalled 1,000 PlayBook tablets after they were found to have shipped with a faulty build of the operating system.
The Canadian company is planning to launch the tablet in 16 new markets around the world over the next 30 days, it said on Friday. Among the countries are the U.K., Germany, France, Spain, India, Mexico, Singapore, Australia, Colombia, and Venezuela.
The BlackBerry Tablet OS is built upon the QNX Neutrino microkernel architecture. Gartner forecast in April that QNX will have a 5.6 percent market share in tablets this year, rising to 10 percent in 2015. It will however trail behind Apple's iOS and the Android operating system.
BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet Computer


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NY Lawmaker Proposes for 9/11 Ground Zero Cross to Become National Monument
As Congress returns from its monthlong recess Tuesday, one of the first orders of business for a New York lawmaker will be to submit legislation seeking to establish the cross recovered from the rubble of the World Trade Center (WTC) as a national monument.
With the legislation titled the "9/11 Memorial Cross National Monument Establishment Act of 2011," Rep. Michael G. Grimm hopes to convince his fellow legislators to approve the bill.
"This cross was a symbol of hope and freedom at a time when New Yorkers were coping with loss and destruction in the aftermath of the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil," Grimm said.
The cross, enshrined at the National September 11 Museum & Memorial in downtown Manhattan on July 23, has been at the center of a legal battle after an atheist group filed a lawsuit to prevent its inclusion at the museum.
"I find it reprehensible that this group would disgrace the beliefs of millions of people in an effort to garner a little media attention for their cause," the Republican lawmaker said.
"He has a right to his opinion, but that doesn't make his opinion right," Jane Everhart, director of communications for New York City Atheists, told The Christian Post Tuesday, reacting to Grimm's remark.
In its lawsuit, filed in July, American Atheists, the parent organization of NYC Atheists, claims that no religious symbols should be included in the memorial of the 9/11 terror attacks at ground zero if the Christian cross is the only symbol being represented.
When asked for a comment in regard to Grimm's legislation to have the 9/11 cross be established as a national monument, Everhart laughed. "We think of this as a big piece of junk," she said of the cross.
The cross, two intersecting steel beams found during clean-up efforts at the site of the terrorist attacks in New York City, has long been seen as a symbol of hope and comfort for many New Yorkers.
Along with the cross, the National September 11 Museum & Memorial will also house a Star of David cut from WTC steel, a Bible fused to a piece of steel that was found during recovery efforts, and a Jewish prayer shawl.
"By establishing the 9/11 Memorial Cross as a national monument, we ensure this symbol of freedom continues to stand for all those we lost and those whose faith remains to this day," Grimm said.


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Horsemen of the Esophagus
Among the super-gluttons, on the front lines of competitive eating
Ten years ago the image of the Virgin Mary appeared on a grilled-cheese sandwich in the frying pan of Diana Duyser, a Florida jewelry designer. Now She is here, in Venice Beach, to preside over the World Grilled Cheese Eating Championship.
She has picked a fine day to grace southern California with Her presence. The sun is shining, the sky is blue. Gulls loop above the boardwalk in jazzy little arcs. The February air is warm, but She is packed inside a plastic box and surrounded by cotton balls, for protection.
In fifteen minutes the championship will be decided. It's an eating contest. Whoever eats the most grilled-cheese sandwiches in ten minutes wins $3,500. The prize pot has attracted some of the world's top competitors—people who eat under the banner of the International Federation of Competitive Eating, or IFOCE. They consider themselves professional athletes. Guys like Eric "Badlands" Booker, a 420-pound subway conductor, rapper, and world champion in the doughnut, corned-beef-hash, and cheesecake disciplines. "Hungry" Charles Hardy, who just half an hour ago had his right biceps tattooed with the initials IFOCE. Ed "Cookie" Jarvis, a Long Island real-estate agent who embroiders his numerous eating titles onto a gargantuan flowing robe with his portrait airbrushed on the front, flanked by a lighting bolt. Rich and Carlene LeFevre, the First Couple of competitive eating—a pair of sweetly manic retirees from the outskirts of Las Vegas. Carlene is a consistent top-five finisher, and Rich, nicknamed the Locust, holds records in Spam (six pounds in twelve minutes), chili (one and a half gallons in ten minutes), and corny dogs (eighteen and a half in ten minutes).
America's greatest eater is also here. Sonya Thomas. Five foot five, 103 pounds. She calls herself the Black Widow, because she gleefully devours the males. Her eating titles are so numerous that promoters list them alphabetically: asparagus, baked beans, chicken nuggets, chicken wings, eggs, fruitcake, giant burger, hamburger, jambalaya, Maine lobster, meatballs, oysters, pulled pork, quesadilla, sweet-potato casserole, tacos, toasted ravioli, Turducken …
It's starting.
"There are moments in our days when we are suddenly LOST."
Conversations stop. One hundred and fifty curious heads swivel toward a man onstage in a dark blazer and a straw boater hat. This is the contest emcee: George Shea, chairman of the IFOCE, which bills itself as "the governing body of all stomach-centric sport." His hands, clasped together over his crotch, hold a microphone. He looks down and widens his stance dramatically as the opening lament of Moby's "Natural Blues" emerges from the PA system.
"We hum along, doing the million things that Americans do, and then suddenly we are STRUCK—"
A woman, excited, screams.
"—and we wonder why. There is no trigger. There is no reason. And yet there it is. Sadness. Isolation. Loss. Why?"
Shea pauses, then answers his question.
"Because the PURSUITS of our lives have OBSCURED our lives, ladies and gentlemen. It is not only the hustle and bustle, the cars and the kids, the debts and the acquisitions—it is something more."
At other times Shea has referred to competitive eating as the country's "fastest-growing sport," and he likes to say, tongue two-thirds in cheek, that eating has surpassed hockey and badminton and is now No. 5 in America's heart, after baseball, basketball, football, and golf. Today's contest is just one of a hundred scheduled for 2005, up from about seventy in 2004. Prize pots surge, TV deals dangle …
"We cannot SEE!" Shea is saying. "We cannot HEAR! We cannot THINK! And that is why … She has come! Amid no fanfare whatsoever! A woman! Grilling a cheese sandwich!"
The music shifts to a gentle adult-contemporary track. Shea bleeds all aggression from his voice.
"Ladies and gentlemen. It is said that pearls are the precipitate of sunlight, slowed and bent by the ocean until it forms a nugget of beauty inside the lowly mollusk. And likewise, this grilled-cheese sandwich is the precipitate of the divine spirit"—here the music shifts again, to a minor-key vamp, and Shea's voice skews deep and dark—"captured here on earth in the most unlikely of places, delivered to us in the image of the Virgin Mary!"
Shea has sensitive features, an aristocratic nose, and neat black hair. He's good-looking, compact. Perfect posture. His voice is melodious but powerful—precise, all syllables enunciated, with the pitch control of a cabaret singer and the gestural excess of a dinner-theater Hamlet.
"It is the bane of our species," he says, "that we are warped most when we know it the least, ladies and gentlemen. It is time to put aside the pursuits that push us through our day, because this change is here today as an athletic and religious experience. TODAY WE HOLD THE GOLDEN PALACE-DOT-COM WORLD GRILLED CHEESE EATING CHAMPIONSHIP! An all-you-can-eat contest that will stand as an homage, as a recognition, a dramatic illustration of the message delivered [to] us by the Virgin Mary Grilled-Cheese Sandwich!"
The music softens. Shea ushers onstage the representative of GoldenPalace.com, Steve Baker. In November 2004, Baker bought the sandwich for $28,000 on eBay, hoping to use it for promotional stunts like this one. Wearing a grubby sweatshirt, jeans, and two-day stubble, Baker raises the Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese above his head and proclaims, "The Passion of the Toast lives!"
Baker steps down into the crowd, now a sea of limbs holding digital cameras and angling for a keepsake shot. He parades the sandwich, which Shea calls "the culinary version of the Shroud of Turin," into the throng, and then places it on an easel at the side of the stage to make way for the eaters.
There was a time—two years and fifteen pounds ago—when I didn't watch people gorge themselves in public. Then, one day in the summer of 2004, I came across the IFOCE Web site.
The outer rim of the doughnut hole.
Across the top of the home page, a banner spelled out INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF COMPETITIVE EATING. The site's design was unremarkable except for an illustration on the page's upper left: a heraldic seal with two facing lions. Upon closer inspection, the lions turned out to be eating a single hot dog from different ends while pawing tubes of mustard and ketchup that crossed, like swords, to form an X. A Latin inscription read In Voro Veritas.
In Gorging, Truth.
I clicked on "Media Inquiries."
Within a day or two I got a call back from Rich Shea, the younger brother of George Shea. Rich talked quickly and thought quickly. He explained that he and his brother maintained a public-relations firm in New York—Shea Communications—and that their bread-and-butter clients were legitimate types like detectives and commercial real-estate managers. The federation was a separate track of the business, run from the same loft office in Chelsea. The Sheas got into the eating game in the late 1980s, when George graduated from college and went to work in New York City for two old-school PR guys from the era when PR guys were called "press agents." These two guys were the ones who invented the biggest eating contest in the world—the Nathan's Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest—back in the 1970s. Rich Shea joined George in New York, and the brothers eventually took over the Nathan's account and formed the federation in 1997, with the goal of transforming that single hot-dog contest into an empire of gluttony.
And they were making progress. The federation claimed to have 300 active eater-members. Rich said that by the end of 2004 the federation would sanction anywhere from three to ten contests per month. This was in addition to a handful of non-federation contests that came in two flavors: indie and bootleg. The indie contests—one or two per month—were organized under the umbrella of an offshoot league called the Association of Independent Competitive Eaters, or AICE. Because AICE was newer, its contests were far smaller than the IFOCE's. As for the bootleg contests, they were harder to characterize: dozens, maybe hundreds, of minor spectacles at low-rent venues—crummy bars, small-town carnivals, drive-time radio stations.
Eaters had options, but there was a catch. They couldn't mix and match. The federation required its top talent to sign exclusive eighteen-month management contracts, and it had not been reluctant to shoot off cease-and-desist letters to wayward eaters it suspected of breaching the contract. Ambitious eaters—those who desired the imprimatur of a league—were therefore forced to pick either AICE or the federation. Most eaters went with the federation, because it was bigger in every way: the stage, the money, the media. Federation contests were sponsored by food companies, mostly, but also by municipal festivals and casinos on Indian reservations. The Sheas earned a per-contest fee from each sponsor, usually in the mid four figures to low five figures. The sponsors also put up the prize money, which Rich described as "a thousand dollars here, a thousand dollars there." In 2004 the total cash prize money was more than $60,000—of which the top American eater, Sonya Thomas, took home at least $17,000, plus a car—but the prizes, the number of contests, and the fan base were all growing; in 2005, sponsors would dole out more than $160,000, and Sonya would double her cash winnings. The Shea brothers had successfully targeted what Rich called "that guy demo," landing the horny eighteen-to-thirty-four set that loves Maxim and FHM. Capturing the guy demographic allowed them to pitch eating specials to the Travel Channel, the Food Network, the Discovery Channel, and even bigger fish like Fox and ESPN. In 2004, ESPN scored 765,000 household viewers for its first live broadcast of the Nathan's contest.
Eventually, said Rich, he and his brother hoped to convert eating from a hobby into a professional sport, like bass fishing. "That's sort of the curve we're looking at," Rich said.
He didn't mention it, but in 2001 the bass-fishing league was sold to ESPN for a purported $35 million.
Critics of the federation are easy to find, having left a trail of acerbic, disapproving quotes in thousands of wire stories about competitive eating. Food historians like Barbara Haber ("It's the fall of Rome, my dear") and physicians like Harvard Medical School's George Blackburn ("This is sick, abnormal behavior") have lined up to take a whack, as have foreign critics such as the English newspaper The Guardian, which, in the same 2002 article that quoted Blackburn, called competitive eating "a sport for our degraded times." In 2003, Ralph Nader sounded the alarm about four "signs of societal decay": three involved corporate greed and congressional gerrymandering, and the fourth was competitive eating. George Shea responded to Nader by talking up the federation's "Turducken" contest, which he called "the first real advancement in Thanksgiving since the Indians sat down with the Pilgrims." Shea's counterattacks tend to mix deadpan charm and gentle mockery. "A lot of people have had trouble," he told me when I asked if it was wise to promote gluttony in one of the fatter nations on earth, "separating this superficial visual of people stuffing their faces with large quantities of food with the stereotype of the Ugly American. That is not where I am. I see beauty. I see physical poetry."
Poetry, exactly. Shea's eating contests are poetic in their blatancy, their brazen mixture of every American trait that seems to terrify the rest of the planet: our hunger for natural resources that may melt the ice caps and flood Europe, our hunger for cheap thrills that turns Muslim swing voters into car bombers. If anti-American zealots anywhere in the world wanted to perform a minstrel show of our culture, this is what they'd come up with. Competitive eating is a symbolic hair ball coughed up by the American id. It is meaningful like a tumor is meaningful. It seems to have a purpose, a message, and its message is this: Look upon our gurgitators, ye Mighty, and despair. Behold these new super-gluttons, these ambassadors of the American appetite, these Horsemen of the Esophagus.
One by one the grilled-cheese eaters take their places at a long table. The top eaters merit a sobriquet or a simple recitation of their feats: Carlene LeFevre becomes "the Martha Stewart of mastication"; the Spam record of husband Rich is heralded, to oohs and aahs; Jed "Jalapeño" Donahue is announced as having eaten 152 of his namesake peppers. The great Sonya Thomas is described as "a cross between Anna Kournikova, Billie Jean King, and a jackal wild on the Serengeti." Other accomplished eaters include Long Island's Don "Moses" Lerman, the Zen master of raw butter, matzo balls, and baked beans; and Frank Wach, a Chicagoan and "a rookie out of the toasted-ravioli circuit." The best introductions accompany the least- accomplished eaters, because they are blank slates, allowing Shea to concoct mythic pasts. To the strains of "Gangsta's Paradise," Shea tells the story of a fresh-faced guy named Matt Simpson, who recently ate two rolls of unleavened bread. "It raised in his stomach," Shea says, "and created an enormous amount of pressure. And he fell to the ground writhing in what appeared to be pain. But when his family came to his side and knelt over him, they realized it was ecstasy: I feel good, for the first time in my life. And his father … said, 'Go, my son, and join the IFOCE. Join the eaters.' And so he did, ladies and gentlemen. Twenty-eight years of age, Maaaaatt Simpsonnnnnnnnn!!!"
The swelling crowd—maybe 200 to 250 people now—applauds and cheers. They're primed. So are the eaters. Minutes ago the GoldenPalace.com guy unloaded a giant tray of sandwiches from his truck. The eaters gathered around, inspecting the material.
"I hope they're greasy," Carlene LeFevre said. "They'll just slide right down."
Eating contests weren't invented by the Shea brothers or their mentors, or even by Americans. Anthropological studies and old copies of scurrilous newspapers suggest that the will to gorge is universal. Speed and volume competitions pop up in Greek myth, in Norse epics, and even in what may be the first novel, The Golden Ass, written in Latin in the second century A.D.: "Last night at supper I was challenged to an eating race by some people at my table and tried to swallow too large a mouthful of polenta cheese." (Choking ensued.) Ethnographies show that eating contests were regular events at lavish Native American potlatch feasts, and there's historical evidence of rice contests in Japan, beefsteak contests in Britain, mango contests in India. Even today the French still gorge themselves on cheese at seasonal festivals.
But we're different. We do it bigger. We have more contests, in more places, and we make no apologies. We unabashedly marry the public-gorging impulse to our most sacred American rituals: the catching of the greased pig followed by the pie-eating contest followed by the reading of the Declaration of Independence on the Fourth of July.
I began phoning competitive eaters in September 2004, starting with veterans like Charles Hardy and Ed Jarvis and Don Lerman. They all said they were amazed by eating's trajectory, its quick-rising legitimacy.
"We did all the footwork years ago," Hardy told me. "Traveling here, traveling there. We didn't really make no kinda money. We pretty much took it to where it is today." But because of the uptick in prize pots, he said, "the life has been a lot better, eating on the circuit."
Jarvis said, "Let's face it: we're on ESPN. If that's not professional sports, I don't know what is."
Lerman said, "I think in three years it'll be as big as PGA golf. In five years it may be in the Olympics."
There were definite hints of pride and obsession in those early calls. Ed told me he maintained a trophy room. "It's like a shrine," he said. "I mean, people look in and they're like: 'God."
Don has a trophy room too. And a weight problem. "Since I'm thirty I've been fighting obesity," he said.
Ed, pushing 400 pounds, was also trying to lose weight. The day I talked to him, he was pondering an upcoming cannoli contest. He was the cannoli champ but was thinking about not defending his title. "It's rough on the body," he said. "One, you're eating eleven thousand calories. Two, there's no money. Three, all that said, the bottom line is: What am I doing this for? I'm basically putting eleven thousand calories into my body with the chance I could get hurt. What for? There's gotta be a cause."
Insecurity, rivalry, hubris, recklessness—that was half of the story, the exact half you'd expect to find in a group of pro gluttons. But the more eaters I called, and the more I pushed past their immediate need to impress upon me that they weren't a bunch of freaks, the more I saw that, with a few conspicuous exceptions, they weren't lifelong publicity hounds or career eccentrics. They had wives (or husbands) and kids. They had jobs as construction workers, social workers, bankers, engineers, lawyers. I would come to know them as genuinely sweet and generous, most of them. Except for their collective waist size, they were as averagely American as the Americans in campaign commercials. They had to know that competitive eating was a marketing ploy, and yet—out of some psychic contortion I could only guess at—they rarely spoke of it that way. Eating wasn't a ploy to them. It was fun. It was a chance to compete, to travel the country and make a little money, or at least break even. It was a chance to be on ESPN.
How many people get to be on ESPN?
Here on the gluttony circuit, atop the same cultural terrain that made me feel, in my bitterest moments, ashamed to be an American, the eaters were planting their dearest desires—for fair and honest competition, for a pat on the back, for a chance to get noticed, to prove themselves, to make their kids and spouses proud.
The grilled-cheese eaters all stand at the long table. Each one has been given two plates of five grilled-cheese sandwiches, along with at least two cups of water: one for drinking, one for dunking. All of the top eaters pre-moisten their food by dunking, which eases the food's journey down the esophagus and kick-starts digestion.
Their hands are not allowed to touch the food until Shea gives the word. He counts down from ten: "Two … one … go! Oh my good gracious, we have begun! But it is not simply a contest, it is a journey, my friends, a journey down the alimentary canal, a journey to self-discovery, self-realization … The big men, the two pillars of competitive eating, the two Horsemen of the Esophagus, 'Hungry' Charles Hardy and Edward 'Cookie' Jarvis, here at this portion of the table … "
The eaters rip in, dunking the sandwiches in the water cups and cramming them mouthward with no regard for manners or decorum. As performers, they are very Dizzy Gillespie: dimples blowfished, eyes laser-locked on the chow. "Violent" is a word that comes to mind. "Assault" is another. It's scary, the suddenness with which the mood of the contest has morphed from chipper to an insectoid creepiness. Rich "The Locust" LeFevre, who looks like somebody's geeky uncle with his big plastic glasses and gray comb-over, is particularly fearsome. He rotates the sandwiches once they reach his lips, twirls them like they're corn on the cob, and mashes them inward, toward his pinker parts, the force spraying bits in a scatter pattern around his swampy water cup. A gluttonous metronome, he never alters his food- shoveling rhythm. This is not normal.
"Remember, ladies and gentlemen," Shea says, "competitive eating is the battleground upon which God and Lucifer battle for men's souls!"
Sonya Thomas is thirty-seven years old, but you believe it only if you get very, very close. If you don't, she looks eighteen. She speaks in clipped English punctuated by an immigrant's tics—quick laughs and question marks to make sure she's being understood. Movie-watching is one of her hobbies. Her other hobby is driving. She takes long drives to nowhere in particular. She owns a red Pontiac Grand Am, and she drives it very, very fast.
The luxury of a long drive in a red Grand Am was not available to Sonya in South Korea, where she was born and lived until she was in her twenties. Much has been made of the fact that her childhood home had no refrigerator, that her parents were poor (mother a maid, father a carpenter), and that she had to share food with her siblings. At least as crucial to her hunger, however, was her stifling professional life in South Korea. She worked as a typist for a shipping company. "In that time I was a little bit heavier," she said. "Forty pounds heavier. I don't eat any meals. I just eat all junk food … typist, sitting down, answer the phone, sometimes get sleepy. I don't like that job, so I change it." After she put herself through restaurant school and looked for new work, men told her, "Oh, you are a woman, you cannot do this."
So she moved to America.
Sonya worked at an Air Force base in Maryland, managing a Burger King. She pulled long shifts and saved her money. In 2002 she watched the Nathan's contest on TV and got curious. Over the next few months she experimented at home, then entered a Nathan's qualifier in 2003 and earned a spot in the finals, where she broke the women's record, with twenty-five dogs consumed. In August 2003, she took third in the U.S. Chicken Wing Eating Championship, in Buffalo. In October, despite never having eaten a pulled-pork sandwich in her life, she ate twenty-three in ten minutes, winning $1,250 and the world title.
But Sonya attracted little national attention until late 2003, when her friend David "Coondog" O'Karma—the tag-team bratwurst champion of Canton, Ohio—told her about Wing Bowl, a Philadelphia chicken-wing-eating contest.
In the simplest terms, Wing Bowl is a radio promotion. It may be the largest pure radio promotion in the country. It is owned, trademarked, and produced by 610 WIP-AM, a sports talk-radio station in Philadelphia. WIP is itself owned by Infinity Broadcasting, a division of the CBS media empire—CBS, UPN, Paramount Television, Simon & Schuster, etc., etc. In 1993 two of WIP's deejays created Wing Bowl as a stunt to boost ratings for The Morning Show, which airs from 5:30 to 10:00 a.m., Monday through Friday. Its deejays talk about Wing Bowl every single day for two and a half months, starting in November and ending on the day of the event. The date changes from year to year. Like Easter.
In a mischievous mood, Coondog e-mailed one of the show's deejays, Angelo Cataldi, and said he knew a 99-pound girl who could beat the legendary Bill "El Wingador" Simmons. Simmons, a 322-pound truck driver from south Jersey, stood alone in the history of the previous eleven Wing Bowls, having been crowned champion no fewer than four times. Cataldi knew a great story line when he saw one, and gave Sonya a bye into Wing Bowl XII. Stunningly, she proceeded to beat Simmons. He accused her of dropping her chicken on the floor. The New York Posts Gersh Kuntzman, the original competitive-eating beat reporter, thought Simmons was guilty of not cleaning his wings. "I could have an entire meal off the meat that Bill left on his bones," he said.
A few months later Sonya beat Simmons in a hot-dog contest, and she won other contests too. Brian "Yellowcake" Subich, a top-twenty eater, tells a story about a baked-bean contest from the summer of 2004. The field included Sonya, Subich, and Cookie Jarvis. After just two and a half minutes, George Shea announced that Sonya was almost done with her 8.4 pounds of beans. "I said, 'You have to be freaking kidding me,'" Subich told me. "What does she do? Pour 'em down her shirt? Put 'em into a plastic bag?" At Shea's announcement, Jarvis lifted his head, glanced at Sonya, registered what Subich calls "the most crestfallen look you could ever imagine," and vomited beans through his nostrils.
Sonya was forcing a realignment in American eating. When asked for the secret to her success, she would just wink and describe her love for her adoptive country, as if that explained everything.
"In America," she told me, "if you have desire you can do anything. Is big. Big." She holds her hands out wide. "Big country!"
At the two-and-a-half-minute mark in Venice Beach, Sonya has ten grilled-cheese sandwiches down the hatch.
"Nostradamus, born in the early sixteenth century, actually mentioned the Grilled Cheese Championship in his poetic yet cryptic quatrains," George Shea says. "He said, 'And at one point under the bright sky they shall gather to eat, they shall gather to eat the cheese that has been pouched in bread and grilled!"
Sonya eats with no recognizable style. She knows that style bleeds speed. She's a machine. Efficient. Just flat fast.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Shea says, "the universe has no edge and no center, and like Sonya Thomas's stomach it is ever-expanding … Is she the best eater in the world? No. That is Kobayashi." Shea means Japan's Takeru Kobayashi. "Is she the best eater in America? Yes. Without any question. Will I phrase everything heretoforward in the form of a question? No."
Three minutes and thirty seconds left, and Sonya has a small but solid lead. The LeFevres, Badlands Booker, and Jed Donahue are still eating at full tilt, but the rest have started to fall off. "They face," Shea says, "a mission similar to that of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan—namely, to balance the forces of inflation and deflation."
The outcome is certain, but there's still drama in watching Sonya's tally rise and rise. With a minute-thirty left, Shea loses it. "OH! MY! GOD! LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!" he screams. "Here under the sun, the clouds have parted to allow us here today to demonstrate our commitment to the Virgin Mary and to victory in the world of competitive eating. I am absolutely OVERWHELMED by emotion! I have not felt this much emotion since the birth of my first child, a son!"
Shea's voice cracks with emotion.
"I am feeling the spirit overcome me, ladies and gentlemen! TWENTY-THREE GRILLED-CHEESE SANDWICHES, SONYA THOMAS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!"
He starts speaking in tongues.
A few seconds later, when it's time to begin the final countdown, Shea snaps back into English.
"Ten, nine, eight … "
A flurry of last-minute face-stuffing, then Shea ends it.
An IFOCE official goes from plate to plate, tallying sandwiches. In a slight upset, Carlene LeFevre has beaten the big boys from New York to take third place, with just shy of twenty-one grilled cheeses. She giggles, raises her hand in acknowledgement of the crowd, then leans over and wipes her mouth on her husband's shirt.
Jed Donahue and Rich LeFevre have tied for second, with twenty-three sandwiches.
Sonya Thomas takes first, with twenty-five. "That's the fifth time I've come in second to Sonya," Rich LeFevre says. "It's getting boring."
Shea presents Sonya with a championship belt that says WORLD GRILLED CHEESE EATING CHAMPION in gold letters. She holds it up high above her head and grins for the cameras. Then she grabs her twenty-sixth grilled cheese, takes a ponderous bite, and laughs.
The key benchmark of greatness in competitive eating, akin to rolling a 300 game in bowling or scoring under par in golf, is to eat twenty Nathan's hot dogs in twelve minutes. This is called "doing the deuce." By the time an eater has done the deuce, he or she has consumed 4.4 pounds of solid food and a few pounds of water, has taken in 6,180 calories, 403 grams of fat, and almost 14 grams of sodium, and is ready to lie down someplace air-conditioned, close to a toilet.
Until 2001 the world record in the Nathan's Famous hot-dog contest had hovered in the low to mid-twenties. On July 3, the day before the 2001 contest, the champs of the American gurgitator corps—Charles Hardy, Ed Jarvis, Coondog O'Karma—preened outside New York's City Hall, waiting for the contest's traditional weigh-in ceremony to begin. Suddenly there was a hubbub, heads whipsawing, TV cameras twirling. Some people assumed it was the mayor and his entourage.
Nope. The Japanese.
The Japanese had won the contest for three of the past four years. They emerged from an unseen vehicle and walked toward the Americans. There were two Japanese eaters this year. The first was Kazutoyo Arai, who had won last year's contest with twenty-five and one-eighth hot dogs, a new world record. Arai—nicknamed the Rabbit for the way he took mincing bites and bobbed his head while eating—was a short, gentle man with shiny jet-black hair parted down the exact middle. He weighed a hundred pounds exactly. The press swarmed him.
Nobody paid any attention to the second Japanese contestant, a cute little Japanese kid with short, spiky blond hair and a white T-shirt and maroon running shorts. This was Kobayashi, who would become known on the circuit simply as Koby. Twenty-three years old. A kid, really. At least one of the American eaters thought Koby was the Rabbit's son. Koby's name hadn't been mentioned in the City of New York's press release. The only thing the American eaters knew for sure was that Koby had beaten the Rabbit in Japan, and that his nickname was the Prince. The Americans had heard rumors, though. Don Lerman had heard that Koby had eaten seventy-five hot dogs, but he imagined the dogs were little cocktail franks.
The next day, the Fourth of July, in a slight rain, about 500 people gathered for the contest at Surf and Stillwell avenues, on Coney Island, in front of the original Nathan's Famous stand. A stage had been erected with a long table and a tarp-like backdrop, decorated with blue-and-yellow Nathan's signage and balloons. The crowd was a patchwork of umbrellas. The dozens of cameramen on the scene, including a guy from CNN, had wrapped their equipment with trash bags. Some spectators held signs that had been passed out by IFOCE officials to give the appearance of actual eating fandom.
The contest had come a long way in a very short time. Just eight years earlier, it was so small that the Nathan's CEO, Wayne Norbitz, had had to solicit passersby on contest day to be contestants. But under George Shea the contest had become a highly choreographed affair. There was a production script. There were informal run-throughs the morning of the contest. "Everything is kind of rehearsed," I was told by Mike "The Scholar" DeVito, the 1990, 1993, and 1994 Nathan's champion and the federation's then-commissioner. In 2001, DeVito was fulfilling his commissioner's duty to act as the "head judge," the one who relays hot-dog totals from the judges, who squat in front of the tables, to the card girls ("Bunnettes"), who display the totals on flippable blue cards they hold high above their heads, so audience members can keep track of the leaders.
Mike DeVito and George Shea already knew approximately how many hot dogs the eaters would eat that day. The top Americans—Booker, Lerman, Hardy, and Jarvis—would all come in at around twenty. The Rabbit would eat twenty-five. Maybe, if it was a really rare and special day, someone would make it to thirty.
At noon Shea kicked off the show by introducing the eaters one by one. Ed Jarvis wore an American flag, Hungry Charles pumped his fists, Coondog ripped his shirt and glared at the audience with a mean grin. Then the Japanese: Koby walked out first, wearing a white headband that read TV TOKYO and made his ears stick out. The Rabbit, as the reigning champ, came out last and hoisted the championship Mustard Yellow Belt—a cheap prop glued with rhinestones—high above his head.
In the seconds before the countdown, Arai closed his eyes like he was meditating. Koby arranged his five large yellow cups of water. The crowd chanted. IFOCE officials brought each eater two paper plates of five hot dogs each. Arai slapped both of his cheeks, hard.
"Join me please," Shea announced. "Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six! Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Ohhhhhh! … We're here to see who's going to take home this bout … "
In a twelve-minute eating contest you don't get a feel for the front-runners until near the end. Everybody knows that it's in the final minutes that the outcome is determined.
But not on this historic day. After only three minutes and twenty-four seconds, the little Japanese kid with the jutting ears and cute spiky hair had finished twenty-two hot dogs. He had almost broken the world record—and he still had close to nine minutes left to go.
Don Lerman was one of the first to realize something was amiss. "All of a sudden," he recalled, "I've got eight and the Japanese guy's got fifteen. And when you hear that you say to yourself, in your mind, Should I put my body through this trauma, you know, this workout, if I can't catch him?"
Perhaps the next eater to notice was Steve "The Appetite" Addicks, a locomotive mechanic from Baltimore. Addicks was stationed directly to Koby's left. In photos from that day Addicks is pictured with his mouth open, spilling half-chewed dog meat, head cranked toward Kobayashi with a look of pure confusion. Koby was eating his hot dogs with an inhuman ease. While the Rabbit kept the dog and bun together as an intact unit, dunking the whole thing and stuffing it, Koby was separating the dog from the bun. What's more, he was breaking each dog in half, then eating both halves at the same time, after which he dunked and ate the bun. Koby's judge was Gersh Kuntzman, the New York Post reporter. He and other reporters would later dub Koby's eating style the Solomon Method.
"I was in awe," Steve Addicks said. "It was amazing. I was standing next to something that—it's like, ah, I don't know—it was almost a religious experience, you know? Something that I was so close to see, that very few people will ever be able to witness, as far as the magnitude of what it meant to me as an eater. It was just like"—he made a whoosh sound—"whoa … I'm sitting there watching a miracle."
"Oh my God, ladies and gentlemen!" George Shea shouted. "TWENTY-TWO hot dogs and buns!"
Koby wasn't flagging. The Rabbit was a distant second, with fourteen hot dogs, and the rest of the eaters were in single digits.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Shea said, "Kobayashi, Takeru Kobayashi of Japan, has broken the American record—"
"And the world record!" someone else added.
"—in under five minutes."
On the right end of the table, Coondog was well on his way to twenty hot dogs. He thought all the cheering was for him. Then his counter told him, "The little Japanese kid just finished twenty-seven."
"No fuckin' way," Coondog said.
"Way," the counter said.
Coondog looked over at Koby. He watched him for a few seconds, then threw one of his hot dogs into the crowd and put down his buns. So did Steve Addicks.
A Japanese TV host narrating the contest screamed:
Koby reached twenty-nine.
Shea's face had gone slack. A carny barker as cynical and wised-up as they come, Shea looked at Kobayashi and just faintly shook his head. The man who could spray great loquacious jets of ballyhoo at audiences for twenty minutes at a time without breaking a sweat or dangling a participle was speechless.
Shea turned away from Koby and looked into the crowd.
"One away," he said.
One away from the magic number.
A Bunnette, having run out of flippable cards, held up a yellow sheet bearing the number 30.
There was a roar.
In the pit, Gersh Kuntzman ran out of numbers. He started furiously writing Koby's totals on the backs of yellow sheets with a ball-point pen. Thirty-four. Thirty-six.
The crowd chanted, "For-ty! For-ty! For-ty!"
Koby kept going, and Kuntzman kept scribbling. Forty-six. Forty-seven.
"Ladies and gentlemen, count down with me if you will! Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six!"
"Five! Four! Three! Two!"
On the back of a yellow piece of paper, held high above the head of the victorious Takeru Kobayashi, was a scrawled number representing his final total.
"Yo sha!" Koby yelled. ("All right!")
The deejay put on an upbeat song, and Shea announced the winners.
In third place, with twenty-three hot dogs, was Charles Hardy, who, as the top American, draped himself with the Stars and Stripes. He was bent over the table, in obvious pain. In second was the Rabbit, with thirty-one hot dogs—six more than his prior world record, and on any other day an astounding total.
But it was Koby who now held aloft a giant gold trophy and the Mustard Yellow Belt. He grinned and grinned. He appeared energetic, bouncy, like he could run a marathon. His countrymen surrounded him, congratulating him in Japanese.
"You're a beast!" the Rabbit said.
"Aren't you happy?" the Japanese TV host asked.
"Oh," Koby said, "I'm happy."
"You had fifty. But how do you feel?"
"I can keep going."
Gersh Kuntzman rushed to the phone to call in the results to the New York Post city desk. Before placing the call, he brainstormed analogies that might impress his editors. This was maybe like Secretariat's winning the Belmont by thirty-one lengths. Or a rookie shortstop's breaking Barry Bonds's home-run record by a hundred.
Gersh dialed and demanded space on the front page. Koby's victory, he said, was not only a watershed moment in competitive eating. It was a singular achievement in all of sports history.
The Post desk put him on hold.