An elephant eating, and eating an elephant

Today’s pointless public opinion question asks you to choose between (1) an elephant eating and (2) eating an elephant. Here are details.

CHOICE 1 is based on an April 11, 2006 Associated Press report:

Elephant Eats Scores of Cookies, Gets Sick
By DILIP GANGULY Associated Press Writer

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s most celebrated elephant, “Raja,” has fallen ill after eating scores of cookies, chocolates and other rich food offered to him as part of Buddhist new year celebrations….

CHOICE 2 is based on a 2002 item published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health (vol. 56, p. 887):

APHORISM OF THE MONTH
Elephant number 3: Eating an elephant
by John R Ashton, Joint Editor

It is said that the thing about eating an elephant is that it doesn?t much matter where you start, the important thing is to know that it is indeed an elephant and that you have some sense of its size and shape, where the hard bits and the fleshy bits are. As with elephants, so with public health….

(Thanks to Investigator Ron Josephson for bringing one of these items to our attention.)