Oprah Ruined the Marathon!

Says Salon Magazine:

"The mid-1990s gave us two new long-distance heroes. The first was Oprah Winfrey. If Frank Shorter inspired the first running boom, Oprah inspired the second, by running the Marine Corps Marathon. And it was a much bigger boom. This was not a spindly 24-year-old Yalie gliding through Old World Munich. This was a middle-aged woman hauling her flab around the District of Columbia."

To the extent there's a theme here at all, it seems to be that populism's great for thee but not for me...especially when you're on my freakin' trail!

I'm not sure Salon Magazine is all that good at trend-spotting. And Her Royal Oprah-ness is such an easy target these days, but if I wanted to slam her for something I'd start with her earnest promotion of the literary world's ever-increasing collection of kooks, weirdos, wankers and angst-pukers. She's damaged her audience's ability to choose reading material far more than their marathon performance.

iPod shuffle: "Before You Hit the Ground" by Jonny Lang, from "Wander This World." Young poseur grows up and gets bluesy.