Too bad, sucker
December 23, 2011 10:16 AM Subscribe
This post was deleted for the following reason: Eh, this kind of feels like it's better left as just a rant on their blog. -- cortex
Take that rant and replace every reference to running with something about watching television. It still makes just as much sense to hurl invective at someone for liking to do things they like to do!
posted by Plutor at 10:21 AM on December 23, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Plutor at 10:21 AM on December 23, 2011 [1 favorite]
"If my Facebook feed counts as a scientific sample..."
It doesn't.
posted by Stagger Lee at 10:22 AM on December 23, 2011 [1 favorite]
It doesn't.
posted by Stagger Lee at 10:22 AM on December 23, 2011 [1 favorite]
Take that rant and replace every reference to running with something about watching television. It still makes just as much sense to hurl invective at someone for liking to do things they like to do!
Oh you're pretty good at watching television Mr. Teresa!
posted by grobstein at 10:23 AM on December 23, 2011
Oh you're pretty good at watching television Mr. Teresa!
posted by grobstein at 10:23 AM on December 23, 2011
I like a good rant as much as, if not more than, the next cranky person, but this one doesn't work for me. I know plenty of marathon runners and none of them are annoying about it.
Gardeners, on the other hand...
posted by The corpse in the library at 10:24 AM on December 23, 2011
Gardeners, on the other hand...
posted by The corpse in the library at 10:24 AM on December 23, 2011
Surviving a marathon does make you better than Phidippides, though.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 10:24 AM on December 23, 2011 [6 favorites]
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 10:24 AM on December 23, 2011 [6 favorites]
(By the way, I posted this because I'm running my first in two weeks, and I am definitely being a pill about it.)
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:24 AM on December 23, 2011
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:24 AM on December 23, 2011
If the point of the rant was to make me intensely dislike the author, mission accomplished.
posted by Splunge at 10:25 AM on December 23, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Splunge at 10:25 AM on December 23, 2011 [1 favorite]
Possibly of interest: David Mitchell's Soapbox on Marathons
posted by maybeandroid at 10:26 AM on December 23, 2011
posted by maybeandroid at 10:26 AM on December 23, 2011
"If my Facebook feed counts as a scientific sample, then 83% of people in their twenties are currently training for, have just run, or are pretending to have just run a marathon."
Confirmation bias much?
posted by ericb at 10:29 AM on December 23, 2011
Confirmation bias much?
posted by ericb at 10:29 AM on December 23, 2011
I love this article. I do. I am not anti-marathon... I have several friends who are marathon runners. But as I was accidentally wandering though the aftermath of the NYC marathon this year (I live near the end point), I was suddenly struck by how fucking vacuous it all was. All of this time and energy, money and pathos... that amounts to a hill of beans. And what especially bothered me was exactly what this blogger is getting at... that people who run marathons are somehow considered morally superior to the rest of us.
posted by kimdog at 10:29 AM on December 23, 2011
posted by kimdog at 10:29 AM on December 23, 2011
I know this is off topic and potentially considered trolling, but now that the Hitch has passed away I guess it falls to the rest of us to point out that Mother Teresa was no "Mother Teresa" either. Her public image is saintly, the reality far less pleasant. If she'd directed the vast sums of money her organisation has received properly Kolkata could have an excellent hospital giving free proper medical treatment to the poor and sick she claimed to love.
Instead, virtually every penny was spent on setting up convents around the world, fighting for Catholic-right causes like opposing birth control, restricting divorce even in abusive relationships etc. Her home for the dying is a hellhole where nobody gets any significant medical treatment even when the condition is treatable, where lice and vermin are uncontrolled etc. Arguably they'd be slightly less unpleasant places to die than dark alleyways... but not by very much.
Whether she actually achieved any genuine objective good in the world is highly debateable.
posted by Mokusatsu at 10:29 AM on December 23, 2011 [3 favorites]
Instead, virtually every penny was spent on setting up convents around the world, fighting for Catholic-right causes like opposing birth control, restricting divorce even in abusive relationships etc. Her home for the dying is a hellhole where nobody gets any significant medical treatment even when the condition is treatable, where lice and vermin are uncontrolled etc. Arguably they'd be slightly less unpleasant places to die than dark alleyways... but not by very much.
Whether she actually achieved any genuine objective good in the world is highly debateable.
posted by Mokusatsu at 10:29 AM on December 23, 2011 [3 favorites]
the main point to remember from this rant: "I am almost a doctor"...so I know better than the thousands that run marathons.
posted by Postroad at 10:31 AM on December 23, 2011
posted by Postroad at 10:31 AM on December 23, 2011
You have to run the marathon, and then take all that pain and offer it up
posted by BrotherCaine at 10:31 AM on December 23, 2011
posted by BrotherCaine at 10:31 AM on December 23, 2011
Christopher Hitchens: Mommie Dearest -- The Pope Beatifies Mother Teresa, A Fanatic, A Fundamentalist, And A Fraud.
posted by ericb at 10:32 AM on December 23, 2011
posted by ericb at 10:32 AM on December 23, 2011
I was suddenly struck by how fucking vacuous it all was.
Smaller races are the same way. It's always seemed an awful roundabout way to support a charity even: I give money, and then other people will volunteer their time in support of me.
posted by smackfu at 10:32 AM on December 23, 2011
Smaller races are the same way. It's always seemed an awful roundabout way to support a charity even: I give money, and then other people will volunteer their time in support of me.
posted by smackfu at 10:32 AM on December 23, 2011
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posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:16 AM on December 23, 2011