Don't Trust Any Music Mag Over 30

Let's hear it for guilty tokenism! After being shamed for including no African-Americans and precious few women in its April list of the culture's most influential figures, Rolling Stone has remedied the oversight -- sort of.

The new 40th anniversary issue out this week includes another list of the "artists, scientists and leaders who helped shape our time." It includes a whole three blacks -- Cornel West, Kanye West and Chris Rock -- and the same number of women.

Even more discriminated against are the young people who ostensibly make up Rolling Stone's readership. Jann Wenner's overpowering nostalgia for the '60s seems to stop just short of "don't trust anyone over 30." (Perhaps he's just forgotten it, along with most of the '70s and '80s?) The average age of those featured is 49.5; the only twenty-something on the list is MoveOn.org founder Eli Pariser.

You might wonder why a magazine dedicated to keeping up with youth culture is so eager to flaunt its age in the first place. And it is eager -- this is the third of three 40th-anniversary issues published this year, and last year the magazine threw itself an equally ostentatious 1,000th issue bash. What's the point? Aren't we reminded how creaky Rolling Stone has gotten every time it puts another Bruce Springsteen or Neil Young on the cover?