Diseases of Leisure

Shit. It’s been more than a month since the Indignant Citizen’s last post. Where the fuck has the time gone? So many days, so much pent-up indignation. Thank God we’re Winning the War on Terror, the Economy is humming thanks to those tax cuts, and Americans are coming to their senses that the Drive-In Utopia is a failure. If it weren’t for those nuggets of good news, boy, things would look bleak indeed.

As it is, though, life is wonderful. Things couldn’t be going much better. Well, except for those poor bastards getting blown up in Iraq. That’s gotta suck for them. But what the hell? They died for our freedom, and a grateful nation thanks them … in between pro wrestling matches and video game marathons.

Plus, somewhere the names of the dead soldiers got read this past weekend at one of the countless Memorial Day celebrations. So right there that’s pretty cool, getting your name read out loud. And the families of the dead soldiers all get nice free flags to keep and maybe put on the mantle. Oh, and they get the eternal gratitude of our Commander in Chief, President Bush. That’s almost as good as having their loved ones still around. Maybe it’s better sometimes, ‘cause Bush doesn’t come home from his third tour in the Gulf all stressed out and eating everything in the house and beating the dog.

Yep, life is good here in the U-nited States. Which must be why we have time for meaningless diversions like the U.S. Paintball Championships, which aired Memorial Day on ESPN2. They were on TV at the restaurant where the Indignant Citizen and his wife ate Monday night. This restaurant, The Patio, in Bridgeview, had about 30 televisions hanging from the ceilings and tucked into the corners, to promote conversation, no doubt. About half the TVs were tuned to the ridiculous paintball tournament. In true ESPN fashion, there were slow-motion shots of the “teams” high-fiving, fist pumping and engaging in some kind of pre-tournament group chanting and rhythmic jumping ritual to get pumped up for competition. There was actually a crowd in the stands.

We are a stupid people who have cultivated a vapid, image-worshipping culture. When we are punished for this wasteful behavior, it will be swift and thorough, and no one will be spared. In the meantime, though, we pretend to occupy ourselves with “serious issues.” The TVs in the restaurant that weren’t showing the paintball “championships” were tuned to CNN, which was airing a special on eating disorders and the fabulously famous, wealthy and beautiful people who have survived them.

Eating disorders are serious issues for those who suffer from them. And plenty of people have died from the effects of bulimia and anorexia. But who are these people suffering from eating disorders? Based on a very small sample size, which includes the CNN show Monday night and other news programs that have aired previously, eating disorders appear to be a disease of leisure. Which is to say, the people suffering them typically are not portrayed as living paycheck-to-paycheck. They appear to be people with the time and resources to become obsessed with their body image. Teenagers, celebrities, athletes—people solidly in the middle class or above.

The Indignant Citizen would like to see a profile of, say, a single mother working two jobs to support her kid who suffers from an eating disorder. Or a married father of three working the swing shift at the steel mill who has an eating disorder. The Indignant Citizen’s suspicion is, again based on the evidence thus far presented, that neither of these two people would have time to develop an eating disorder. Who has time to obsess about body image or binging and purging when you’re worried about paying the electric bill next month, or coming up with enough overtime to buy new clothes for the upcoming school year?

Who wants to starve himself or herself when it’s uncertain exactly when the next meal might be eaten? Who wants to gorge and throw it all up when there’s no telling how the next meal might be paid for?

Diseases of leisure. Diseases which, while very real to those who suffer from them, are the product of an image-obsessed culture with too much time on its hands and no real desire or need to apply itself to solving serious problems.

Take the CNN report itself. Certainly Paula Zahn and the CNN production crew responsible for putting the piece together felt they were doing a tremendous service to thousands of people—informing them of potentially deadly disorders, disorders suffered by many in silence and shame. But what if CNN had applied itself equally to the task of informing home buyers of the dangers of adjustable-rate mortgages, which former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan famously and inexplicably touted in a speech in 2004? ARMs seemed like a great idea at the time, when interest rates were at record lows. But certainly Greenspan had to know that eventually rates would rise, and that anyone who had traded in a fixed-rate mortgage for an adjustable-rate mortgage would end up paying more in the long run, short-term savings aside.

Now millions of people who took his advice are paying more, and according to a story in the Tribune by Becky Yerak, mortgage defaults are on the rise. Rising interest rates and their impact on adjustable-rate mortgages are one reason why.

At the time there was plenty of discussion in the print media—although mostly in the financial pages—about whether Greenspan had lost his fucking mind. But would CNN have spent an hour, as it did with eating disorders, focusing on the merits and risks of adjustable rate mortgages? And if it had, would anyone have watched? How many more people would have stood to gain from an in-depth discussion of ARMs? Probably millions.

So when the Indignant Citizen’s across-the-street neighbors get evicted from their house because they can’t pay the mortgage any more, they’ll blame the government, the banks and probably the oil companies. But at least their 14-year-old daughter will know where to go for help to treat her eating disorder. That is, if she has time to have an eating disorder anymore once she’s working the 6 p.m.-to-close shift at the Culver’s or Wal-Mart to help her parents make ends meet.