What in the World?

I was riding a stationary bike today at the Health and Fitness Center of my University, as I have done almost every day since last week, when my physical therapists (I have three!) advised me that I could do so in the course of my continued recovery from the ankle fracture. The day prior I had informed Lucas that I had ‘ridden’ the exercise bicycle, and he said I could use the machines for five minutes. “Five minutes?” I cried. “I rode for forty-five minutes today!” He shook his head. I thought that his attitude did not bode well for my future recovery.

It is very boring to sit atop that bicycle which goes nowhere. Nothing moves. Nothing changes. And so I sit on this very uncomfortable seat and play with the buttons of the machine. I increase the intensity level when I am feeling strong, and I decrease it when the pedaling becomes too strenuous. I check the time elapsed—it is always less that it seems. Time moves very slowly when you are going nowhere! I check the distance traveled, which seems to me the height of absurdity, actually. After all, it is a veritable distance. I have traveled not at all; even my mind’s eye has closed.

It is a very boring ride, and so I bring my CD player and I listen to music. Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush, of course. I have coasted with the new John Prine album (very nice, indeed), and pedaled to Bruce Springsteen’s Devils and Dust (provocative!). I have passed some miles with the new productions of Nanci Griffith, and Eliza Gilkyson (both delightful). I’ve thought about bringing the Grateful Dead into the Fitness Center, but I think even they would be hard pressed to move me on that stationary bike. But I like and require the exercise; I am returning after my fracture to my life of activity. And so I have agreed to endure the boredom.

Now, as an alternative, it is also possible to bring a radio and tune in to the television. In the Fitness Center, they are wired for cable, a luxury I do not enjoy at home. (This is a serious topic of conversation and critique in my home—the children cannot understand the neglect!!) And by some miracle of electronics, atop my stationary bicycle, I can tune my radio to a specific frequency and hear the television through my earphones. Originally, I was too embarrassed to be seen watching what I grew up knowing as the ‘idiot box,’ but boredom reduces me to desperate measures. Last week I screened an old episode of ER. I know it was an older episode because George Clooney appeared so young in it. Last week I also saw Quantum Leap, a show in which I took original delight when it first appeared in 1989, and gloried in again as I pedaled nowhere. There, on the screen, Scott Pakula couldn’t control his travel, and in the gym I couldn’t make mine happen.

And then today I listened to Dylan’s album Love and Theft and watched the television without listening to it. They supply close captioning, and for twenty minutes Fox television explored the intricacies of the news story which has come to be known as “the runaway bride.” (I cannot bear to go into the details (sordid) and subtleties (none) of this event.) For a considerable time the news network explored the end of the prosecution’s case, and they tortured themselves silly wondering if Michael Jackson would testify on his own behalf when the defense presents its case. I recalled that over the past month the news media has prominently and obsessively focused on the tragic situation of Terry Schiavo, and then on the condition of the dying John Paul II, and then on his elaborate (and very expensive) funeral, and finally on the election and installation of the new one. Benedict XVI. (To my mind, it is an open relief that they chose the one with a Nazi past. At least now, it is all out in the open!), Then we were besotted with the royal wedding of Charles and Camilla.

Atop my bike, pedaling for my life and going nowhere, I sigh with relief that nothing must be wrong with our world when this silliness is the total fare on the news. I am relieved that the war in Iraq is no longer of interest, and that the body count is of no consequence. It is a comfort to know that the continual decline of the economy is of no concern to the nation now that Martha Stewart has been released from minimum security prison. Watching the news, I am relieved that the press seems not at all interested in the accuracy of John Kerry’s accusation throughout the >campaign that Georgie Porgie had ignored the real threats of North Korea and Iran and nuclear proliferation for the personal vendetta against Iraq in a war dishonestly and even perhaps, illegally imposed on the nation and the world. I reflect that it is polite that no one mentions that the corporate scandals of the last several years occurred when George was President, and were led by his friends and business compatriots. I am thankful that the administration’s manufactured crisis concerning social security is of little concern to the Press, and that the difficult questions that need be posed to Bush are left unspoken by a cowardly media. I suppose it is a welcome sign of a civility that so many claim to have fled this country that no one will confront George Bush and his gang about these horrible fictions and lies.

I borrow the term ‘manufactured crisis’ from David Berliner and Bruce Biddle (1995) who used it as the title of their book to put the lie to the false accusations made against education in the heinous A Nation at Risk (1983) and during the propaganda-filled years following. The administration prevaricated then, and they are lying now. These deceptions continue in justifications for the horrific No Child Left Behind Act, which finally and thankfully seems under attack by some enlightened and beleaguered states, and by the NEA.

I think the state of affairs in which the press seems complicit is a shame, but no one seems ashamed. I am appalled. In the mean time, I sit atop the stationary bike and pedal for my life.