Desparate Times

On occasion, I find that life slows down a bit. On those sad, slow days when there’s no movie premiere party, the Simpsons rerun showing is a clip show and pre-production on my next film has halted ‘cause I’m waiting to hear back from a co-writer, I can come dangerously close to experiencing boredom, or worse, full-blown ennui. In these rare cases, the last resort to avoid heat death of the universe that is my brain is that most desparate, contemptible activity: reading. Newspapers, magazines, even sometimes weblogs. And once, I read a book. I’ll be honest with you, dear loyal readers, it’s come to that.

In my usual, attention-grasping style, I’m going to share something silly that I read. I found it in that silliest of publications, The New York Times. Michael Jernofsky and Sarah Kershaw write:

Shawn O’Hara, national chairman of the Reform Party, which was founded by Ross Perot, sought to play down differences with Mr. Nader. He insisted that Mr. Nader’s views were not entirely out of synch with the party as currently constructed, at least on some issues, like their mutual opposition to world trade agreements and the United States military role in Iraq.

“We’ve moved to the center,” Mr. O’Hara said, while conceding that he once favored the execution of doctors and nurses who performed abortions but now embraced abortion rights as provided by federal law, as Mr. Nader does.

For those of you who are in the pitiable position of being bored enough to care about politics, the full article is available at the Times website. There. I feel much, much better now.