Thursday, March 27, 2002
I am moving The Cobra's Blog over to Blogspot, at least until I can figure out how they make posting so easy. It's possible that this blog address might go back into service at some point, but I can't say at this time if it will. See you in the new locale.

http://thecobrasblog.blogspot.com

Wednesday, March 27, 2002
Posted by Sharon C. McGovern
Of course I watched the Academy Awards Ceremony Sunday night. It's a compulsion, a zit begging to be popped. And there were some decent nominees, though none that had even a remote chance of winning. For instance, David Lynch was up for directing the haunting Mulholland Dr., and while a that was a nice gesture, it was just too unwieldy to have a real shot. Likewise, Peter Jackson brought elegance and coherence to a three hour version of The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, captivating even to those who wince at words like "Hobbit" and "Prancing Pony." Even though there is some truth to my mom's evaluation that the movie was one gigantic chase scene, it is a remarkable achievement--at once vast and personal, and one of the truly great fantasy films (an underpopulated genre). Still, not what the middlebrow Academy thinks of as highbrow, which made the mediocre A Beautiful Mind, a shoo in.

And that's fine. A lot of people liked it, and only occasionally does the Best Picture Oscar go to something surprisingly good. To quote a rare example, "Deservin's got nothin' to do with it." (One million cobra points to anyone who identifies the source of the quote.) And that's what makes Julia Roberts so dismaying.

Okay, so I always find Julia Roberts dismaying. Her appeal is utterly lost on me, she's just a spaz with a gigantic mouth. And lately, that mouth has been broadcasting the injustice of Hollywood in awarding her an Oscar for a leading role, but not Denzel Washington, clearly an indication of society's racism. I happen to agree, at least with the first part. Why does Julia Roberts have an Oscar when so many talented women have been overlooked? Glenn Close is a far better actress (though you might not realize it from the way she was blowing her lines all through the Oscar telecast) and she's never won. But for crying out loud, it's just one of those things. For his part, Washington already had an Oscar for his supporting role in the movie Glory, and he won it a decade before Roberts got one. That's fine, too, he did an excellent job in that movie. Maybe he did an excellent job in the film for which he won the other night, Training Day. I may never know, as I have developed an allergic reaction to his co-star, Ethan Hawke. But do two Oscars make him better or more deserving than, say, Morgan Freeman? Or Danny Glover, Delroy Lindo, Samuel L. Jackson, or Laurence Fishburne? No more so than Ron Howard's Oscar proving he's a better director than Alfred Hitchcock. It's just one of those things. But all Roberts's sychophantic squealing, first about how she kissed Sidney Poitier then how she was the luckiest girl on the face of the earth to annouce Washington's win, managed to accomplish was to make both men look like subjects of her little outreach project. This didn't quite diminish the presence of either enormously dignified man, but the idea that that idiot girl seemed to think she was ushering in racial enlightenment was a ghastly spectacle. This year, Julia Roberts made herself into the premiere advocate for rewarding Washington for the color of his skin rather than the content of his performance. Even in the bad old days of Hollywood, Poitier and Hattie McDaniel didn't have that tiny stain on their reputations.

As to Halle Berry, I haven't seen her movie either, though I've heard she was very good in it. But if and, I hope, when Angela Bassett and Alfre Woodard collect their awards, they say, "I got this because I rock" and not "because Halle Berry opened the door."

Wednesday, March 13, 2002
Posted by Sharon C. McGovern
Last night Peggy and I went to see The Damned and Rob Zombie at the Mesa Amphitheater. Considering their age, which has to be considerable considering David Bowie opened for them at the beginning of his career, The Damned looked damned good. The various members sported hair in black, blond, and a sort of angry pink--none of them very convincing, though in fairness, there did seem to be plenty of hair to go around. And only the bass player was what you'd call fat. Still, they rocked pretty hard.

Rob Zombie's show was a delight. I have to admit that he only came onto my radar in a significant way a few years ago, but the show was everything I could have hoped for--smoke and fire, wraiths and robots, and fake gore galore. And as much as I love the twig boys of pop music, Love&Rockets, and Cracker, and so forth, Zombie and his band were refreshingly macho. The big power moves, the marching and posing, had a grandeur that was put in witty context by the demon and gargoyle set design, and augmented by two women with stripper moves.

Who knows if Rob Zombie will be around into the next few decades, gingerly stepping out of a battered devil's head to open a show for a successor. But based on the crowd last night, which ranged from the gray haired and infirmed to little kids, he will have an audience. And I would be happy to be among them. Still, having decay as a major theme of his current and past oeuvre was certainly a strategic move.

Posted by Sharon C. McGovern
The Cobra's Blog is going on vacation today through the 22nd. For more on that, please visit my main page (which should be updated and redesigned my the time most of you read this), The Cobra's Website. I suppose there is a teeny tiny chance that I might update this blog whilst on the road, but I wouldn't hold my breath. If you are a subscriber to The Cobra's Nose in newsletter form, you might have noticed that there hasn't been a new on in an embarrassing amount of time, but I plan to write up my vacation for all interested parties upon my return, so stay tuned. If you pine to read about my previous excursions, you can find them here.

Take care, and see (some of you) soon.

Monday, March 11, 2002
Posted by Sharon C. McGovern
Today, I saw the new ad for the Oxygen Channel. The Oxygen Channel isn't available in my area, and based on what I know about it, I won't be agitating for it any time soon. Here's what I know. First, they do a "Pop-Up Video" kind of thing to Xena: Warrior Princess reruns. Now, even if you weren't (as I am) a big Xena fan, you'd have to wonder what satisfaction there would be in mocking a show that regularly mocks itself might be. Second, I loathe their ads.

The first one I shows girl newborns casting off their pink beanies whilst "I am Woman" plays in a minor key in the background. The second is a montage of fake beauty pageant contestants decrying female stereotypes in a seamlessly edited speech. So, in other words, a station declares its intended audience free of group thinking and to prove it, they all watch the same thing at the same time. And I don't think the beauty pageant message will take root as long as former pageant heavy weights like Diane Sawyer and Katie Couric, and in a different field, Vanessa Williams, continue to garner critical respect and tons of dough in their chosen professions.

I don't mind niche marketing, and women are as good a target audience as any I suppose. And the Lifetime Channel manages to target it without annoying the crap out of me. If I am in the mood for maudlin TV movies (like the one with Sean Young who has a daughter into cutting, that one kicked ass, and Sean looked really chunky in it) or decrepit sitcoms with women in all the lead roles--that's where I go. I don't know what I'd go to the Oxygen Channel for, and I'm not even a tiny bit interested in finding out.

Posted by Sharon C. McGovern
Well, that was sort of a dopey post for the sixth month anniversary of September 11. Maybe at the one year (I know that anniversaries are by definition yearly events, so write to me about something else, Eye of Fatima) anniversary, I will have something meaningful to say. Sometimes, I am surprised at how emotional I still am about the slaughter. Not every minute of the day, but suddenly, in bursts. Or in overreacting to a only okay film like Black Hawk Down. But maybe that just how the big sorrows go--they're the hurts that keep on hurting.

Posted by Sharon C. McGovern
On the up side, I did find new articles by Mark Steyn today. Mark Steyn, for those I haven't collared and babbled at, is a Canadian who lives in New Hampshire, and writes for Canadian, US, and English publications, and he has new entries in each this week. For the Chicago Sun Times, he writes:

For Britain's Daily Telegraph (link requires registration, and I don't want to discourage you, but it's kind of a pain in this case) he covers a lot of the same material, but goes after President Bush's domestic failures:

I think he's right, and I wish he weren't. But if you want to feel better about the President of the USA, and I mean any of them, you could check out this article about Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe from The National Post. It is heavy on Canadian and UK policy about Zimbabwe, but still worth a read as a mind broadening exercise:

Thursday, March 7, 2002
Posted by Sharon C. McGovern
Today, I went to see the movie Iris, about the novelist, philosopher, and Alzheimer's sufferer Iris Murdoch. It was recently nominated for a handful of Academy Awards, including I believe, Best Actress for Judi Dench, Best Supporting Actor for Jim Broadbent, and Best Supporting Actress Kate Winslet, and they all did a fine job. But, and I kind of hate to say it, maybe there is a limit to how good a movie a movie like Iris can be, since it is essentially a disease flick. If that's what you're in the market for, though, see it.

The first thing you will see is naked Kate Winslet swimming in a river, which brings me to the real subject of this post: why are some actors such exhibitionists? And I'm not talking about little nobodies with great bodies who flash a little flesh from time to time to get by (like Sharon Stone until she got famous, but by then she was probably contractually obligated), but major stars about whose anatomies I know far more than I would ever have chosen to. The most obvious offender I can think of is Michael Douglas. From his very first starring role, "Hail, Hero!", he has been exposing his flat pathetic ass to the world, and neither age nor public outcry has discouraged him in the intervening years (see, or better yet, don't Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct for examples). In terms of flat assness, he has important competition in relative newcomer Geoffrey Rush, who has made far fewer films, but will drop trou for an Oscar nomination (Shine, Quills). Kate Winslet has been naked in Iris, Titanic, Holy Smoke, and Jude (shown giving birth from a very privileged angle), and those are just the ones I know about. Actually, she was in Quills, too, and if memory serves, naked as a corpse. Her costar in Holy Smoke, Harvey Keitel, is perhaps the most notorious for unwelcome nude scenes, starting with his first starring role in Who's That Knocking at My Door? followed up with Fingers, Bad Lieutenant, and The Piano, and Holy Smoke. He has the strangest body, too--simultaneously chunky and muscled. Nicole Kidman has shown her more enviable shape in Dead Calm, Billy Bathgate, Malice, Eyes Wide Shut, and probably more.

Meanwhile, I keep hearing about Russell Crowe's explicit love scenes from The Quick and the Dead, Proof of Life, and A Beautiful Mind being left on the cutting room floor. Conclusive proof that there is no justice in this world.

Wednesday, March 6, 2002
Posted by Sharon C. McGovern
According to this article, Americans were polled on their opinion of Muslim majority countries. Just for the record, 10,000 citizens of the nine Muslim countries were polled while only 863 of the US were contacted. And the pollsters did ask the money question that I didn't think they would, that is to say, "what is your opinion of Muslim countries?" Very/ somewhat favorable: 24%, Very/ somewhat unfavorable: 41%, Neither: 33%. Jonah Goldberg gives this testy response:

Posted by Sharon C. McGovern
Got this from the Amazing Amy Magsamen the other day:

I promise you it isn't me.

Tuesday, March 5, 2002

Posted by Sharon C. McGovern
Eye of Fatima, poet and bat catcher, had a couple of responses to a couple of posts. Regarding "alphas and betas and gammas (oh my!)," he writes,

I am far less astute than Eye, and have the networking skills of an autistic five year old, but think he makes a good point. But then, he goes on to critique my grasp of story problems:

I don't think Eye quite got me--the grunting, stretching guy did go on to make other inaccurate estimations--but it probably serves me right for being smug.

Please feel free to e-mail any comments (or corrections, but especially comments) to thecobrasnose@yahoo.com.

Posted by Sharon C. McGovern
This afternoon, there were two count them two different reports on two different CNN talk shows (Talk Back Live and Crossfire) about the lamentable obesity of Americans today. This topic has been a pet peeve of mine for sometime, and that was before the big push to legislate against it. The argument goes something like this: obesity causes health problems which sometimes costs government money to fix, therefore, the government should have the right to forbid or punitively tax the causes of obesity. If it was good enough for smoking, the argument goes, it's good enough for fat.

I loathe this mode of thinking. First of all, it charges the government with the duty of being more responsible for personal matters--and about very most personal matters of all--than individual persons. Second, unlike the overrated phenomenon of second hand smoke, there is no way for the Krispy Kreme I eat to invade anybody else's body--the fat and calories are mine all mine. Third, there is beneath the anti-fat rhetoric a horror that obesity will somehow become acceptable to the populace at large, so we constantly have to be reminded how awful it is. God forbid the typical American forget for five seconds that Ford Modeling Agency probably won't be nagging them to sign a contract any time soon.

Listen, and I write this as a not-lithe person, there is "lookism" practiced in the world on a freelance basis that the odds of anybody feeling consistantly great about his or (especially?) her personal appearance are pretty remote even without the government and professional scolds getting in on the act. I was privileged to watch Talk Back Live with my thin and handsome brother, Partick, and when the usual montage of chunky citizens rolled and the voiceover queried, "Are Americans too fat?" he shouted an enthusiastic, "Yes!" And I have to admit, it wasn't a pretty sight. The segment was followed by a special report out of England, which consisted of an English corespondent asking his countrymen which nation had the fattest population. The only country named was the United States. "Maybe they should back away from the Burger Kings and the MacDonalds," sneered one pale, scrawny jerkweed, and Partick had to call a time out. "We have to take this from people who eat blood sausage and deep fry every meal?" he said.

Maybe we should just be relieved that it wasn't one of the questions the pollsters asked the countries with majority Muslim populations.

Posted by Sharon C. McGovern
Here is a new column on Saudi Arabia by Mark Steyn. If you've never read his work...well, just do.

Monday, March 4, 2002

Posted by Sharon C. McGovern
A couple of weeks ago, I visited my apartment building's chamber of horrors. It was fairly early on a Saturday, so I was hopeful that I would be the only incarceree and would therefore be free to choose the channel (Looney Tunes was on). Unfortunately, a fat guy was already there, perched on this device that aids in stretching, and was grunting and sighing with every move. He had it pointed toward the TV, and the TV was tuned to CNN Headline News. Of course, I was a little disappointed, but news is always a decent option. As Suzanne Sugarbaker from Designing Women puts it, it's a little of this, and a little of that, and none of it lasts too long. I mounted my machine of choice (the elliptical), and settled in for 28 minutes of pain and suffering and news, when a report about the Powerball jackpot came on. A lucky winner from the Northeast won the $183 million prize, but after taxes would only see about $60 million of it.

The above discussion repeated two or three times, until a story about Enron came on.

I panted out a protest--none of those guys worked for Enron.

Now let me clarify a few things before I go on. I am not a math whiz and would never claim to be. If you think the Bush Administration is corrupt, I'm sure you have your reasons and don't feel the need to proselytize to you. I am a fan of the Grand Slam Breakfast. And I wouldn't be writing any of this if I hadn't heard another one of those asinine reports-from-a-typical-eatery on NPR the other day. That particular discussion was about how Americans perceive their heritage in this age of multiculturalism, "Americans" in this case being a handful of women on break from their jobs at a beauty parlor, plus a couple of college professor experts whose remarks were edited in later. I've heard dozens, maybe hundreds of examples of this type of story over the years--and not just on NPR, but on all the news outlets and in all media--and find them condescending and useless. The reporters venture into Average American territory like wary Anthropologists, and treat the natives' semi-coherent opinions with lazy credulity. I'm not blaming the deer in the headlights interviewees. Unlike reporters and their expert chums, they are unlikely to be preoccupied by whatever topic upon which they are asked to opine. Nothing wrong with that--it doesn't make them bad people or bad citizens. But neither does it make them interesting in the slightest to anybody who has to deal with them on a regular basis. If a reporter had ambled into a Scottsdale Denny's on that particular Saturday and started asking around about the Average American's opinion on Enron, he or she would have learned that at least one Average American who was incapable of figuring simple fractions was nonetheless astute enough to have figured out a complicated financial catastrophe and discerned that the highest levels of government had been compromised by it. So what if his data was wrong? I've heard all sorts of lies and inaccuracies come out of the mouths of my fellow Average Americans in national broadcasts, but somehow because they are speaking the truth as they know it, actual, verifiable capital-T Truth takes a back seat.

The sociologist Max Weber theorized if a person thought something was true, it would have the same effect in the person's life as if it were true whether it was or not. The guy in the torture chamber thought the Bush Administration was corrupt because it was packed with former Enron employees, and this wasn't some vague intuition, but a rather strongly worded prejudice he volunteered to a stranger--while watching a news story that said nothing of the sort. Likewise, I remember a former co-worker completely confusing Palestinian and Pakistani terrorists, while reading an article about terrorism in Israel, and a deliveryman delivering a bizarre history of the Middle East while a story about the history of the Middle East played on television behind him in the Break Room. The information is out there...why does it penetrate so few brains? How does the media manage to so misinform the public? That is the only story about Average Americans' opinions I'm interested in hearing.

Posted by Sharon C. McGovern
Considering how little I think of the opinions of my fellow citizens generally, guess how much I esteem those taken from this poll about how Muslim populations view the United States and matters related to the September 11 attacks? 63% of Iranians "dislike" President Bush? Get out! Or consider, (to quote James Taranto from OpinionJournal)

So I'm not going to get into the poll results, as they've been covered by my betters. But can you imagine a similar poll in the US? Average Americans answering questions like, "Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Morocco?" Do you know anybody who has an opinion of Morocco at all? Or Jordan, or Lebanon, or Kuwait? You might have an easier time getting feedback on the likes of Iran, but what would would the answers mean? "Favorable" would be a stretch, considering no official Iranian statement re the US is complete without a mention of Satan. Still, "unfavorable" seems harsh when applied to an entire nation. There is a legitimate, pro-democratic movement in Iran that is "favorable," as well as, I'm sure, lots of fine people who might be perfectly favorable if you met them in an airport or had them over for dinner. This isn't like George W putting their government on notice by including them in the infamous axis, it's just plain, non-policy making folks who picked up the phone when it rang. And the only result an "unfavorable" vote would have is to encourage world opinion that the United States is a nation of bigots. So..."undecided"? Only if you want to read editorials about American ignorance for the next six months.

A poll like that would never be conducted in the US, never. So why is is appropriate for countries with Muslim majorities?

Posted by Sharon C. McGovern

	You are Kermit! Though you're technically the star, you're pretty mellow and don't mind letting others share the spotlight. You are also something of a dreamer.
Take the What Muppet Are You? Quiz!

I'm Kermit! Who are you?

Saturday, March 2, 2002

Posted at 10:45 pm by Sharon C. McGovern
When I first started The Cobra's Nose, and every time I got a new subscriber, I would hear, "I should write something for you to publish." Having already been a section editor of an off-campus college newspaper, I was used to hearing this. Unfortunately, back then I took it seriously and alienated a lot of people by insisting they deliver the articles they promised to write. That was useless. There was no pay involved, and the prestige of being published in The Student Review was pretty much on par with that of authorship in The Cobra's Nose, so I had nothing to compete with excuses like, "I had homework," "I had a date," and "I didn't feel like writing it." In all fairness, I did have a few guest contributors come through for me in The Nose, luminaries like Eye of Fatima (the artist formerly known as "Magi"), Janet Herman, Scott Rowley, Veronica Zolotoochin, The Amazing Amy Magsamen, my cousin The Elegant Evelyn, and my nephews Alex and Aaron Burton (google yourselves and see what happens, guys). You can read most of their articles on The Cobra's Guest Page or find them in The Cobra's Archives. Still, I realize that there's a lot of, "sheesh, I can do that" kind of attitude when it comes to small endeavors like the above, and like blogging. I have that attitude, and yet on day two of The Cobra's Blog nearly blew my deadline.

So, let me again proclaim my gratitude to all those who have contributed to The Cobra's Nose in whatever form, invite all interested parties to contribute in the future, and apologize to any and all whom I may have unduly nagged in the past.

Posted at 11:00pm by Sharon C. McGovern
By way of contrition, you can look at this photo of me in drag. With any luck, this will be the most embarrassing for a while, but since I reportedly insisted on being photographed soon after getting my wisdom teeth out, it may not hold the title for long.

Friday, March 1, 2002