Friday, December 9, 2016

Mike Bara has his own idea of what the word "tribute" means

        Mike Bara was handed two hours to flog his latest horrible book on Coast to Coast AM last night. It was a typical George Noory interview--no challenges at all, just wall-to-wall marketing. There were some oddities, as indeed there were in the book. Somehow the topic of secret space programs expanded to include the airships of the Sonora Aero Club and the EM drive. The airships may have been secret but they had nothing to do with space, and the EM drive may connect with spaceflight but it's not secret.

        Toward the end, Bara suggested the listeners might like to go read his blog, which today contains "a tribute" to John Glenn (who kicked the bucket yesterday at the grand old age of 95--the last of the "Original Seven".) Well, it was the wee small hours in my time zone, but, hearing that, I mustered enough strength to pound my bedside radio into tiny pieces and throw it down the canyon.

         Just kidding. But my point is, Bara's blog piece, far from being a tribute, is a repeat of his totally mistaken accusation that John Glenn was a liar. This is an echo of the same Mike Bara's "tribute" to Neil Armstrong on the Book of Faces in 2012:

"RIP Neil Armstrong - a true American hero who wanted to tell the truth but was loyal to his oath.note 1"

        So much for de mortuis nil nisi bonum dicenda est. Bara doesn't understand latin (or much of anything else, come to that) so he just gives himself permission to shoot his mouth off as he pleases.

Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V
        Bara's snide blogpost wasn't even original. It was a verbatim copy of a page from Richard Hoagland's web site, written in February 2012 to mark the 50th anniversary of Glenn's historic Mercury mission. Bara only attributes it to Enterprise Mission, not to its author, although here I must allow that Bara ghost-wrote plenty of pages for Hoagland, so it's possible that the author is himself. The bottom line, as I have written before, is that Glenn's guest-spot on Frasier was A JOKE. The liars are Richard C. Hoagland and Michael Bara.

Performance
        Last night I noted, as I have before, how well Bara performs on the mass media as long as you judge the performance and not its content. He's articulate, and delivers interview answers of just the right length. He does have a few too many intrusive "you know"s, but not to the point of real annoyance. So it might exasperate me, but it shouldn't surprise me, that he gets these free marketing opportunities after every book. And indeed, he scooped the traditional reward--the book ranking on Amazon (Kindle edition) went from 533,780 on November 2nd to 56,489 this morningnote 2. Nowhere near good enough to sustain Bara's lifestyle for very long, but a boost nevertheless.

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[1] On that occasion, Yelp Pacifica ran a thread titled What do you think of somebody calling Neil Armstrong a liar when his body isn't even cold?

[2] From 274 to 34 in Nonfiction > Science > Astronomy & Space Science > Astrophysics & Space Science.

10 comments:

Chris Lopes said...

For the love of Bob, not that Frazier episode again. Either Bara (and Hoagland) are being stupid, or they are being dishonest. It was obvious to anyone with half a brain cell that the whole thing was a joke. It's a comedy show and there was laughter involved.

My own suspicion is that Bara and Hoagland know very well what was happening, but like the Armstrong/parrot thing, they choose to play stupid. It's a reflection of how they see their audience. As cruel as it may be to say, they are probably right about that.

THE Orbs Whiperer said...

Did either Hoagland or Bara actually use the word "liar", or is that an exaggeration? The UFO Control System invariably uses ludicrous contraDICKtory scenarios to alter human perception and beliefs.

expat said...

« Did either Hoagland or Bara actually use the word "liar"? »

Read the 2012 page. The word is there. In Bara's book, p.174, the exact text is "He lied. NSASA lied."

Dee said...

Chris "It was obvious to anyone with half a brain cell that the whole thing was a joke".

But that's not really the point in this case. Throughout Hoagland's work one of the themes has been the usage of fiction to "trickle" down Truth (like some, and I quote: "timed release aspirin") to "prepare" us for more revelations surrounded by many,many quotation marks. Ranging from Chris Carter's X-files and Millennium, Rodenberry's Startrek universe, Tom Corbett, even Walt Disney (friend of Von Braun), of course Arthur C Clarke and so on.

The underlying theme here is "messages" underneath the external meanings. And Hoagland sees them everywhere. Just as easily in NASA announcements, news article as former astronauts joking or speeching somewhere (eg Neil Armstrong).

Bottom line: it's not about something being cast like a joke or not, or a space opera or a fictional mystery. That's generally well understood. It's about the tendency to read more into some selected ones while not in many others (a logical flaw right there). It's perhaps closer to a high functioning form of paranoia schizophrenia, which usually involves a stream of messages from the inside or coming from the outside, the feeling of being on a specially selected mission, with dark powers opposing the mission. It can be a source for interesting, creative and intuitive expression, perhaps, but it should be clear that unrestrained, it can only lead to further mental breakdowns, simply because of all the impossible contradictions and high anxieties coming with this "rapture". Perhaps it's interesting to compare this with the case of Philip K. Dick's personal life.

In the case of Hoagland: he managed to take his issues to a very large stage where it became even further warped (such scale and exposure does that to any display, any message) and his ideas became, to some at least, inspirational, exciting or even guiding for a little while. It also involved attracting others with similar cognitive issues or mostly just people with rather normal escapist tendencies. That particular audience always has been unlimited and in my view this is also about basic human tendencies. And with that I mean that to some extent we all need illusions and dreams, wrapped up as our ideas "how things are", as unrealized potential to keep the engines running. But some of these dream images and beliefs are potentially more destructive than others....

(and now I wanted to end with "stay tuned" -- but it's one thing we can be sure of Hoagland never managed to do!)

Dee

Anonymous said...

I was never very familiar with Mike Bara before I started reading this blog. Two things struck me. I went to listen to an interview he gave. I don't remember the show or really the topic. I agree with Expat in that he is a very good interview subject, he's quick with answers and fairly articulate.
The first weird thing was part way through the interview he was telling the story about after they had filmed a sizzle reel. He said he was on a rooftop bar with a couple of female co-stars then he started doing this weird Beavis and or Butt-head laugh. Making it sound like "Hey guys, I'm with two chicks."
The second and more disturbing thing was from his site. At the top he has this description of himself. The last line is "This will not be over quickly. You will not enjoy this.".
That sounded familiar. I looked it up. It was what Theron said to Queen Gorgo before he rapes her from the movie 300. WTF

expat said...

I remember that. The sizzle reel was for that short TV series "Uncovering Aliens" (in which no aliens were uncovered.) Bara related that it was the moment he saw his first-ever UFO.

Chris Lopes said...

Dee,
Yes indeed. Hoagland seems to actually believe that there is a secret cabal that "knows the truth" and is preparing us for it. This cabal includes beloved science fiction writers, womanizing TV producers, and eccentric movie directors. Everyone seems to know about this stuff except those of us who don't. The paranoia is strong in this one.

Dee said...

Anonymous,

"It was what Theron said to Queen Gorgo before he rapes her from the movie 300. WTF"

Theron added to that line "I am not [like] your king". For completeness sake queen Gorgo later slashes Theron whispering those same words back in his dying ears, adding "I am not your queen". Perhaps more fitting quote for Bara, ha-ha. Resentment rules.

And no I'm not a fan of the movie, I even didn't manage to sit through it! But I looked up the context. Although it was by all means a form of rape, there was also some kind of exchange leading towards the act with the queen offering herself first. But perhaps she hoped on a more mutual beneficial arrangement.

Dee

expat said...

Good research, Dee. Thanks--I wonder if Bara knows about that ending...

Irrelevant comment from Theadora disallowed.

Chris Lopes said...

While it wasn't quite rape, it wasn't completely consensual either. The sex was the price demanded for the guy's support for sending troops to help her husband who was doomed without those troops. The lines were his way of letting her know who was in charge.

Later, he double crosses her in the council meeting and she demonstrates the Spartan version of a woman scorned. The blade in the gut being her version of what he did to her. Yeah, I don't think Bara understands it either.