Thursday, January 18, 2007

More Barbara Honegger

James was able to get hold of a little more information on the Clock Lady, who will apparently appear in Loose Change, the Final (Nearly) Cut. Here's a 1985 article from Newsweek, entitled The Munchkin's Musical I've bolded the more entertaining passages.

Whatever its lasting contributions may turn out to be, the Reagan administration will long be remembered for its colorful and abundant ephemera. The resignation last month of Education Department aide Eileen Gardner (briefly famous for her view that a handicapped person's "external circumstances . . . fit his level of inner spiritual development") was only the latest in a long series of mini-controversies. The strangest of all, perhaps, was one that began on an otherwise dull Sunday in August 1983. Barbara Honegger, a special assistant in the Justice Department's civil-rights division, published a guest editorial in The Washington Post, attacking the president on women's issues. On Monday she quit her job.

On Tuesday a Justice Department official memorably dismissed Honegger as "a low-level Munchkin"; on Wednesday White House spokesman Larry Speakes sneered that the last time he'd seen her "she was the Easter Bunny at the White House Easter Egg Roll." (Speakes was mistaken, but Honegger had been photographed in a rabbit suit in 1980.) The next day Honegger produced a photo of herself with Reagan and crowed that it was "the Munchkin with the Wizard of Oz." White House aides began whispering that Honegger was a believer in ESP who claimed she'd ridden on Halley's comet; others began to wonder about her when she bombed on ABC's "Nightline," claiming that since Reagan had been in office she was "the only individual who saw the whole picture." The media backed off as quickly as they'd latched on. Honegger's entire passage from obscurity to obscurity took about two weeks.

When the fuss died down, Honegger joined the Jesse Jackson campaign as a coordinator for women. Then, last May, she moved back to California, where her parents own valuable real estate -- including the small, tidy house overlooking Monterey Bay in Pacific Grove where she now lives. Outside her picture window, sunbathers loll on their blankets; inside, Honegger, 37, sits with her back to the blue Pacific, her black dress buttoned to her chin, and talks animatedly about her latest response to the events of August 1983.

'Zingers': After thinking "very, very deeply and seriously and lightheartedly" about it, she decided against the lawsuits she'd been planning against government officials. Instead she's writing a musical satire whose working title is "The Wizard Because"; a "New York producer," she says, is "very, very interested." In the show, Honegger is a Munchkin, Reagan is the Wizard, the heartless, ax-wielding Tin Woodman is David Stockman and Dorothy -- for whom there is no Washingtonian counterpart -- has trouble getting back to Kansas because of Reagan's farm policies. Honegger's collaborator, a woman named Raye Dyer, is a former Gary Hart campaign worker. "There'll be some zingers in there," says Dyer. "Oh, yes, there will be." Parody, Honegger adds, is the best answer to the ridicule she endured, "a response in kind -- with a positive message. Oh, we're so excited."

But the ridicule still stings. "The image of me was a caricature," she says. To "let you know who I am," she produces medals awarded her by the Hoover Institution (a conservative think tank at Stanford University) and a volume of scholarly essays she helped edit there. After graduating from Stanford (she majored in creative writing), she spent five more years there as a "graduate student at large" doing research in "the neurophysiology of communications." She never claimed she rode on Halley's comet, and although she has a master's degree in parapsychology (from John F. Kennedy University, an evening and weekend school in Orinda, Calif.), she cooled toward the study of "anomalous communication" when she found that the data was not sufficiently credible.

Defection: Despite the damage done to her own credibility by the White House -- and despite her vote last year for Walter Mondale -- there's still a photo of her with "the Wizard" on her desk and she's still proud that she worked for him. "This president has sold the American people on themselves," she says. And she sounds almost compassionate when discussing the administration's reaction to her defection. "I feel that the White House, for reasons that are not clear to me, was actually threatened," she says. "This White House has very rarely been out of control. All I can think is that the people who make policy at the highest level must truly feel guilty about their positions, because they overreacted."

Honegger plans to apply to law school soon; the degree, she thinks, would help her should she finally run for public office. "My goal in life," she says, "is to serve the truth." Meanwhile, she's busy finishing "The Wizard Because" -- and starting her own business, a public-relations firm called Zeitgeist. (Its motto: "The Right Idea/The Right Time.") For this enterprise she has a new partner (who she says is "an elected official in the Monterey area") and a new idea. They pick a company they'd like to represent, "find out what its needs are and, unsolicited, present a complete concept." Zeitgeist descends on potential clients, she says, "like a bolt out of the blue." So far there have been no takers. But Barbara Honegger is not easily discouraged.


You can see the pictures of Honegger at her desk and in the rabbit suit here.

Here's some musing on David Duke and Barbara Honegger from somebody called Rayelan (probably the Raye Dyer mentioned in the Newsweek article).

I did not know that David Duke was living in Russia. I find this interesting because years ago I was told by one of Gunther's bosses, a four star Admiral, that the Soviet Union and the United States were going to change scripts.

At the time the Admiral said this, my ears perked up, because a year or two before he said this, I had been working with Barbara Honegger, the author of the first book with the name, October Surprise. She was writing a musical satire....

13 Comments:

At 18 January, 2007 09:52, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's true, when you scratch a truthers you will find a so call counter culture clown underneath. And it has nothing to do with being liberal or conservative but is an infirmity of the mind that compels some people to believe in any crap that they find compelling.

They tend to believe in UFOs, crop circles ESP crystals homeopathic medicine blah blah blah and countless other crackpot ideas with no basis in real hard facts and science. And so JFK, 911, No moon landing Conspiracy theories are part and parcel of this LaLa land, don't bother me with boring reality thinking.

They convince themselves there are such freethinkers because they soak up all kinds of bull and don't realize true intelligence requires a good filtering system, an ability to separate fact from fantasy, science from science fiction.

 
At 18 January, 2007 10:49, Blogger The Masked Writer said...

They tend to believe in UFOs, crop circles ESP crystals homeopathic medicine blah blah blah and countless other crackpot ideas with no basis in real hard facts and science.

Was this in reference to Honegger's parasychology studies and beliefs or the following?

http://stargate.collection.free.fr/
Elements/news.php3
The CIA Star Gate collection is a group of declassified records about the use of parapsychology in intelligence activities.

or was it this
http://64.233.167.104/
search?q=cache:_zkL0oha2twJ:
www.scientificexploration.org/
jse/articles/pdf/13.1_kress.pdf+
CIA+and+parapsychology&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=
2&client=firefox-a

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was deeply involved
with assessing both the scientific merits and potential intelligence utility of
the potpourri of phenomena called parapsychology in the early 1970s.


or this
Inside the CIA's psychic program
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/
article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=19081


See I wasn't sure if you were classifying government agencies into the same category as Truthers.

 
At 18 January, 2007 11:05, Anonymous Anonymous said...

What an incredible observation, the government waist money on crackpot ideas!

Wackos are Wackos be they government employees to the truther type sitting on a couch in their moms basement watching YouTube.

Must be a bummer when mom calls you to dinner when you are trying to save the world from the evil government.

 
At 18 January, 2007 11:23, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Tell me Swing Dangler, would you go in for a job interview and let you conspiracy theorist ideas be known? I asked this of another truthers and got a rather nebulous answer about political repression and some other conspiracy theorist bull. I get the impression they know it's crap but it's all to compelling to give up.

See I on the other hand I have no problem whatsoever in letting it be known I don't buy the kool aid of the truthers and other pseudoscience claptrap, and that includes religion. I think clearly, logically and am not prone to being duped by an obvious scam.

 
At 18 January, 2007 11:52, Blogger Manny said...

Thanks for the additional research, guys. It's official, she's more than one box of Froot Loops. So the next question is how does someone like that get a gig at the Naval Postgraduate School? Old friend from the Hoover days who feels sorry for her? Picture of one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with a goat? Land for piece deal with her holdings in Monterey? What?

 
At 18 January, 2007 15:27, Blogger The Reverend Schmitt., FCD. said...

Swing Dangler said...
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was deeply involved
with assessing both the scientific merits and potential intelligence utility of
the potpourri of phenomena called parapsychology in the early 1970s.


Want to point out that this is the very same agency you accuse of intense, Godlike competence.

 
At 18 January, 2007 23:05, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was deeply involved with assessing both the scientific merits and potential intelligence utility of the potpourri of phenomena called parapsychology in the early 1970s.

Well then that explains it all, the NWO used telekinesis to bring the towers down! Black robed Bush and Cheney and other Skull & Bones guy sitting around a big table using the power of their evil filled minds to make the towers collapse.

This idea has it all, secret societies, government black ops, X file like paranormal stuff, all that crap truthers swallow.

Got to be a way I can get some of the truther cash from this. Movie? Book?

 
At 19 January, 2007 04:44, Anonymous Anonymous said...

911 truthiness, you missed the obvious cash-in.

A musical.

 
At 19 January, 2007 07:26, Blogger Alex said...

Hah. Fetzer in a leotard? No thanks!

 
At 19 January, 2007 11:52, Blogger The Masked Writer said...

911truthiness Thanks for the character attack, troll. I do appreciate the sarcasm.
Proves nothing of course. Lets see what science has to say about the whole issue.

As far as possibilities, see this study

AN ASSESSMENT OF THE EVIDENCE FOR PSYCHIC FUNCTIONING

Professor Jessica Utts
Division of Statistics
University of California, Davis

Final Conclusion:
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

It is clear to this author that anomalous cognition is possible and has been demonstrated. This conclusion is not based on belief, but rather on commonly accepted scientific criteria. The phenomenon has been replicated in a number of forms across laboratories and cultures. The various experiments in which it has been observed have been different enough that if some subtle methodological problems can explain the results, then there would have to be a different explanation for each type of experiment, yet the impact would have to be similar across experiments and laboratories. If fraud were responsible, similarly, it would require an equivalent amount of fraud on the part of a large number of experimenters or an even larger number of subjects.

What is not so clear is that we have progressed very far in understanding the mechanism for anomalous cognition. Senders do not appear to be necessary at all; feedback of the correct answer may or may not be necessary. Distance in time and space do not seem to be an impediment. Beyond those conclusions, we know very little.

I believe that it would be wasteful of valuable resources to continue to look for proof. No one who has examined all of the data across laboratories, taken as a collective whole, has been able to suggest methodological or statistical problems to explain the ever-increasing and consistent results to date. Resources should be directed to the pertinent questions about how this ability works. I am confident that the questions are no more elusive than any other questions in science dealing with small to medium sized effects, and that if appropriate resources are targeted to appropriate questions, we can have answers within the next decade.


Rev-Want to point out that this is the very same agency you accuse of intense, Godlike competence.

I don't recall accusing the CIA of Godlike competence. I'm not sure what relevance it has anyway to Honegger.

 
At 19 January, 2007 15:07, Blogger Alex said...

Project Alpha proves the existence of psychics.

 
At 19 January, 2007 18:11, Anonymous Anonymous said...

911truthiness Thanks for the character attack, troll. I do appreciate the sarcasm.
Proves nothing of course. Lets see what science has to say about the whole issue.


Well your idea of SCIENCE is far less discriminating then mine. Again typical truther gullibility at work.

If this form of pseudo-science works then why don't we see it at work? No one has demonstrated any form of physic ability beyond pure chance. It's simple show someone can do it under controlled conditions, and if you can't you can not fault us for considering it bunk. Simple

Now I some knew you would believe in this type of hogwash, The same mental infirmity that cause you to buy the truther lies is the same weakness that opens you to being conned by the charlatans of bunk of the month club.

It also explains why Nigerians still send emails offering great wealth to the states, bottomless pool of suckers.

 
At 23 January, 2007 11:18, Blogger The Masked Writer said...

911 Well your idea of SCIENCE is far less discriminating then mine. Again typical truther gullibility at work.

Gullibility? Did you read
Professor Jessica Utts
Division of Statistics
University of California, Davis paper at all?
Tell me what does gullibility have to do with the aforementioned study?

 

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