To read this post please scroll down.

 

Readers! A November fund-raising drive!

 

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

 

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

 

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

 

 

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

 

So please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. I could really use the support at this time. There are five ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation. Takes about a 10% cut.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription, which takes about a 15% cut:

 

4. Donate by check. I get whatever you donate. Make the check payable to Robert Zimmerman and mail it to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.


Ferris Akel – Napping Raccoon

An evening pause: This is how many of us all feel at the end of a hard week. Music is the “Daydream” by the Lovin’ Spoonful.

Hat tip Ferris Akel, who filmed this on September 21, 2024.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

12 comments

  • Ferris

    This was a lucky sighting, and very much unexpected. I hope you will all enjoy it as much as I did.

  • wayne

    Ferris–
    Checked out your YouTube channel, you have some great stuff!

    I’m on the SW Michigan coastline; we have an incredibly number of Deer and Turkey wandering around.

    Total tangent, in honor of the upcoming Holiday.
    Contrary to WKRP In Cincinnati, turkeys can fly. Industrial franken-turkeys are barely alive, but the wild versions can fly, they roost in trees.

    “Cincinnati, When the Turkeys Fell”
    Thanksgiving 1978
    https://youtu.be/4SXI-eLMq1E
    4:47

  • Ferris

    wayne,

    Thank you, very much, for the kind words! Truly appreciated!

    Have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

  • wayne

    Ferris-

    Dude, you have like’ 1,500 videos…. Amazing!
    (Your Pileated Woodpecker from 2016 is pretty cool!)

    Do you have some sort of live-stream going on tonight?

  • wayne

    Whoops,
    ->live-stream starting at Noon!

  • Rocky Racoon
    Looked for a boon
    What he found was
    a hollow tree trunk

    The tree it was said
    Let him sleep like the dead
    Unafraid
    Of his rival

  • F

    wayne,

    Thanks again! I DID have a live stream today, as you noted. I am no bird watching expert, but I have been regularly live-streaming my bird watching efforts for more than 12 years. Sharing the birds, and anything else of interest, with others in real-time is truly a joy for me.

  • pzatchok

    They are little trash pandas. Cut but pains in the can.

    When I catch them trying to get into my trash cans I shoot them in the fanny with a pellet gun. It doesn’t penetrate but it does sting so they learn to stay away.
    When they get larger that doesn’t even keep them away sometimes. They even attack.
    Out comes a live trap and a can of cat food. A 5 mile drive out of town and let them go.

    But watch they can carry rabies.

  • wayne

    Blair-
    Hilarious!

    Rocky Raccoon (Take 8)
    https://youtu.be/lRyfOY_KcPY
    4:57

  • wayne

    pzatchok–

    If this guy disappears one day, we’ll know who ate him–

    “Mobbed by Raccoons”
    James Blackwood; The Raccoon Whisperer (Nov, 2020)
    https://youtu.be/Ofp26_oc4CA

    “I am a retired RCMP Officer living in a rural setting in Nova Scotia, Canada. I spend my time enjoying nature and feeding my furry friends, the raccoons.”

  • John

    probably has rabies!

  • pzatchok

    I live next to this city park. Almost 3000 achres inside the city.
    https://www.millcreekmetroparks.org/mill-creek-park/
    I have so much nature in my area its sick. Deer from the park walk my yard.

    I love nature but sometimes it just gets to be a little much.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *