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Readers!

 

The time has come for my annual short Thanksgiving/Christmas fund drive for Behind The Black. I must do this every year in order to make sure I have earned enough money to pay my bills.

 

For this two-week campaign, I am offering a special deal to encourage donations. Donations of $200 will get a free autographed copy of the new paperback edition of Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, while donations of $250 will get a free autographed copy of the new hardback edition. If you desire a copy, make sure you provide me your address with your donation.

 

As I noted in July, the support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.

 

In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.

 

Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.

 

Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:

 

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Canvas – The Simpsons theme song

An evening pause: About two years ago I said to Diane that I’d never seen any of The Simpsons animated TV show. Neither had she. Since then we have watched all the available episodes on DVD, covering most of the first twenty seasons.

What first impressed us about the show was how actually normal and family-oriented it was, in the beginning. It was not the “edgy” ugly portrayal of America its reputation had implied.

Over time that theme was more and more lost, though whenever the writers went back to those roots the show shined. Even so, what was most impressive was how the show managed somehow to remain fresh, for most of that time period. Except for a period around season nine, the satire and jokes remained solid for almost all of the first twenty years.

Since the last ten years have not been put on DVD, we won’t likely see them. No matter. Twenty years of The Simpsons was great, but it was more than enough.

Hat tip Diane Zimmerman, who used numerous musical quotes from the series to find many great evening pauses.

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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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

5 comments

  • eddie willers

    You’re right. Homer might have been a bit of a slouch, but they were a church going family every Sunday. It it was wonderful for about the first nine seasons.

    One favorite moment from memory. Lisa’s poem:

    I had a cat named Snowball
    She died! She died!
    Mom said she was sleeping
    She lied! She lied!

  • Robert Pratt

    Yep, was fun in earlier years and then degraded and we gave it up.

  • wayne

    At this juncture, I must put in a plug for “Rick and Morty,” on Adult Swim.

    Best Moments of Interdimensional Cable
    Rick and Morty
    https://youtu.be/V6SfEIoEHY0
    10:40

  • Frank Solomon

    To this day, I have never seen this show, except for a few minutes off in the distance, every now and then when I go visit someone. I stopped watching TV sixteen or seventeen years ago and I never got cable products.

    Is this bad?

  • Lee S

    I haven’t watched regular TV in years…. I will occasionally download a movie I feel like watching, and usually play it on my phone… My kids have a TV, and a Chromecast, but that is rarely used…. ( They both have gaming devices… A PC and a playstation )
    All that said… I used to love the Simpsons… As Bob said, it’s actually a fairly true portrait of real family life…. Bart is just a regular kid, Lisa is just.a regular, but very bright kid, Marge is a typical long suffering wife, and Homer…. Well I would be lying if I said there were no similarly between us… All that said, there is love between the whole family… And that sends a good message to the viewer.
    ( And Mr Burns is a perfect example of all that is wrong with capitalism… The show also hints at the fact that socialism is obviously the way forward)
    I will now grab my coat and dive into the trench to avoid the bullets about to fire at me!
    ;-) much love from pinko commie Sweden. X

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