To read this post please scroll down.

 

Readers!

 

It is now July, time once again to celebrate the start of this webpage in 2010 with my annual July fund-raising campaign.

 

This year I celebrate the fifteenth anniversary since I began Behind the Black. During that time I have done more than 33,000 posts, mostly covering the global space industry and the related planetary and astronomical science that comes from it. Along the way I have also felt compelled as a free American citizen to regularly post my thoughts on the politics and culture of the time, partly because I think it is important for free Americans to do so, and partly because those politics and that culture have a direct impact on the future of our civilization and its on-going efforts to explore and eventually colonize the solar system.

 

You can’t understand one without understanding the other.

 

Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent independent analysis you don’t find elsewhere. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn’t influenced by donations by established companies or political movements. 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.

 

You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:

 

4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed 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.


A Virginia school board has voted unanimously to revise their zero tolerance policy in connection to guns after two boys were suspended for “using pencils like guns”.

A Virginia school board has voted unanimously to revise their zero tolerance policy in connection to guns after two boys were suspended for “using pencils like guns”.

Under the revised policy, school administrators can look at factors such as intentions of harm and whether the object is listed as a weapon to determine the punishment. Ordinary objects will not be considered weapons.

Well, duh. Sounds like common sense, doesn’t it?

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

  • jwing

    It’s funny isn’t it, but when a “gun free zone” is instituted in a school it is never enough is it? Naturally, emementary school children don’t by nature bring actual guns to school so the administration, by instituting a zero tolerance measure on top of its gun free zone, effectively creates a prohibition on the childrens’ thoughts and actions. Hence, t-shirts with the sillohette of a gun, the half eaten sandwich in the shape of a gun or even a pencil become as intollerable (zero tolerance) as the gun itself. This is not by accident…it is by design.

    These increasingly more frequent instances are wicked and evil, and by their very nature limits the individuas willingness to even protest the ridiculousnessof it all without becoming “suspect”, “irrational” and possibly a bitter clinging tea party/NRA member.

    Folks…this is how tyranny takes hold as it has in past places like Stalinist Russian in the 30’s, Nazi Germany in the 40’s and Moa’s China in the 50’s.

    It can happen hear, and I contend it is already here.

    Wake up….America!

  • wodun

    It is all about fighting the “gun culture.” Kids may not get suspended at that school but they will probably get some sort of lecture on the evils of guns.

  • lino

    Have we addressed the concept of the half eaten gun in the shape of a sandwich?

  • jwing

    This is alright be their way of thinking. Eating a gun is good as the gun is destroyed but eating a sandwich shaped like a gun will get you suspended.

  • joe

    Yes, this is state sanctioned mind control, the politically correct crowd is trying to eliminate the thought of guns for any use in society, they started with climate change and water conservation and have been almost successful, look at how many idiot’s believe in global warming even with very good evidence that there is no warming in last 17 years, much of this mind control starts in school!

Readers: the rules for commenting!

 

No registration is required. I welcome all opinions, even those that strongly criticize my commentary.

 

However, name-calling and obscenities will not be tolerated. First time offenders who are new to the site will be warned. Second time offenders or first time offenders who have been here awhile will be suspended for a week. After that, I will ban you. Period.

 

Note also that first time commenters as well as any comment with more than one link will be placed in moderation for my approval. Be patient, I will get to it.

Leave a Reply

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