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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:

 

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.

 

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Donations and applications to Harvard drop significantly

Harvard: where you get can get a shoddy education centered on hate and bigotry
Harvard: where you can spend a lot of money
and still get a shoddy education

According to Harvard, donations to the university in 2024 dropped more than $151 million from donations the previous year, with other indications that overall donors and students are fleeing the university due to its anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas, racist DEI, pro-plagiarism, and anti-free speech policies.

Total donations were down by $151 million, or 14%, in fiscal 2024 from the prior year. Within that total, donations to Harvard’s endowment fell by nearly $193 million from a year ago, while donations for current use gifts increased by $42 million in that time frame.

The drop in donations won’t leave Harvard bankrupt, as it still has more than $53 billion in its endowment, giving it a strong foundation for survival, in the near term, if donations dry up entirely.

And they might.

Bill Ackman, a billionaire Harvard alum, said in December that Gay’s “failures have led to billions of dollars of canceled, paused and withdrawn donations to the university. … I am personally aware of more than a billion dollars of terminated donations from a small group of Harvard’s most generous Jewish and non-Jewish alumni,” Ackman said.

More significant however was the 17% decline in student applications as of December 2023. Though the numbers still exceeded application numbers from before the COVID epidemic, the drop now suggests students have reviewed the reality of this college versus its fantasy, and are now beginning to reject it.

Eventually Harvard will have to fix its bankrupt DEI policies as well as diversify its faculity so that not every teacher and staff member is a pro-Hamas anti-Semite who considers America the devil incarnate and all western civilization nothing more than an expression of “white supremacy.” (I know I am exaggerating but I also know sadly not by much.) If it doesn’t it will certainly fade from view, as students find more viable colleges, knowing that a degree from this bankrupt university will no longer get them the high level jobs they want.

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

6 comments

  • Samuel

    Much more effective is to pull Harvard’s tax exempt status. We should check Harvard’s vast privilege by making them pay capital gains on their gargantuan endowment like the rest of us. Including even “unrealized” capital gains like those proposed by Harris. The overwhelming favorite of Harvard’s administrators , faculty and students. Trust me, this they would feel. Next we can pull their federal funding although most important is their privileged tax position which is really the source of their strength. Many in the know have said that at root Harvard and other top universities are primarily hedge funds with a small and exaggerated educational component. Pulling their tax exempt status is a just answer to the toxicity with which they have been polluting their student’s minds and the culture more generally.

  • JohnTyler

    Harvard need not change anything at all in regards to its anti-USA, anti-capitalism, jew hating, pro-Hamas policies.

    They still take in enough money each year from donations plus the earnings from their massive endowment to keep their doors open.

    As for applicants to Harvard, they still have many more applicants than available seats, so that too is not a problem.

    Harvard will not change because they have enough dough to do whatever they damn well please.
    Further, the elites of the USA, Jewish or not, for the most part are liberal progressive / socialists (if not outright communists) – perfectly in accord with the faculty / administrative politburo of Harvard – and they agree that Israel should be removed from planet earth.
    These elites will keep funneling $$$ and applicants to Harvard.

  • M. Murcek

    This just makes it an even more exclusive club with incoming students who self select to serve The Hive. Not an improvement.

  • Andi

    Minor edit in first paragraph: “pro-plagiarism,”

    (I remind myself how to spell “plagiarism” because for some esoteric reason I know how to spell “parliament”)

  • Andi: I wonder if I will ever remember to spell this word correctly. Fixed. Thank you.

  • Max

    Things at Harvard just keep getting better.

    “Around 30 Harvard professors gathered inside a university library Wednesday to hold a “study-in” protest in solidarity with pro-Palestine students who were punished for participating in a similar demonstration last month.”
    https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2024/10/17/harvard-faculty-hold-library-study-in-demonstration-in-solidarity-with-punished-pro-palestine-students/

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