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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.
 

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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.


Mom arrested for teaching her son independence and self-reliance

Insanity: A mother has been arrested because she let her 7-year-old son walk alone about ten blocks to a neighborhood park.

The boy had a cell phone which he had just used to check in with his mother.

When I was seven I wandered all over my neighborhood in Brooklyn. In fact, when I was 4 to 6 my parents would rent a bungalow in a resort in the Catskills each summer. There, I would wander the countryside every day completely on my own. The resort, called a bungalow colony, was not fancy and did not really have any organized activities for the kids. We were free to explore, and would go miles in all directions into the nearby farm fields and woods. Interestingly, we knew our limits and always stayed within them.

But that was then, when this culture was free and believed in freedom and teaching independence and self-reliance to its young. Now, such ideas are considered evil and must be squelched.

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

7 comments

  • Like you Robert, When I was 7, my younger brothers and I were out terrorizing the neighborhood, When I was twelve, I was cooking dinner and babysitting my 4 brothers and 2 sisters, both parents worked, I never had a curfew, but I did know my boundaries as well, at least one of my parents would be jailed for sure in these times.

  • DK Williams

    The country was different when we were little. No way we allowed our three to walk a mile alone at that age. With this said, I don’t agree with this arrest. She should have been let off with a warning.

  • JWing

    When I was 7, with our parents approval, my brother and I would bike to Alley Pond Park in Queens, NYC, It was about two miles from our home where we played and explored. I didn’t realize my parents were committing felony child abuse by allowing us to play in a city park. What else were our bicycles for? Riding aroud the block gets really boring.
    I understand another parent “turned in” the parent after questioning this boy. Welcome, comrade, to Amerika! I HOPE you like it now that it surely has CHANGED.

  • Edward

    When I was 6, my mother thought it was OK for me to walk alone to school through the forest (which looks pretty creepy in wintertime, when there are no leaves on the trees).

    Oh, wait. Hey, guys, do you suppose that our parents were secretly hoping to get rid of us and make it look like an accident? Think about it: how many times did you almost kill yourself by climbing tall trees, riding a bike next to traffic, playing with fireworks, etc.? Geez, how did we ever survive childhood and our parents’ neglect.

    And are we really grown-up enough to take care of ourselves now? Maybe we really *do* need Big Brother to look after us, after all.

    Nah. Big Brother would be just as negligent as our parents were. Maybe even hostile, if we become successful, rich, or famous.

  • I never took my dads suggestion that I go play in the freeway seriously!

  • wodun

    “Oh, wait. Hey, guys, do you suppose that our parents were secretly hoping to get rid of us and make it look like an accident?”

    Now that you bring it up…

  • Robert Clark

    Yes. Those were great days then. A talk show host said his mother when she was young used to walk home alone from work after midnight in New York City.
    Too bad we don’t have those days anymore.

    Bob Clark

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