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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.

 

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University in Michigan drops math while requiring four diversity courses

The coming dark age: Wayne State University in Michigan has dropped its requirement that students complete a single math course while requiring students to complete four courses promoting diversity.

In the eyes of the school, mathematics is apparently no longer an essential expertise. But if faculty have their way, the school will soon recognize an appreciation for diversity as an extremely essential expertise. As was first noted by The College Fix, the committee handling WSU’s general education reform has recommended a new framework that, if adopted, would place an extremely strong emphasis on diversity-related courses. Under the framework, the school would create a series of new diversity-themed courses, and all students would have to take at least one.

In addition, students will have to take three “signature” classes, two designed for freshmen and one that will serve as a “capstone” class for upperclassmen. These “signature” classes will be designed to engage with modern-day issues such as “culture, sustainability, health, ethics, and urban development and renewal.” In recognition of the importance of diversity, all signature classes will be required to achieve a diversity-related goal such as “intercultural knowledge and competence” or “global learning.”

The framework justifies the heavy focus on diversity because “diversity is central to the nature of WSU, i.e., ‘Distinctively Wayne State.’”

As far as I can tell, these diversity courses are nothing more than leftwing political propaganda exercises, designed to brainwash students to the Marxist ideology. That will really do the students, and our society, a lot of good in future years. Just ask the people who lived in the Soviet Union.

Note also that Wayne State is a public institution receiving tax money. I wonder if the state legislature, controlled by Republicans, will have anything to say about this.

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

  • LocalFluff

    And “diversity” is orwellian language for total intolerans and monotomy of thought, islam.
    Islam is the only arabic cultural heritage. Muhammed was born in the arabic stone age only a few decades after arabic became a written language, and his prescription of how slaves are to be kept (like cattle, the way the desert nomads lived with their camels) hasn’t changed the slightest since then. Arabic countries have no science, no industry, no freedom, no culture actually. The reason they are so extremely bloodthursty, the arabs is the only region in the world which is at war today, is that life was short and dangerous in the stone age. And they have not changed a single bit since then. Human life is still worthless to them. And this is now the official ideal for the Western world! There is nothing to respect about islam, it is a total failure and a disgrace for humanity.

  • wayne

    Wayne State is the 3rd largest State University in Michigan.
    Unlike most States, Michigan Universities are governed by an independent “Board of Governors.”
    Control of Wayne State, for example, consists of 8 state-wide elected Board members, serving 8 year terms. They choose the College President & control the University budget.
    This is why it’s imperative to elect Conservative Republicans & Libertarians to each University Board, in Michigan, at every opportunity.
    The State legislature only makes broad appropriations, the Board is where the power is located.

  • wayne

    These are the people responsible for Wayne State University;
    http://bog.wayne.edu/members/

    Downside to these Boards, is they can create a lot of havoc. 8-year terms, although the Governor can appoint temporary members to fill vacancies & finish out Terms.

    >Upside is they are State-wide elected positions & can be gotten-at via the ballot.

    (Similar situation exists at U. of M. & M.S.U. as far as governance & whacky social-engineering projects.)

    Libertarian’s & Conservative’s regularly run candidates for these obscure albeit important office’s

  • wodun

    As far as I can tell, these diversity courses are nothing more than leftwing political propaganda exercises

    Yup, and all of these colleges explicitly state in their job postings that applicants must following this ideology. Government jobs do too.

  • Edward

    I certainly hope this diversity will finally include old dead white men. They have been tarnished and belittled, these past many years. (Isn’t it funny how diversity always seems to leave out certain people/cultures?)

    Meanwhile, mathematical illiteracy contributes to the ignorant being unable to figure out that computer models that don’t accurately predict future temperatures are useless and are not to be trusted for public policy decision making.

    It is truly terrible when your college graduates ignoramuses.

  • D K Rögnvald Williams

    Math is a general education requirement. Not sure how their regional accreditation agency will view dropping it from the curriculum.

  • PeterF

    In the immortal words of some airhead in some stupid movie; Math is HARD!

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