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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.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription, which takes about a 15% cut:

 

4. Donate by check. I get whatever you donate. Make the check payable to Robert Zimmerman and mail it 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.


Billy Preston – You Can’t Beat God Giving

An evening pause: Feel the joy and good will. We should all feel this way, all the time.

Hat tip Cotour.

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

8 comments

  • Phill O

    Great music! Great talent! Poor theology! How many people have been milked by this philosophy; especially blacks? I remember “The Hiding Place”. Sometimes our faith is put to the test by persecution. The idea of personal peace and prosperity has downfalls in reality.

    Just my observations, regardless how much I like the music!

  • John: What do you mean? The video is definitely there and available to watch.

  • John

    I see it now. Before I saw the blank youtube screen that you get when they delete something they don’t like.

  • eddie willers

    I just finished watching a five minute snippet of Peter Jackson’s upcoming movie of the “Get Back” Beatle sessions (where Let It Be came from) that he is pulling out of the archives and cleaning up. Billy is, of course, all over it. His electric piano playing during the famous rooftop concert is legendary. There was even talk of him becoming an official Beatle and is the only musician other themselves to be credited on a record.

  • janyuary

    I observe and enjoy a cultural thing mistaken for a racial thing — but black folks generally approach music so differently than any other color folks in church, same with live jazz. White people listen, tap their feet, and smile. Black folks participate like it was a ball game. This is healing music, restorative. I think as long as man breathes, he will probably make music. Sad, though, that many digital “advantages” of the 21st century only distance humans from their own abilities. Prohibit live music-making by frustrating gatherings, so acoustic players must sit six feet away from each other (workable if you’re in an acoustically resonant spot, colossally stupid if you’re in a flat open place) destroys music for now in communities. Players must hear each other, and to do that they must gather closely.

    Lyrics to songs are separate from the sound, and such a joy when they perfectly match, which is fairly rare in my opinion …!. Music is even more powerful than language because it transcends language. But I agree that it’s disheartening to hear “wrong” lyrics with such right music! I suppose we all sing our own lyrics with our own interpretations. The music for me overpowers the lyrics, it is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

  • wayne

    janyuary:

    Bluegrass Clog Dancing
    David Hoffman 1965
    https://youtu.be/cs2j8f7H2WY
    6:15

    “I was a 23-year-old filmmaker making my first documentary… I have never been to the Appalachian Mountains. Old man Bascom Lamar Lunsford took me around those mountains and introduced me… This scene was filmed at his home in South Turkey Creek, North Carolina.”

  • janyuary

    wayne: that video lived up to its title! Man o manichevitz … the two boys in the dark shirts with the white trim at the collars were having too much fun along with some of the girls. What a great watch.

    Cluck old hen, my old hen, she lays eggs for the railroad men. Sometimes one, sometimes two, sometimes enough for the whole damned crew … (a little sip of whiskey wouldn’t do me any harm) … Rebecca Stout, flatfooting … enjoy, don’t know how to link …

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrkkLTuTAxc

    It’s Christmas Eve now.

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