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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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Billy Preston – You Can’t Beat God Giving

6:01 pm

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. 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

8 comments

8 comments

  • John
    December 22, 2020 at 6:48 pm

    Censored?

  • Phill O
    December 22, 2020 at 7:16 pm

    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!

  • Robert Zimmerman
    December 22, 2020 at 8:18 pm

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

  • John
    December 22, 2020 at 9:01 pm

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

  • eddie willers
    December 22, 2020 at 9:37 pm

    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
    December 23, 2020 at 4:32 am

    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
    December 24, 2020 at 1:55 am

    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
    December 24, 2020 at 4:13 am

    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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