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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.


Jason Headley – It’s Not About The Nail

An evening pause: Hat tip Jim Mallamace, who wrote, “This video is maddening to a male. I’m afraid to show it to my wife.”

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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

12 comments

  • wayne

    Jim–a most excellent selection!

    (It’s about how the nail got there! Removing it, is a different operation entirely.)

  • ken anthony

    The symbiotic relationship… the problem creator and the problem solver.

    “You just don’t get it; Do you?”

  • Chris

    Your Mission: Maintain the bliss of “She, who must be obeyed”* though all obstacles near or far, obvious or subtle.

    * BBC – Rumpole of the Bailey, I think.

  • Edward

    I have been in this frustrating conversation, learned not to try to fix the problem that a woman complains about, and learned not to ask whether I may suggest fixes until after she has finished, because sometimes it is not about the problem, it is about expression. We men, however, are problem solvers. This is yet another way in which men do not understand women. This is why women are so amazed when they find a man who will listen to them, because we men are brought up to solve problems, not just listen to them, and women are brought up … different.

    Of course, for a man, it is about the nail. Isn’t it expected of us to make life better for women, or at least for ours? That is what makes it about the nail.

    I am reminded of the housekeeper at the end of the film “Gosford Park,” who explains that the perfect housekeeper anticipates what the family members want even before they know it themselves, so she has it ready for them ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0280707/quotes/qt1314018 ). I have come to believe that this is what women want, not what the film “What Women Want” tells us: reading minds — although it seems the same. If only we men had been raised to be — or could turn ourselves into — “the perfect housekeeper,” women might be happier with us. Then we wouldn’t try to solve problems that they only want expressed, not solved.

    In this case, the perfect servant listens, not solves. It is not about the nail.

    So, have I solved this problem for anyone? Or should we all have just listened and not commented?

  • Edward: There is a wonderful episode of the Dick van Dyke show in which Laura Petrie is upset about something, and Rob Petrie wants to help and find out why. Her answer, done in a classic Mary Tyler Moore crying fit, “Well, if you don’t know I am certainly not going to tell you!” Later, in the office Rob talks about his problem with his co-writers, and when he starts to quote Laura Buddy Sorell chimes in with the exact same line, indicating that he has heard the same thing from his wife Pickles.

    I think they do it a third time, with a different husband, but that might simply be because I’ve heard real husbands say it themselves at other times.

  • Edward

    Well, if you don’t know I am certainly not going to tell you!

    Yeah. I think that one is a way of expressing frustration that we are not that “perfect servant.” We should have known without being told.

    One of my early girlfriends told me that she didn’t like to play games. A few days later she was in tears, because I should have known that she didn’t mean what she said. “What she said” was on another topic, something she wanted or wanted me to do, but clearly she was playing a game on me. I like to call it “The Game,” and it is demonstrated in the film “The Breakup,” where the girlfriend thinks “if he loves me he will …” do whatever. The boyfriend, naturally, does not do it, because he has no idea that it is what she wants. Instead, he believes that she wanted what she had said.

    Once again, we men lack that gift of anticipation that seems so necessary in the battle of the sexes.

    Robert,
    You have reminded me that I want to find a set of Dick van Dyke show DVDs. Thank you. I remember the show from when I was young, but that memory is fading.

  • wayne

    (I tried to locate that Dick Van Dyke clip, but I could not readily find it. But I haven’t seen these in literally 50 years.)

    Tangentially— never use the word “fine” in an escalating back-n-forth. Your rationality is pretty much shot at that point.

    Jordan Peterson:
    “Men test ideas; women test men.”
    https://youtu.be/rqLtEBVkZpA?t=52
    8:51

  • Edward: I’ve mentioned this before on BtB, but we purchased a set of the full Dick van Dyke series in the spring for about $100. Worth every penny. It is available on amazon right now for $130.

  • wayne

    A Purchasing Tip for Amazon–

    I’ve had moderate success with manipulating their dynamic-pricing, on occasion. Sorta depends on the time-frame you’ll put up with, and popularity of the Title. If you want it Now, they definitely have it. If you want to try to pay less, try this….
    1) add the Title to your want-list and let it sit for awhile. (days to weeks) If you have Notifications turned on, they’ll try to gently cross-sell you similar titles or volumes via email, and suggest similar material while browsing. Put a few minutes of activity into it, but don’t buy anything. Just create the Event, and they’ll run with it.
    at some point in the future–
    2) Put the Title in your shopping-cart (with similar material/Volumes) and start to conduct a purchase, but just bail the Cart at the last minute, leave it and sign out. Let it sit a few days. Revisit, and Save for Later when asked, and/or edit your Cart. Create some activity for them to track, they’ll remind you haven’t ordered it

    -These prices will change, and generally decline, but Not guaranteed, and depends on supply/demand/popularity (and a whole lot of other manipulation on the part of Amazon) but I have a lot of boxed-sets and it pays to shop judiciously when you are spending that kind of money. (Note who is selling it as well, Amazon or a 3rd party vendor, 3rd party fulfillment through amazon, they have to pay a storage fee to amazon, on a monthly basis for every disk. They are most likely to lower a price, over time, to clear stock.)

    CBS is pushing Dick Van Dyke on their pay site, (with the colorized versions & re-issue) and that has spillover effects on demand for the physical DVD’s both old/new.

  • To all: Do not buy the colorized version of anything. Yuch. See it as it was made.

  • wayne

    Yes, be careful with colorized anything! (I’m with you Mr. Z.!)

    I’m seeing $79 for the (2015 issue) Boxed-set of Dick Van Dyke, (25 discs total, 3950 minutes of fun.) “Remastered” 35mm prints, and are in original B&W. (3rd party vendor, “25 copies available.)
    -That’s pretty good in my mind, roughly $3 a disc. (For this, I don’t foresee the price going down from $79. MTM died recently and CBS is streaming it.

    (Colorized version are confined to streaming for now.)

  • ken anthony

    “Well, if you don’t know I am certainly not going to tell you!”

    There is an obvious purpose to this. It’s all about destabilizing the situation. You can’t solve a problem you can’t identify. If you accidentally do identify the problem, it will be changed to a different problem without any indication that it’s been changed. The whole point is to ensure there can’t be a solution. It’s how women control by making men feel incompetent.

    Men are going to find out how insane a world we will soon be living in as woman take control.

    Makes me glad I’m dying.

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