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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
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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.


Marilyn Monroe – Happy Birthday/Thanks For The Memories

An evening pause: Another bit of cultural history from the 1960s. From the Youtube webpage:

Marilyn footage singing to JFK on his gala birthday bash on May 19th 1962. The running joke for the evening, as planned, was that Marilyn was late! it was planned that way for the event. Everything we see Marilyn do on stage was rehearsed right down to her arm movements and jumping up and down at the end of the song as we can see in the rehearsal photos before the event. so Marilyn did this spot on as planned.

Sadly, she would be dead by August, and Kennedy by November of the next year.

Hat tip Judd Clark.

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

9 comments

  • I always saw this performance as a very disrespectful and perverted performance, right in the First Ladies face. And it was all done with smiles and applause.

    This may be the moment in time when the facade about America being above the riff raff and the everyday perversions and corruptions of other governments was revealed for all to see. We are no different, we are human.

    How many saw it but did not know what was really going on? All you saw was the Hollywood glamour. I was one. But then you in time came to understand what really went on and goes on behind the doors of money and power.

    Peter Lawford being the Hollywood fixer / middleman / provider / pimp.

    And when you figure in the rest of the Kennedy family and their multi layered perversions and corruptions it all makes sense. The apple does not fall far from the tree. The president’s brother I believe was also involved with the lady. And we all know how upstanding, heroic and humble the “Lion of the Senate” was.

    Trust none of them.

    https://www.sigma3ioc.com/post/the-concerted-effort-to-destroy-america

    This is our system, and this is our process, and it is designed to in time provide the people with some degree of truth through what the Constitution structures. Why? Because it is the nature in the endeavor of politics and those who choose to participate in it must always be seen as being deceitful and are always misdirecting. LYING in other words.

    And now you understand why those who aspire to power in politics are always focused on making the Constitution weaker and or entirely moot and ineffective.

    This entire performance is the moment in time where America and the American people grew up whether they realize it or not.

  • Ray Van Dune

    I was a youngster when my mother had bunch of lady friends over one afternoon, and I listened secretly while they had coffee and talked about Teddy Kennedy’s “tragedy” involving drowning a young woman. I didn’t quit loving my mom at that point, but I certainly quit assuming she had the slightest clue about anything outside the home!

  • “Teddy’s tragedy”.

    We all see what we want to see sometimes, maybe most times.

    Ah Camelot, where have you gone?

    It turns out you never were.

  • Ray Van Dune

    On further reflection I remember how Mom cherished that issue of LOOK/ LIFE (?) that had the cover picture of Teddy in a neck brace, like he was somehow the victim! I still get angry thinking about it years later.

    Like most families that lived in the country, we burned our household trash, which is to say, I did the burning. She gave me strict instructions that magazine was not to be burned. But accidents happen…

    When she found the charred fragments of it in the burn pile, she punished me by forbidding me dessert for a week. But while she assumed it was negligence, it definitely was not! And I went from a youngster who loved dessert to one who just lost most interest in it, as I am to this day.

  • Ray Van Dune, wow!

    How old were you?

    I must say you have my respect for your ability at a young age to understand things at such a clear and granular level that transcended your own mothers’ idealistic judgements and take the actions which you took.

    Impressive. You sir have leadership qualities.

    I call that a “Switch On” moment.

  • Did you ever confess your actions to your mom and tell her why you did it?

  • Ray Van Dune

    No – no point in it.

  • And again, you impress me.

    A regular man might many years after the fact have a candid talk with his mom and they might have a laugh about such things of the past.

    An Independant thinker and a natural leader IMO.

  • Alex Andrite

    Yep, as a youth I liked after dinner dessert.
    Usually jello.
    Green with sliced bannans, red jello with pineapple hunks.

    Much Later, I enlisted.

    Navy had great jello stuff.

    Then, later and later, I came to understand,

    “Only The Dead Have Seen The End of War.”

    Such a lovely lady.

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