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Readers!

 

It is now July, time once again to celebrate the start of this webpage in 2010 with my annual July fund-raising campaign.

 

This year I celebrate the fifteenth anniversary since I began Behind the Black. During that time I have done more than 33,000 posts, mostly covering the global space industry and the related planetary and astronomical science that comes from it. Along the way I have also felt compelled as a free American citizen to regularly post my thoughts on the politics and culture of the time, partly because I think it is important for free Americans to do so, and partly because those politics and that culture have a direct impact on the future of our civilization and its on-going efforts to explore and eventually colonize the solar system.

 

You can’t understand one without understanding the other.

 

Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent independent analysis you don’t find elsewhere. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn’t influenced by donations by established companies or political movements. 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.

 

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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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.


Pearl Jam – Alive

A evening pause: If you look closely, past the hard rock angst and anger and clothing and hairstyles and performance cliches, what you can see here are some very serious and skilled musicians.

Hat tip Wayne DeVette.

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

5 comments

  • TimArth

    Interestingly, the lyrics are also very personal to Mr. Vedder. His parents split up when he was an infant and after his mother remarried, he grew up thinking that the new husband was his real father. There is a verse to two about that in this song.

  • Wayne

    TimArth:
    Thanks–was not aware of that factoid. Compelling song.

    Q: What’s the background for the tune “Off He Goes?” >The single best tune I have ever heard, describing mental illness. It’s touchingly-eerie in it’s exactness.
    (Similar for “Why Go Home.” The anthem for a large cohort of young, disaffected, girls, during the 90’s.)

  • Joe

    Good taste in music Wayne!

  • TimArth

    Wayne – First – sorry for the extreme delay. You may not even see this. Second, sorry in advance for the disappointing response. I do not know the background for those other songs, but I do know, in general, Vedder does lean very sympathetic to the plight of women and young women in general. Most of that comes from his relationship with his mother and the sympathy he had for her troubled relationships with his real father and step-father. “Alive” from Ten demonstrates this as well as “Deep” and “Daughter” from Vs. for just three examples. He is also very, very pro-choice as an example. He is also good buddies with Sean Penn – which says a lot. Now, I do not agree with him on much, but I have always been a big fan of his talents. He was also a thespian early on and you can see that briefly, and early on, in Cameron Crowe’s movie Singles. One of my favorite songs of Eddie’s is on the sound track of Sean Penn’s “Into The Wild” and it was called “Hard Sun” (Sean Penn directed – not acted in).

  • Wayne

    TimArth:
    Hey!
    Oh yeah– Eddie is a left-wing nut-job as far as his politics, but he can certainly pen a tune.

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