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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.

 

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Rick Beato – The Real Reason Why Music Is Getting Worse

An evening pause: His conclusions have implications far beyond music itself and on the entire worsening of our culture.

Hat tip Chris McLaughlin.

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

One comment

  • Cloudy

    This sounds like the old craftsman lamenting the rise of factory products. Yes, many important things were lost then. But overall, industrialization was good for mankind. It also reminds me of many upper middle class people lamenting the loss of old downtown stores to Walmart supercenters. Yet a Walmart provides cheaper goods for the masses than the old store owners did. It also provides more opportunity for advancement for its employees. An ordinary clerk in an old small town store in the 50’s will have to leave town for a higher position if the owner’s son is his manager. The idylic Disney “Main Street” USA downtown never really existed. Spotify and its competitors give us yahoos better access to music than the old record stores did. You can even find a far greater variety of stuff if you are willing to look for it, just like you can still find all sorts of crafts and high art like the old craftsman made before factories came to be. Want some obscure piece of church music? Its there somewhere. What about a theme from a little known 80’s movie? You can find it on the web. We are just not forced to buy expensive stuff made by highly trained specialists when all we are willing to pay for is something cheap, in the monetary and cultural sense.

    Said in another way, this video has a lot of good points about the state of the music industry. Yet it is an industry, pure and simple. It exists to serve consumers. Most people value their own individual needs over society’s nostalgia. Thats why stuff is made in factories rather than by hand. It is why Walmart replaced downtown stores. It is why spotify replaced CD’s. That is the way it is and should be, because the old days are never as good as we remember them to be. They will not come back, ever, and efforts to bring them back will likely fail. See Ecclesiasties 7:10

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