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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.

 

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The Vogues – Five O’clock World

An evening pause: Classic early pop on classic early TV.

Hat tip Dan Covert.

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

  • wayne

    Actually done live! Is this from NBC’s “Hullabaloo?”

  • Noah Peal

    Thanks Dan and thanks Bob.

    Same song but with The Drew Carey Show treatment (2:08) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy72Y6JP5w0

  • eddie willers

    My best friend took a managerial job out of college at Lockheed. More than a hour commute each way through lousy Atlanta traffic. He hated it. Stayed there until he retired.

    Why?

    Because he really loved his family and his world started at 5:00 O’Clock.

  • Jim Turner

    Gilbert and Sullivan were to World War one as
    The Vogues were to the War in Vietnam

    After the war, in one case we have Shostakovich
    In the other case, we have the Beatles
    Could you imagine Paul McCartney describing himself as “primary Tenor (I have no idea if he is a tenor or whatever) vocalist”

    But most people, especially Americans, do not realize the scope of the social revolution after WWI. It touched on almost all aspects of life, from the arts to politics to almost every field of endeavor, there was even a revolution in Chess!

    I must say, I was kind of shocked by this clip from the “Vogues”. It is as if we were watching a path that America MIGHT have taken, instead of the mixed up“Clockwork orange/2001” path that it ended up on.

    Of course, we know that only the “2001” course can lead to any REAL success. We should do all we can to destroy superstition (Religion etc.), mindless gain and warfare. We should view all addiction as a medical issue. Only through the advance of Science, art and other knowledge can real gains be made.

    We should follow our Chinese friends and try to bring the entire world up to a first world standard of living. Replace all superstition with science based education. Eliminate war and foster good social interactions throughout society. Attempts to dominate others through force of arms or economic hegemony only reflect the inadequacies of the aggressor, since he can never find any happiness or joy on this malicious path.

    We kill each other in the name of “God” or religion and spend huge amounts of money on it. Yet we do not even know how the sun works. We might all be destroyed through our ignorance yet the superstitious still spend their time and money killing each other.

  • Nitecat

    Wow. I was just gonna say I like the Hal Ketchum version better.
    But all the things Mr. Turner refers to come under the label of cultural Marxism , in my view. It’s all totalitarianism , subverting the Arts and Sciences to statist goals. They might ban this song , or have it covered by a female singer. Taylor Swift , maybe, honing her SJW cred.

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