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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.


Wild Cherry – Play that funky music

An evening pause: Recorded live in 1976.

Hat tip Mike Nelson, who has found a nice alternative video site to Youtube by using the Wayback machine archive to find this video.

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

4 comments

  • wayne

    Mr. Z.:
    minor nit to pick…

    The Wayback Machine is the digital-archive search function of the World Wide Web, as archived & crawled by the Internet Archive.
    –I suggest not searching for video using the Wayback Machine search-bar, but to instead use the search bar for the whole site, which includes all audio/video/text collections. (or searching within specific collections)
    –and I’d also suggest using advanced-search if you know something exists (in their collections), but can’t find it, their search-algorithm is not as efficient as Alphabet. Also– search using meta-data & key-word Text description if zero results show up on a Title, for example. (This is why it’s very important to adequately & properly describe the Item you are uploading to the Internet Archive.)
    –this particular tune is still under copyright and is subject to being pulled down if the copyright owner ever objects. That does not happen often, but it does happen.
    -Also be aware–websites can utilize a small piece of code that prevents crawling & archiving by the Internet Archive, which they do respect. [ “Web site owners use the /robots.txt file to give instructions about their site to web robots; this is called The Robots Exclusion Protocol.”] Scammers however, scraping websites for email addresses, etc, disregard that code.

    The entire upside to the Archive– they make it very easy to download items, and video is supplied in multiple formats & qualities.

    If you want to see what they have on BtB, in the Wayback Machine, see:
    https://web.archive.org/web/*/www.behindtheblack.com

  • NavyNuke

    https://archive.org/details/musicvideobin

    The first four hours of MTV is nice for those who think MTV has always been reality-drama.

  • wayne

    NavyNuke–
    Great find!
    (downloading that MTV video right now.)

    for the 5 minute clip….

    MTV Debut 8/1/81 Opening and 1st Video
    https://youtu.be/6jcdwiV6dXw
    5:16

  • wayne

    have to toss this in….

    Former MTV VJ Kennedy on Her Libertarian Evolution
    Reason Foundation 2012
    https://youtu.be/JtTPrKiereo
    28:21

    “At Reason Weekend 2012, Reason Foundation’s annual donor event, Kennedy sat down with Reason’s Nick Gillespie to discuss her transformation from Dan Quayle fetishist to hardcore libertarian, a Republican tattoo, and her recent fight with HBO’s Bill Maher over atheism.”

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