"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

The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon , or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.

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.

I decided today, after one of my readers, John Harman, sent me a link to a very blunt but accurate piece describing the sad state of modern American culture, that it was necessary to explain why I had posted nothing here on Behind the Black on Thursday, even though I was home all day doing what I usually do, scanning the web for interesting stuff.

To begin, you might want to read the essay that John sent me, entitled Wimp Nation: Poised to Fall. It sums up the cultural situation quite nicely.

The United States has become a nation of weak, pampered, easily frightened, helpless milquetoasts who have never caught a fish, fired a gun, chopped a log, hitchhiked across the country, or been in a schoolyard fight. If their cat dies, they call a grief therapist. Everything frightens Americans.

Read it all.

You then might want to read this story about Hillary Clinton’s testimony and questioning on Thursday in front of the House Benghazi committee. Here too the author captures the sick intellectually dishonest nature of America’s political culture.

What we discovered is this: The White House and Clinton apparently knew that the Benghazi attack was the premeditated work of Islamic terrorists before the bodies were cold. She and the administration nevertheless proceeded to propagate a falsehood that advanced the president’s preferred political narrative just six weeks before a tightly-contested national election.

As I noted to John, Hillary Clinton’s testimony wasn’t news, it was a joke. What did we learn? She is a liar? That’s news? What was worse, as the author of the article noted, were the reporters willing to make believe this wasn’t so.

Then there are these two stories:



Both stories describe the culture on today’s American campuses, where it is clear that a large numbers of students, a majority in some cases, do not support free speech and are quite willing to squelch the free speech rights of others if it bothers them even slightly.

So, why did I not post on Thursday? Sadly, everything depressed me to the point that I just did not want to pass it on to anyone. I am someone who is hopeful, who believes in freedom, who is willing to fight to the death for the right of someone I disagree with to speak their minds.

Unfortunately, I come from a different age. The age we are entering is a new dark age, where knowledge and truth are not the goal, and keeping people silent and oppressed is the number one ideal. I find that a conclusion difficult to post about.