Defending against terrorists
By Dave Duffy
Issue #152 • March/April, 2015
I watched a lot of TV news in the days following the terrorist assassinations of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists in Paris. What struck me as odd was that...
Body language and threat recognition
By Massad Ayoob
Issue #87 • May/June, 2004
Reader mail indicates that while some Backwoods Home readers turn to this column for advice on putting wild game on the table or keeping four-footed poachers out of...
Perspectives on the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin shooting
By Massad Ayoob
Issue #143 • September/October, 2013
The media told us a self-appointed neighborhood watch captain and wannabe cop with gun-derived courage was on patrol when he profiled a young child because he was black...
Money can buy happiness
By John Silveira
Issue #72 • November/December, 2001
The results are in: money can buy happiness, but it doesn't come cheap. Not only that, the amount of happiness your money can buy can be measured.
I know...
What kind of Americans sit on our juries?
By John Silveira
March 16, 2000
Our jury system is supposed to be a buffer between us--the citizens--and the government. It is there to prevent the abuse of power that governments have exercised since the dawn...
How a high school band triumphed over a bureaucracy and union that tried to...
By Dave Duffy
Issue #141 • May/June, 2013
The Gold Beach High School Band now practices in
the BHM building, after being forced out of the school.
There are few victories sweeter in life than that of young...
Science and truth. Are they related?
By John Silveira
Issue #46 • July/August, 1997
It was an argument about science. Dave and I were on one side, Dave's friends Tom and Bill, though curiously nonallied, were on the other. I say nonallied...
Some thoughts on growing older in the backwoods
By Marjorie Burris
Issue #16 • July/August, 1992
"Just how long are you going to be able to live in the backwoods like that?" my friend, Pat, asked. "You're not getting any younger, you know!"
I've known...
The Coming American Dictatorship revisited
By John Silveira
Issue #77 • September/October, 2002
Mac's back. After a long absence our poker-playing friend from southern California, O.E. MacDougal, walked into the Oregon offices of Backwoods Home Magazine.
Poof, and there he was. No...
Libertarian and Conservative
By John Silveira
Issue #133 • January/February, 2012
I cringe when I hear libertarians lumped with conservatives or at least today's conservatives. Liberals want you to view us as conservatives so you won't look any...
Activists on both the left and the right spotlight a broken federal government
By Claire Wolfe
Issue #97 • January/February, 2006
On October 28, 2005, 400 citizens of Vermont met amid the pomp of their capitol building and voted to secede from the Union. The media, to say the...
A lesson in respect
By John Silveira
Issue #65 • September/October, 2000
When I was 10, Dad lived on a farm in New Hampshire with my stepmother and two of my sisters, and I went to stay with them that...
Finally, a disaster that is guaranteed!
By Dave Duffy
Issue #105 • May/June, 2007
It's difficult to keep up with the dizzying pace of disasters various people say will befall mankind, everything from global warming to terrorists floating a nuke into L.A....
Which is better, a small town or city?
By Dave Duffy
Issue #78 • November/December, 2002
Traveling has a way of giving you perspective.
For the past several summers my family and I have traveled around the country, covering as much as 9,000 miles by...
Which wars work best? The ones we fight or the ones we avoid?
By Dave Duffy
Issue #102 • November/December, 2006
History is supposed to teach us the lessons of wars past so we won't blunder into stupid wars in the present. Since I have mixed feelings about our...
Freedom, guns, & boycotts
By Dave Duffy
Issue #71 • September/October, 2001
The other day I walked into my local Ace Hardware store and cancelled this magazine's longstanding account.
"How come?" Dan, the owner asked surprised. I had shopped there ever...
