My View: Gaining an Appreciation for Risk
By Dave Duffy
Now and then you have to make a daring move in your life or you’ll run the risk of losing your dreams. Some people do that by changing their job to one...
My View: Preparedness Planning as a Game
By Dave Duffy
I’ve been the publisher of Backwoods Home Magazine for 29 years, but my other job is as a feature writer for Self-Reliance magazine (www.self-reliance.com), owned by my children, and I just finished...
My View: Jury duty: The charge was rape
Dave Duffy
I was on jury duty for 2½ weeks between issues. On trial was a 21-year-old man (now 23) accused of raping a 20-year-old girl during an encounter two years previous in which both...
Putting it all on the Amtrak line for Self-Reliance magazine
By Dave Duffy
Issue #163 • January/February, 2017
As publisher of Backwoods Home Magazine for 28 years, I have not had to work as hard in recent years, as younger people like Managing Editor Jessie Denning...
My View: Grand Theory vs. Stark Reality
Dave Duffy
While visiting Boston between issues, my wife, Lenie, got into a conversation about preparedness. It was a brief, but telling, discussion because our host, like many people who live in cities, had not...
Something unsaid about Timothy McVeigh’s execution
By Dave Duffy
April 12, 2001
There's something unsaid about the coming Timothy McVeigh execution, scheduled for May 16. Many of us can feel it but are afraid to express it for fear of being labeled...
Introducing the international tax cartel
By Dave Duffy
February 13, 2001
Democrats on Capitol Hill aren't the only ones who don't like President Bush's $1.6 trillion tax cut plan. A group of Western European nations think they should have global veto...
The media’s treatment of blacks makes their socialist bias obvious
By Dave Duffy
January 23, 2000
Most of us who are concerned about the continuation of America's constitutional freedoms, which underlie a free enterprise system that has made us the most prosperous nation in history, realize...
Dr. Laura tells her listeners she’s decided to pack a gun
By Dave Duffy
February 12, 2000
The showdown between the Federal government and the American people over gun rights may have tilted in favor of the people recently when the nation's third most popular radio talk...
Finding solutions in firewood
By Dave Duffy
January 16, 2000
When I am confounded and afraid, that is, when I have trouble figuring out what to do next in a critical situation, I go to my woodpile, grab an axe,...
Preparing for a Temporary Catastrophe
By Dave Duffy
Issue #139 • January/February, 2013
November's Superstorm Sandy on the Northeastern coast of the United States was our most recent grand reminder that society is fragile, most people are not ready to take...
Talking to your kids about death
By Dave Duffy
Issue #97 • January/February, 2006
How do you talk to a child about the death of someone they love? How do you explain the impossible? It's a task many of us parents have...
Why you may want to get a stress test
By Dave Duffy
Issue #98 • March/April, 2006
Between issues I underwent triple bypass open heart surgery that saved me from a major heart attack, possibly a fatal one. It was a sudden thing. One day...
If you want to survive an emergency, look to yourself, not the Government
By Dave Duffy
Issue #96 • November/December, 2005
Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath said what I could not have said convincingly in ten thousand words: The government cannot protect you in a major emergency. It doesn't...
Sgt. Jim Duffy — An ordinary hero
By Dave Duffy
Issue #95 • September/October, 2005
My brother, Jim, died between issues. It was an expected death, as Jim suffered from lung cancer. My oldest brother, Bill, had called with the news in the...
Training for the Boston Marathon
By Dave Duffy
Issue #92 • March/April, 2005
Ever get a wild idea in your head that just won't go away, and you start working on it like crazy? It happens to me all the time....