Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“We won’t take a dime if we ain’t earned it When it comes to weight brother we pull our own If it’s our backwoods way of livin’ you’re concerned with You can leave us alone We’re about John Wayne, Johnny Cash and John Deere Way out here, way out here Our houses are protected by the good Lord and a gun And you might meet ’em both if you show up here not welcome son ” – Josh Thompson, from the lyrics to his song: Way Out Here







Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“I started noticing in the 1980s the growing gulf between the country’s thought leaders, as they’re called—the political and media class, the universities—and those living what for lack of a better word we’ll call normal lives on the ground in America. The two groups were agitated by different things, concerned about different things, had different focuses, different world views. But I’ve never seen the gap wider than it is now. I think it is a chasm.” – Peggy Noonan in an August, 2010 essay titled: America Is At Risk Of Boiling Over, in The Wall Street Journal










Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“There comes a time in the life of every human when he or she must decide to risk ‘his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor’ on an outcome dubious. Those who fail the challenge are merely overgrown children and can never be anything else.” – The fictional character Jill Boardman, accepting the challenge to oversee the safety of the Man from Mars, in the novel Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert A. Heinlein




Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“Near civil war between town and country was a pervasive feature of this break-down in social order. Large mobs of half-starved and vindictive townsmen descended on villages to seize food from farmers accused of hoarding. The diary of one young woman described the scene at her cousin’s farm: ‘In the cart I saw three slaughtered pigs. The cowshed was drenched in blood. One cow had been slaughtered where it stood and the meat torn from its bones. The monsters had slit the udder of the finest milch cow, so that she had to be put out of her misery immediately. …










Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“Interestingly, NPR ran a local story over the weekend — an obscure little item — saying that Amtrak was determined to raise the average speed of its passenger trains running north from Connecticut through Vermont from 40 miles-per-hour to 60 mph. That would be some triumphant accomplishment! It would bring us back to about an 1860 level of service. Of course, I happen to believe that we will be lucky in a few years if we are able to enjoy an 1860s standard-of-living, so maybe this little side venture in public transport is perfectly in tune with America’s future.” – …




Jim’s Quote of the Day:

"I heartily accept the motto, — "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe, — "That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have." – Henry David Thoreau – 1849 (The opening lines of Civil Disobedience)