The Dave Bowman Show

Welcome back to What The Frock, where faith meets foolishness and caffeine meets chaos. This week, Rabbi Dave and Friar Rod are running on fumes, sarcasm, and coffee strong enough to qualify as a controlled substance. Rod has just returned from a cybersecurity conference in Vegas, and Dave is preparing for shoulder surgery while trying to do everything left-handed. That includes making coffee, typ...

In the sixteenth century, when theology could start wars and conscience could get a man killed, Jacobus Arminius dared to question the idea that God’s will left no room for human choice. Born in the war-torn Dutch town of Oudewater on October 10, 1560, Arminius rose from tragedy to become one of Europe’s most provocative theologians. His belief that divine grace invites rather than coerces set him...

But not the Hollywood ending...

It is October 10, 1775, and Norwich can feel the weight of the war pressing closer than ever. Prices rise, faith stretches thin, and the news from Boston and Philadelphia gives as much worry as hope. General Gage has sailed home in disgrace, replaced by the iron-willed General Howe, while Washington clings to his siege lines with more resolve than rations. In Philadelphia, Congress takes a daring...

Welcome to Revolutionary Talk on WREV 760 AM. It is October 9, 1775, and today the tide quite literally turns. In Philadelphia, the Continental Congress has voted to arm two ships and send them against British supply vessels. Out of quills and parchment, a navy is born. John Adams declared that a nation cannot defend its liberty without command of the sea, and tonight his words begin to take shape...

She was born free in a time when freedom was rare, and she spent her life proving what it truly meant. Mary Ann Shadd Cary was a teacher, journalist, lawyer, and activist who refused to accept the limits placed on her because of her race or her gender. From the Underground Railroad stops of her childhood home in Delaware to the classrooms of Canada West and the editorial desk of The Provincial Fre...

Welcome to Revolutionary Talk on WREV 760AM. It is October 8, 1775, and General Washington has called a council of war in Cambridge to decide the future of the Continental Army. The debate over numbers and enlistments has turned into a debate over principle. Today, the army ruled that no Black man, free or enslaved, may serve in the ranks. The decision is said to preserve order among the colonies,...

He was the kind of man who made danger look like routine. Eddie Rickenbacker grew up on the rough streets of Columbus, Ohio, fixing engines and outrunning bad luck. By the time America entered World War I, he was already famous as “Fast Eddie,” a race car driver who understood speed better than fear. When he climbed into a SPAD fighter with the 94th “Hat in the Ring” Squadron, he became the nation...

Welcome back to Revolutionary Talk on WREV 760AM, Norwich’s voice of the times. It’s October 7, 1775, and the Revolution has just taken a hard blow. In Cambridge, General Washington has uncovered the unthinkable—Dr. Benjamin Church, surgeon general of our own army, has been exposed as a British spy. The man who bound our wounds has been sending our secrets to the enemy. The shock runs deep, and tr...

In this episode of Liberty! 250, Dave Bowman joins Bill Mick to explore one of Jefferson’s fiercest grievances: the King’s repeated dissolution of colonial legislatures. From Massachusetts in 1768 to Virginia in 1774, governors slammed the doors on the people’s assemblies, only to find that free men would meet anyway in taverns, churches, and town halls. Dave reveals how this “manly firmness” beca...

George Westinghouse was a man who refused to settle for “good enough.” Born on October 6, 1846, he became one of America’s greatest inventors and industrialists, a name forever linked with safety, innovation, and light itself. From the invention of the railroad air brake to the creation of the first natural gas distribution system, Westinghouse transformed how the world moved and powered itself. W...

Prices are climbing, tempers are flaring, and the paper money in our pockets is losing value faster than flour can rise. In today’s episode of Revolutionary Talk, Dave Diamond takes us straight into the heart of colonial frustration. From the markets of Norwich to the farmlands beyond, inflation and British blockades are squeezing every family’s table. Merchants hoard supplies, Congress floods the...

Welcome to What The Frock? where reason and ridicule meet over coffee and common sense. This week, Rabbi Dave and Friar Rod tackle three wildly different but strangely connected stories. It begins with the uproar over Netflix and its so-called “transgender agenda,” fueled by Elon Musk and a fifteen billion dollar hit to the company’s value. From there, they turn to Washington’s latest production,...

It began with the sound of a drum in the rain. On October 5, 1789, thousands of women left the markets of Paris and marched toward Versailles, hungry, furious, and unafraid. They demanded bread, but what they carried was something far heavier: the voice of a nation on the edge of change. By the end of that march, the King and Queen would no longer rule from their gilded palace. They would be broug...

“The Hunt for Red October,” was released this past week in 1984. To say that there had never been anything like it would be an understatement. It was… amazing.

On the night of October 4, 1957, the world changed in a way few could have predicted. From the vast steppes of Kazakhstan, a Soviet rocket thundered into the sky, carrying with it a polished sphere no bigger than a beach ball. Once the roar of the launch faded, the silence of space was pierced by a sound unlike any other. Across continents, through static-filled radios, came the steady, insistent...

College ain't what I expected it to be...

Welcome back to Powder to Parchment on WREV 760AM, where we bring you Revolutionary Talk straight from the heart of 1775. Today we turn our attention to Benedict Arnold, and not the man remembered for betrayal, but the soldier who was still a hero. On October 3, 1775, Arnold and more than a thousand men began their march north through the wilds of Maine, bound for Quebec. They carried bateaux that...

On October 3, 1775, at his Cambridge headquarters, George Washington gathered his leading officers around a table and laid out a single sheet of paper covered in characters that looked like the husks of an insect’s trail. The talk was quiet and direct. A senior official stood under suspicion, a ciphered message had been opened, and the implications were heavier than the room’s timbered ceiling. Af...

George Bancroft was one of the great figures of nineteenth-century America, a historian, diplomat, and the founder of the United States Naval Academy. More than a century later, the Navy honored him by giving his name to a vessel that represented the cutting edge of Cold War deterrence. USS George Bancroft (SSBN-643) was a Benjamin Franklin-class ballistic missile submarine, part of the legendary...

Welcome back to Powder to Parchment on WREV 760AM, Norwich’s home for Revolutionary Talk. Yesterday we looked at Washington’s grim reality outside Boston — nine shots apiece and a bluff that might break at any moment. Today, October 2, 1775, we turn to Philadelphia, where the Continental Congress takes up an idea as bold as it is dangerous: creating a navy. John Adams rises and declares, “Without...

In the autumn of 1944, the submarine USS Aspro slipped out of Fremantle and into the vast expanse of the South China Sea. This was her fifth war patrol, a mission that would test the nerves of her crew and the steel of the boat against Japan’s desperate efforts to keep its sea lanes open. For weeks the men endured the grind of patrol life, stalking convoys, dodging aircraft, and bracing against th...

On October 2, 1766, Nottingham’s famous Goose Fair turned from lively market to full-blown riot, and the cause was cheese. Prices had doubled, merchants were buying up entire wagonloads to haul away, and the townsfolk decided they would not stand for it. What followed was chaos, with stalls overturned, cheeses seized, and wheels rolled through the streets like weapons. The mayor, Robie Swann, trie...

After 2.5 Million yers, I missed it

It's October 1, 1775, and WREV 760AM is on the air, bringing you "Revolutionary Talk" with your firebrand host, Dave Diamond. Word from Cambridge is not good. Shocking even. And from London the King has waddled in as he gets ready to open the session of Parliament. It doesn't look like he's in a conciliatory mood. Grab a mug of ale and fill your pipe, settle back in front of the fire as Dave bring...