Ray E. Boomhower

Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 11, 2024 at 10:57 UTC

"A writer should concern himself with whatever absorbs his fancy, stirs his heart, and unlimbers his typewriter....A writer has the duty to be good, not lousy: true, not false; lively, not dull; accurate, not full of error.” E. B. White, born on this day in 1899

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 11, 2024 at 01:10 UTC

“It suddenly transforms into a bright yellow-orange that illuminates the entire horizon. It seethes, it foams, it almost froths, it stews and it rolls upward. It seems to come from within itself and to swallow itself.”
outrider.org/nuclear-weap...

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 22:56 UTC

“Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.” Marcel Proust, born on this day in 1871

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 09, 2024 at 18:20 UTC

On this day in 1864, Union forces under the command of Hoosier general Lew Wallace tried to stop an invading Confederate force led by General Jubal Early at the Battle of Monocacy.
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2020/04/savi...

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 09, 2024 at 15:54 UTC

“I wish to God it had never been invented!”
The Reporter and the Atomic Bomb
outrider.org/nuclear-weap...

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 09, 2024 at 12:08 UTC

"With honesty of purpose, balance, a respect for tradition, courage, and, above all, a philosophy of life, any young person who embraces the historical profession will find it rich in rewards and durable in satisfaction." Samuel Eliot Morison, born on this day in 1887

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 17:04 UTC

“The thing is awfu. It is terrifying. Unless man does something to regulate it, and regulate it soon, there is a possibility, yes a probability, that mankind will just destroy itself.”
The Reporter and the Atomic Bomb @outriderfdn.bsky.social
outrider.org/nuclear-weap...

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 13:24 UTC

"The pilots are glad to be spared the sounds they create. I have sometimes wondered whether it might not be better for some Air Force officers to be better acquainted with the ugly cacophony of warfare.”
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2022/08/i-bo...

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 12:23 UTC

"I am very disturbed by the lack of loving and caring--and the overabundance of meanness and selfishness--I hear in recent discussion and debate about government and politics."
Julia Carson, born on this day in 1938
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2019/07/for-...

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 07, 2024 at 13:14 UTC

"They said I was the greatest pitcher they ever saw. . . . I couldn’t understand why they couldn’t give me no justice." Leroy "Satchel" Paige

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 07, 2024 at 13:09 UTC

"You win a few, you lose a few. Some get rained out. But you got to dress for all of them." Satchel Paige, born on this day in 1906

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 07, 2024 at 11:39 UTC

"There's an awful temptation to just keep on researching. There comes a point where you just have to stop, and start writing." "No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read." David McCullough, born on this day in 1933

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 07, 2024 at 11:29 UTC

"There's an awful temptation to just keep on researching. There comes a point where you just have to stop, and start writing." "No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read." David McCullough, born on this day in 1933

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 07, 2024 at 01:37 UTC

"I can remember virtually every day because I lived my life with such intensity. I knew that any day I could be killed. . . . I went to where the action was because I felt that's the only way I could fully tell the story."
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2024/05/wall...

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 06, 2024 at 14:28 UTC

“These men died to save the National Capital, and they did save it.”
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2020/04/savi...

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 06, 2024 at 13:52 UTC

"Read, read, read. Read everything--trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write.” William Faulkner, who died on this day in 1962

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 12:24 UTC

"A man has to have goals--for a day, for a lifetime--and that was mine, to have people say, 'There goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived.'" Ted Williams, who died on this day in 2002

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 04, 2024 at 17:26 UTC

"Freedom is an indivisible word. If we want to enjoy it, and fight for it, we must be prepared to extend it to everyone, whether they are rich or poor, whether they agree with us or not, no matter what their race or the color of their skin."
Wendell Willkie #FourthofJuly2024

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 04, 2024 at 12:43 UTC

“Words--so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.” Nathaniel Hawthorne, born on this day in 1804

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 04, 2024 at 10:06 UTC

“The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.” Walt Whitman, "Leaves of Grass," published on this day in 1855

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 03, 2024 at 15:22 UTC

A paperback version of my biography of war correspondent Richard Tregaskis will be available November 15 from High Road Books, an imprint of the @unmpress.bsky.social.

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 03, 2024 at 12:58 UTC

"Writing is a sweet, wonderful reward." Franz Kafka

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 03, 2024 at 12:53 UTC

“I like everything about free-lancing with the exception of the lack of security. Sometimes it’s four to six months between checks, and that creates problems for my grocer and everybody else.”
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2024/05/free...

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 03, 2024 at 12:44 UTC

"Coverage in Viet Nam requires aggressiveness, resourcefulness and, at times, methods uncomfortably close to those used by professional intelligence units. You can expect very little help from most official news sources, and news comes the hard way."
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2024/02/comb...

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 03, 2024 at 11:59 UTC

“A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity.” Franz Kafka

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 03, 2024 at 10:45 UTC

"I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? . . . . A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us." Franz Kafka, born on this day in 1883

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 19:45 UTC

"None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We got here because somebody—a parent, a teacher, an Ivy League crony, or a few nuns—bent down and helped us pick up our boots." Thurgood Marshall, born on this day in 1908

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 13:10 UTC

"Man's life seems to me like a long, weary night that would be intolerable if there were not occasionally flashes of light, the sudden brightness of which is so comforting and wonderful, that the moments of their appearance cancel out and justify the years of darkness." Hermann Hesse

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 13:01 UTC

“We need you. You write it and tell me what to say and I’ll say it.”
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2020/10/all-...

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 12:40 UTC

OTD in 1937, Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first round-the-world flight at the equator. Purdue University's Research Foundation funded the Lockheed Model 10 Electra Earhart flew on her mission.
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2020/07/land...

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 11:18 UTC

On this day in 1943, Charles Hall of Brazil, Indiana, became the first African American pilot, and Tuskegee Airman, to shoot down an enemy aircraft in World War II, blasting a German Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Würge out of the sky while escorting B-25 bombers in his P-40 fighter on a mission over Sicily.

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 18:54 UTC

Hope you find it interesting!

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 12:52 UTC

On this day in 1928, Heze Clark started work as the police reporter for the "Indianapolis Times." He stayed in that job until his death in 1956, training a young reporter named John Bartlow Martin along the way.
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-...

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 11:26 UTC

“Remember, it is no sign of weakness or defeat that your manuscript ends up in need of major surgery. This is a common occurrence in all writing, and among the best writers.” William Strunk Jr., born on this day in 1869

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 30, 2024 at 13:24 UTC

"In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot." Czeslaw Milosz, born on this day in 1911

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 30, 2024 at 12:04 UTC

“an effort to get up a corner in Spring poetry and fix the price of manuscript stories at so much per year.”
The Western Association of Writers, established on this day in 1886 in Indianapolis
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2012/04/gath...

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 30, 2024 at 00:57 UTC

"The work is divided into two classes of people. Journalists and Fact Suppressors. It's a 24-hour-a-day job of the former to extract information from the latter in what seems to be a never-ending wrestling match."
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2024/02/comb...

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Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 29, 2024 at 20:46 UTC

“Take enormous care, and never be cavalier with copy.
Don't inadvertently edit in mistakes.
The best editing is the least editing.
Change no more than has to be.
Ask: Is this a real improvement or just a change?”
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2024/06/will...

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