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Topless 10 reasons for unconscious conduct
Those who follow follytix these days need an anemometer to measure the increasing levels of animosity.
Expanded from the 11-1-2009 Daily Sparks Tribune
Barbwire wins second straight Nevada Press Association first-place award
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Past 12 months
Use the search tool you will find at page right at the above link. It will return the 19 newest. A button for older shows is being installed. You may also search by date — M-F for the past year save holidays.Click here for on-demand re-runs
from the 2009 legislative session(775) 882-8255
[882-TALK]Barbwire.TV:
15-year overnight success
Daily Sparks Tribune 2-10-2008The Barbwire's Greatest Hits
Highlights from radio days
mp3 fileIn our world of brutally short attention spans, everything has to be reduced to a bumper sticker or top ten list.
I can't fight progress.
Herewith, the top 10 reasons to establish a government run health insurance program. (All suggestions welcome.)
10. It will provide Sarah Palin's family with free birth control advice.
9. It will supervise Lush Rambo's intake of prescription medication.
8. It will get madcap Fox network demagogue Glenn Beck into much needed therapy.
7. It will force Bill O'Reilly to wear gloves when he pinches the asses of female staffers.
6. It will make Howard Stern do his radio show fully dressed.
5. It will relieve certain conspiracy theorists of the delusion that wearing hoods and white sheets makes you immune to swine flu.
4. It will disabuse Nevada anti-abortion activist Richard Ziser of the notion that those who harvest genetically-engineered corn should get the death penalty for murder. (Somebody tell Ziser that Kandy Korn is still OK, as it has been modified with no human genes that we know of.)
3. Gov. Jim the Dim could qualify for implantation of a moral compass.
2. Give 'em health, Harry!
1. A national health care program might occasionally result in a doctor prescribing that Lush Rambo wash his racist mouth out with deodorant soap.SHORT SHOTS. At 4:00 p.m. this Tuesday, Nov. 3, the Nevada Public Utilities Commission hosts its legislatively mandated annual consumer session at Reno City Hall. All topics are fair game. Info: Sean Sever, (775) 684-6118. Got a hunch its going to be higher profile than usual. (See below.)
This Thursday, Nov. 5, the Reno City Planning Commission holds a hearing on digital billboards, you know — the 15-by-50 foot television screens popping up all over town. I don't know why Doug Smith at ScenicNevada.org is so concerned. Such behemoths can't possibly be distracting to drivers who are already busy eating, talking on cel-phones and texting their twits. For more info, call Mr. Smith at (775) 378-1694. The planning commission meets at 6:00 p.m. Thursday at Reno City Hall, the black tower notable for its defense of the voice of the citizen against corporate interests. Lotsa luck, Doug!
Besides, monster electric billboards are good for Sierra Pacific/NV Energy's already fat bottom line. You'd never know it from the sob stories the company has been telling its workers and retirees. The ongoing fight heats up on Saturday, Nov. 7. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1245 is hosting a rally for worker and retiree rights at 11:00 a.m. at Washoe County Senior Center at Ninth and Sutro Streets.
As I reported last week, an Oct. 17 meeting with retirees at John Ascuaga's Nugget ended in a near-riot as company officials told their ex-workers how badly they were going to get screwed. The Tribune wrote a story about it which did not include that the company scammed $50 million out of a fund reserved for retiree health care which the Public Utilities Commission had to order returned.
Washoe County Democrats host their annual Virginia Demmler Dinner on Saturday, Nov. 7, at the Grand Sierra. The event is named after the late former county chair and longtime party stalwart. It will be a great evening for political junkies and unindicted co-conspirators. Principal speaker will be an indicted and convicted conspirator from Richard the Rotten's White House, former Nixon lawyer John Dean. The best-selling author long ago saw the error of his ways and has most recently been providing insights about the parallels between the Nixon-Agnew and Bush-Cheney criminal regimes. If any tickets remain, they cost $85. Info: (775) 323-VOTE or washoedems.org.
If the Dems are sold out, the same evening at 7:00 p.m., the Reno Pops Orchestra performs for free (donations accepted) at St. John's Presbyterian Church at 1070 W. Plumb Lane in Reno. They will perform a Parisian-themed playbill, including selections from Camille Saint-Saens, George Gershwin, Les Miserables and Gigi. Local singer Jennifer Gourley will perform with them, as will Eric Kao, winner of the 2009 Pops Concerto Festival. He will perform the Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto. Info: (775) 673-1234 or renopops.org.
COMMUNITY MEDIA UPDATE. Regular readers know that I chair a campaign to perpetuate non-corporate community television and establish a new, full-power community fm radio station. Read the latest and donate to the cause at ReSurge.TV or send a check or money order to ReSurge.TV, P.O. Box 10034, Reno, NV 89510. If you're not on my e-mail list, it's a good idea to request inclusion, as readers who got in free at last Tuesday's anti-KKK lecture will attest.
Be well. Raise hell.______
Andrew Barbano is a 40-year Nevadan, second vice-president of the Reno-Sparks NAACP, labor/consumer/civil rights advocate, producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration, member of Communications Workers of America Local 9413/AFL-CIO and editor of NevadaLabor.com. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. Check local listings for other Nevada cable systems. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Daily Sparks Tribune since 1988.
Smoking Guns...
Nevada Press Assn. annual award winners announced 9-19-2009
And they wonder why the newspaper business is dying?
The Dean's List
The Dean of Reno Bloggers could very well be Andrew Barbano, self-described "fighter of public demons," who started putting his "Barbwire" columns online in 1996 and now runs 10 sites.
RENO NEWS & REVIEW, 11-9-2006
The 2009 first-place Nevada Press Association award winners
Tony the Tiger & the flaky NFL
Barbwire / 11-30-2008
Deregulation is never having to say you're sorry
Barbwire / 8-3-2008
Nevada: A good place to visit, but do you want to live here?
Barbwire / 6-15-2008
The price of a piece / 6-17-2007
Boxing Pandora /9-23-2007
The Lady in the Red Dress
10-28-2007
BARBWIRE Nevada Corporate Welfare Archive
Propaganda fuels gasoline price fixing
Barbwire 8-14-2005Donate to the cable ratepayer legal defense fund at our PayPal-enabled ReSurge.TV Consumer War Room
Phillips, Kevin; Numbers Racket: Why the economy is worse than we know
Harper's Magazine; May 2008; page 43
Phillips has authored numerous books on history and politics over the past 40 years. His most recent, Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism, was published by Viking on April 15, 2008.NAOMI WOLF: Fascist America in 10 Easy Steps
There are some things common to every state that's made the transition to fascism. Author Naomi Wolf argues that all of them are present in America today.
Alternet 5-20-2007Johnson, Chalmers; REPUBLIC OR EMPIRE? A National Intelligence Estimate on the United States; Harper's magazine; January, 2007. I love it when heavy hitters validate what I've been saying for years in the tiny Sparks Tribune.
Barlett, Donald L. and Steele, James B.; America: What Went Wrong? (1992); America: Who Really Pays the Taxes? (1994); America: Who Stole the Dream? (1996) ; Andrews & McMeel/Universal Press Syndicate.
Review of Alex Carey's Taking the Risk Out of Democracy:
Propaganda in the US and AustraliaThe Orwell Diversion by Alex Carey
Excerpted from the book available below
ORDER Taking the Risk Out of Democracy
Corporate Propaganda versus Freedom and Liberty
By Alex Carey
Edited by Andrew Lohrey
Foreword by Noam Chomsky
University of Illinois Press
SEE ALSO: Lapham, Lewis H.; Tentacles of Rage: The Republican Propaganda Mill, A Brief History; Harper's Magazine cover article; September, 2004, page 32.
By one conservative estimate, the corporate right has spent about $3 billion over the past three decades manufacturing public opinion to suit big business goals. Lapham's number covered the early 1970's to the present day. Alex Carey noted that by 1948, anti- New Deal corporate propaganda expenditures had already reached $100 million per year, not adjusted for inflation, for advertising alone. (Carey, ibid; page 79)
Adjusted for inflation, that 1948 $100 million becomes $801,659,751.04 in 2005 dollars.
Conservatives Help Wal-Mart, and Vice Versa
As Wal-Mart struggles to rebut growing criticism, it has discovered a reliable ally: conservative research groups.
New York Times 9-8-2006; Free registration may be required.BARBWIRE: Labor Day '94: People vs. corporate con job, 9-4-94
Chilling forecasts from Alex CareyBARBWIRE: The Nevada Republican Party Becomes Communist, 3-30-97
A prescient Plato on the dangers of oligarchyThe sands of time do not cloud the long memories of the sheiks of Araby
Barbwire 9-10-2006
Rinfret, Pierre A.; Peace is Bullish; Look magazine, 5-31-1966
Copyright © 1982-2009 Andrew Barbano
Andrew Barbano is a 40-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and JoeNeal.org, former chair of the City of Reno's Citizens Cable Compliance Committee and serves as second vice-president, political action chair and webmaster of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us.
Barbwire by Barbano premiered in the Daily Sparks (Nev.) Tribune on Aug. 12, 1988, and has originated in those parts ever since. Tempus fugit.
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