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 Barbwire Archives |
Sexy follytix 2010: Reality vs. Superficiality
Expanded from the 6-13-2010 Daily Sparks Tribune, Updated 9-25-2011, 6-5-2014 , Update 10-21-2014
Barbwire wins second straight Nevada Press Association first-place award
SUING FOR SCHOOLS: Click here to view the new Barbwire show on your desktop
Currently rerunning on Boulder City cable. Go to bcnv.org and then go to the BCTV link.
If Reform Fails: Health Care, Jobs and Unions — new power to the people on the public airwavesThe program premiers were available to every television set in the region because of a high-mileage media hybrid.
The shows appeared on both commercial and community stations. The non-corporate entity produced the events, commercial TV greatly expanded distribution.
Thus began an ongoing series of sane public interest programs which generate both entertaining heat and more than a little light.
Please spread the word and consider contributing to the cause online at ReSurge.TV.
You may also take the public option known as the U.S. Postal Service and send a check or money order to ReSurge.TV, P.O. Box 10034, Reno NV 89510.
Your contribution will help fund the distribution of the Dec. 6 and Feb. 21 programs as well as ongoing efforts at developing new media, including a regional, non-corporate community radio station.
You are present at the creation of what I hope can become a new media model where the programming accurately reflects what's happening on the ground and the media impact is powerful enough to forcefully pass the message upward.
Thanks.
Be well. Raise hell.
Andrew
Barbwire column on the depredations of Charter Communications and the Reno City Council wins 2009 Nevada Press Association first-place award
Past 12 months
Use the search tool you will find at page right at the above link. It will return the 19 newest TV programs. 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 sessionBarbwire.TV:
15-year overnight success
Daily Sparks Tribune 2-10-2008The Barbwire's Greatest Hits
Highlights from radio days
mp3 fileIn an average election, about 53 percent of voters are female and many automatically vote for a she.
As I've always reminded my radio and TV audiences, just because I'm on the sending side of the media doesn't imply any special wisdom. Last week's elections showed that the pundit class can miss the heart of a story handed to them on a Silver State platter.
Four primary races were heavily impacted and arguably decided by one very obvious common factor: the only girl in the car won.
SPEAKING OUT LOUDLY IN RENO (5-13-2010) — Former University of Nevada Regent and current Democratic congressional candidate Nancy Price addresses local workers demonstrating against job losses to out-of-staters at UNR's Lawlor Events Center. CWA Local 9413 v.p. and organizer Liz Sorenson stands at upper left, building trades council executive secretary-treasurer Paul McKenzie holds loudspeaker at right. Former university regent Nancy Price, who lives about six blocks from the Tribune, won the Democratic nomination to face retro Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., for the statewide congressional seat.
Her opponents were named Sam and Ken.
It was an instant replay of 1994 when Las Vegas lawyer Pat Clary and UNR Prof. James Roberts narrowly lost to pyramid marketer Janet Greeson who had no idea when she went to bed on election night that she would wake the narrow winner by 366 votes.Each got about one-third of the vote, just like last Tuesday.
"It seems that the less you campaign, the more votes you get," Roberts said at the time.
While Clary's name was unisexual, I recall that he did television ads showing the public he was a he.Unlike the 1994 field, Mrs. Price is not a political novice and carried Clark County by 17 points while local TV lawyer Ken McKenna carried Washoe by only four.
They tied or split the smaller counties.
Mrs. Price will drive pretty boy Dean freaky.
James Dean, he ain't.
This guy's a rebel without a clue.
Nancy Price is married to 28-year former Assemblyman Bob Price, D-North Las Vegas, one of the most stalwart champions of Nevada workers and taxpayers ever to serve.
He's also a 45-year retired member of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 357/AFL-CIO.
The Prices had intended to campaign statewide but fate intervened.Earlier this year on Prater Way, Nancy's car got t-boned by a hit-and-run driver.
One leg was severely injured.
She has been walking with a knee brace of late.
Thanks to her Gomorrah South political credentials and a fortunate first name, she was able to limp to victory and is not to be underestimated.
She took on the entire board of regents in the 1990s and beat them at the supreme court level, permanently strengthening Nevada's open meeting law.
Her advocacy against university cronyism and corruption led to a major legislative investigation and my 1996 series which rocked the system to its shaky foundations.
Tribune publisher Linda Brown entered the columns in two categories of that year's Pulitzer Prize competition.
The statewide congressional district has been gerrymandered for three decades so that no Democrat could ever win, although three have had good chances and blown them. (State Sen. Mary Gojack, D-Reno, in 1982; Reno Mayor Pete Sferrazza in 1992 and university regent Jill Derby in 2006)
Speaking of Sferrazzas, Pete's daughter, Reno city councilcritter Jessica Sferrazza, won the Democratic nomination for light-guv against another macho field, two Bobs and a Paul.The guys all ran active campaigns, as did she.
But the female name again prevailed.
Ditto with the delightful Betty Hicks, who beat two Mikes to win the Democratic nomination to face Republican Washoe County Commissioner David Humke.
On the flip side of the gender divide, Byllie Andrews lost to Teresa Benitez-Thompson for the Democratic nomination to replace term-limited Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno.Both of these well-qualified candidates campaigned hard and the race was close, so everything counted.
If Dr. Andrews had filed under her full name, Byllie Marie, I think it would have been closer.
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR, YOU JUST MIGHT GET IT — the new unstated slogan of Sen. Harry Reid's campaign. GOP nutso nominee Sharron Angle is one dangerous lady.As I told Sam Shad on his statewide Nevada Newsmakers show last Thursday, Sharona is as cute, cuddly and perky as Katie Couric and as sexy as Sarah Palin — a pretty package covering the politics of Attila the Hun.
Nevadans in November will have to choose between reality and superficiality.Gov. Jim the Dim beat Dina Titus in 2006 because he looked like a governor and she didn't.
Ayatollahs are always with us
Update 10-21-2014
Update 6-5-2014
Update 9-25-2011
Update 1-9-2011
Update 10-25-2009
Update 6-29-2008
Update 10-13-2002
Update 10-25-1998Angle is personable and looks great on TV. She will probably be kept away from hard media questioning because, like her defeated opponent Sue Lowden, she may be as pretty as a petunia but dumb as a fern under hard questioning.
Angle is also a devotee of theocracy, government by the Christian Bible. She belongs to a clique of local politicos who are part of the cleverly named National Federation of Republican Assemblies, which has nothing to do with any legislature. They include State. Sen. Maurice Washington, R-Sparks; Assemblyman Don Gustavson, R-Sparks; Republican Washoe County Commissioner Bonnie Weber and her husband Mike, and Mrs. Angle.
You will find the history of this outfit and its philosophy at the NevadaLabor.com Barbwire archive which will be linked to the expanded web edition of this column.
MINING TAX PETITIONS may still be turned in this week at the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada HQ in Reno. For info, call PLAN at (775) 348-7557.
HELP WANTED. Regular readers know that I have been raising money to help Sierra Nevada Community Access Television fully benefit from a matching foundation grant of $40,000.If you can help with a tax-deductible donation, give me a holler at (775) 882-TALK or drop me a line.
Be well. Raise hell.
______
Andrew Barbano is a 41-year Nevadan, chair of the Nevada César Chávez Committee, producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration, second vice-president and political action chair of the Reno-Sparks NAACP, labor/consumer/civil rights advocate, 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...
TOLJASO LONG TIME AGO
BP/ARCO: The greasy root of our evils
Barbwire / Daily Sparks Tribune 9-10-2006
The awful truth — Read it and weep, fellow suckersNevada Press Assn. annual award winners announced
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
Labor Day 2009: Rise of the Vampire Corpobots
Expanded from the 9-6-2009 Daily Sparks TribuneAngry Americans and Freudian fraud
Using war to market cigarettes
Expanded from the 8-23-2009 Daily Sparks TribuneBARBWIRE 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 © 1982-2010
Andrew Barbano
Andrew Barbano is a 41-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and JoeNeal.org; and former chair of the City of Reno's Citizens Cable Compliance Committee, He is producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration 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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