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A Valentine for Tura Satana —>Union Star
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 2-13-2011 Daily Sparks Tribune
Updated 2-20 and 12-6-2011
Tura Satana, as we will always remember her
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed.
Everybody knows the war is over.
Everybody knows the good guys lost.
Everybody knows the fight was fixed.
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich.
That's how it goes. Everybody knows.
HAT TRICK: Barbwire wins 3rd straight Nevada Press Association First-Place AwardCOMING SOON
The new season of Barbwire TV. The first show will be about (what else?) jobs. The lack of them is well documented. How we've blown them and where they can be regenerated, that's something else. I guarantee you'll get mad enough to want to get even. Watch NevadaLabor.com for show times. Help us get the word out.
Support the project at http://resurge.tv#donate
If Reform Fails: Health Care, Jobs and Unions — new power to the people on the public airwaves
The 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
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 file
HAT TRICK: Barbwire wins 3rd straight Nevada Press Association First-Place Award
Her movie name was Tura Satana, 1960's cult movie star of Billy Wilder's Irma La Douce (with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine) and Russ Meyer's Faster, Pussycat, Kill! Kill!
To us, she was Tura Jurman, union sister who stood in solidarity in the hardfought and ultimately successful campaign to organize Reno Hilton security guards.
She was illegally fired, blackballed with her fellow union members, and celebrated victory when the Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America beat Hilton in court several years later.
Her former colleague Chuck Fisher remembers how scary-good she was when instructing in self defense.
I knew Tura as a lovely, unassuming, dark-haired fifty-something lady. Only when one of her colleagues started talking with her about her film career did I find out about her other life. Her website and fan base abide after lo, these many years. Google her yourself.
More about our union sister, TuraBy Dennis Myers
Reno News & Review 2-17-2011By Richard Corliss
Time Magazine 2-10-2011Please send remembrances for posting in perpetuity at NevadaLabor.com
Angelina Jolie had nothing on Tura Satana when it came to high-kicking action, and Tura sported a couple of assistants that Angelina just ain't got.
Which is why Billy Wilder hired her to play one of Shirley MacLaine's red light colleagues in Irma La Douce.
Dear Tura Jurman passed away of heart failure in Reno on Feb. 4.She was 72.
CLINGING TO THE LEDGE AT HIGH NOON MONDAY. On Feb. 14, state employees will rally in front of the legislative building in Carson City.Public workers have taken an especially bad scapegoating rap of late.
If you'd like a dash of truth, see Robert Reich's recent upload at HuffingtonPost.com and Hugh Jackson's latest piece in Las Vegas CityLife.
Both will be linked to the expanded web edition of this column at NevadaLabor.com.
Be there or be square on Valentine's Day.
I WAS THERE AND IT WAS REALLY, REALLY, DISGUSTINGLY, BORINGLY, LAWYERLY, ACADEMICALLY FREAKIN' STULTIFYINGLY SQUARE.
I actually turned the trick (it's hard to avoid talking dirty with the legislature in session) of being in two places at once last Thursday, Feb. 10.
I left my video colleague taping the Nevada Ethics Commission grilling of Washoe County D.A. Dick Gammick to attend a Public Utilities Commission conference.
It looks like the PUC is going to fully investigate charges from International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1245/AFL-CIO. The union alleges that super-profitable SPP/NP/NV Energy has cut staffing back so far that system reliability is in jeopardy, especially given an aging workforce.Atty. Gen. Catherine Cortez Masto's consumer advocate office sent representatives to the hearing both in Carson and in Gomorrah South.
Bueno.
Perhaps somebody over there read the Jan. 16 Barbwire.
More about the Gammick affairBy Dennis Myers
Reno News & Review 2-17-2011By Joshua H. Silavent
Daily Sparks Tribune 2-10-2011
The ethics commission exonerated Mr. Gammick by a 5-1 vote. When I left, I thought at least three of six were leaning toward conviction before the board went into closed session.
Gammick made the hassle for himself.He testified that when he took over as DA in 1995, he found a row of binders over two feet thick containing office policies from his 1979-83 predecessor Cal Dunlap.
"We threw them all away," Gammick said.Not having policies governing intermingling of campaigning for re-election with office work and staff caused this recent huge expenditure of public employee time and taxpayer treasure.
It speaks volumes about Mr. Gammick's autocratic attitude toward properly managing his office.
As with the late J. Edgar Hoover, it looks like he's in for life.
NOT SINCE THE CARTWRIGHTS WALKED THE PONDEROSA: The inaugural Big Bonanza Days Dinner and Awards Ceremony will take place on Saturday, March 5, at Virginia City's Silverland Inn & Suites. It revives a traditional event last celebrated in the 1970s.The Silver Strike Award will be presented to an organization or an individual for outstanding commitment to Nevada historical preservation.
For more information, go to BigBonanzaDays.com
VIVA HUELGA! César Chávez Day IX takes place on what would have been his 84th birthday, Thursday, March 31, 2011, at Circus Circus-Reno. Dinner is at 7:00 p.m.
The new Nevada legislative Latino caucus has been invited. As always, we expect a large representation from César Chávez's immediate family.
Go to CesarChavezNevada.com for news, ticket and sponsorship info.
THE CORY STORY. KJFK Radio just axed Cory Farley to save a few hundred a week.The station is owned by Tom Quinn, former chief of staff to Jerry Brown during his first stint as California guv.
They never gave it a chance. A fully-formatted local talk station knocks local hate radio outlet KKKOH into a cocked hat every time.
Travus T. Hipp, Eddie Anderson and I did it twice.
Insider tip: Something new is in the works.
Stay tuned.
BACK FROM THE ASHES DEPT. Support the return of community radio/TV. Go to Barbwire.TV for more information, to join the club and contribute via the web.
It's important.
CORPORATE WELFARE WATCH. The City of Reno just canned a bunch of cops and firefighters in order to maintain the payments on the Downtown Events Center and other corporate welfare giveaway projects.Right now, it's a horse race to see whether Reno or Sparks will be the first to fulfill my hope-they-don't-happen predictions of several years ago: municipal bankruptcy.
UPDATE: Last week, I related the story of my first media experience in these parts four decades ago. I neglected to give the full name of Bob Brown's fellow principal in May Advertising, Inc. The Big Kahuna and former Reno professional gambler was Irving "Jerry" May, still a legend after lo, these many years.
Be well. Raise hell.
______
Andrew Barbano is a 42-year Nevadan, chair of the Nevada César Chávez Committee, producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration, first 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.
Nevada Press Assn. annual award winners announced 9-18-2010.
HAT TRICK: Barbwire takes first place for third year in a row.
Next year, we go for the sombrero.The winning entries:
Suing for Schools: The 20-year shuck
Expanded from the 2-21-2010 Daily Sparks Tribune
Click here to view the show on your desktopRED flags flying low over Sparks
Expanded from the 1-10-2010 Daily Sparks TribuneThe wrath of self-righteous racism
Expanded from the 11-8-2009 Daily Sparks Tribune
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
Bill Moyers: Welcome to the Plutocracy
Money fights hard and it fights dirty
Speech delivered at Boston University on 29 Oct. 2010
Part of the Howard Zinn Lecture SeriesBarbwire Corporate Welfare Archive
Cabellyup.com
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 suckersLabor 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 © 1982-2011
Andrew Barbano
Andrew Barbano is a 42-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 first 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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