BARBWIRE by ANDREW BARBANO

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Apple Computer is the most valuable, rich and famous company in the world.

Its brand has replaced longtime global leader Coca-Cola.

And who was IBM?

The Jobs Corp. has just released a passel of new products including the iPhone5s which offers the ultimate safeguard against the growing and sometimes lethal crime of cel-phone theft.

The i-5s will only work for the person whose fingerprint is scanned into it.

Such a system wouldn't fly for one of the most lethal weapons in America: the automobile.

Any drunk can stick a finger on an optical scanner.

But Apple's adaptation of an already widely used security technology could be applied to another product even more lethal than cars. (No, not the cigarette.)

Fingerprint scanners should be adapted for all firearms.

No match, no shoot. No more dogs accidentally wasting their masters, or worse.

The Nutso Rifle Association and its elected moonhowler minions have blocked gunlocks for years.

However, what was once a taboo can become mainstream in a short time.

Recreational marijuana use jumped 10 points nationally in just the past year.

An innovation is no good without smart marketing. Witness churches.

Have you ever stopped to think about religion sales?

St. Peter and the followers of Jesus set about proselytizing the world and naturally met with resistance.

In order to break through people's preoccupations and prejudices, you gotta have a gimmick, something I'm sure the apostles realized millennia before carnivorous MadMen roamed Madison Avenue.

The selling point had to be that the new, improved God is better than the old God your parents worshipped—which is basically the same reason that the Oldsmobile is no longer being manufactured.

Bad name.

Turned off the horny kiddies looking for a big back seat.

Sts. Peter and Paul came up with a world class marketing gimmick: Our principal prophet rose from the dead.

Top that.

Oh, by the way, he was conceived in the biblical version of in-vitro, not by the messy old-fashioned method.

And best of all, it turned out that he was God himself.

Thus was a Jewish community organizer from Nazareth marketed as the new, improved God of the gentiles.

It has proven to be a very successful campaign gimmick for more than 2,000 years.

When Sony co-founder Akio Morita green-lighted the Walkman, he was advised that it would never sell.

It required wearing earphones, something associated with hard-of-hearing old people (who drive Oldsmobiles?).

Not to worry, said the old man.

We will make wearing headphones in public cool.

Which is exactly what Apple can do for scanner gunlocks.

It won't take more insane school shootings such as happened here last Monday.

It simply requires a smart marketer to make gun locks cool.

Apple will get $89 million in corporate welfare for moving some operations here.

Let them earn it.

A hip iGun available in many colors?

A concept to die for.

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno.

WEB EXTRAS...

FIGHT BACK. Support the new season of Barbwire.TV and the return of a community television channel to these parts.

If last year's elections didn't convince you of the need, the 2013 legislature certainly should have.

Join up. You may donate at ReSurge.TV or contact me.

This is important.

Thank you.

HONOR YOUR DON. Keep sending comments supporting legendary Nevada photographer Don Dondero (1920-2003) for the Nevada Press Association Hall of Fame.

His life's work appeared worldwide, including the Tribune and most probably every newspaper in Nevada.

Enlist in the campaign to install Big Don.

Please send me your memories and endorsements via e-mail or to P.O. Box 10034, Reno NV 89510.

The Barbwire got the late Reno Gazette-Journal columnist Guy Richardson elected last year.

Let's go for a repeat.

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)

____________

Andrew Barbano is a 45-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 and JoeNeal.org. 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... Barbano on the Barbwire plots new TV season Barbwire Special Web Edition / 10-21-2013 Barbwire: Nevada not really a state No, we were not Battle Born in Kenya Top 10 reasons Nevada lives in the 19th Century Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 10-17-2013 Sparks Tribune Low-income penalty: Nevada socks it to the working poor BARBANO: Nevada is one big company town Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 10-10-2013 State of Health National health care comes up against a very sick state. WHAT'S IN IT FOR US? Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 10-10-2013 USA at crossroads: New Deal or new Confederacy? Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 10-10-2013 Sparks Tribune UPDATE—>Bill Moyers: Shutdown is simply secession by other means We Don't Need No Education The continuing Barbwire series ...and more ammo... The Post-Dated Recession: Pay me now or pay me later Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 9-6-2012 Daily Sparks Tribune The Post-dated Recession By Joshua H. Silavent / Daily Sparks Tribune / 5-3-2011 Union decline and rising inequality in two charts by Colin Gordon Economic Policy Institute / 6-5-2012 Used in journalist Mark Robison's extensive Hard Labor: Nevada unions tout role in helping workers, firms, economy (Sunday 2 Sept. 2012 Reno Gazette-Journal, page one, Reno Rebirth section of the print edition). Union men Jim Burrell, Paul McKenzie and Guy Louis Rocha did the movement proud. Not included in the RGJ online edition. WOMEN AND UNIONS — ORPHAN MAJORITIES The Barbwire Labor Day column Reno Gazette-Journal / 9-3-2012 Nevada Press Assn. Better Newspaper Contest HAT TRICK: Barbwire takes first place three years in a row. 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 desktop RED flags flying low over Sparks Expanded from the 1-10-2010 Daily Sparks Tribune The wrath of self-righteous racism Expanded from the 11-8-2009 Daily Sparks Tribune Government contacts Nev. congressional delegation Nevada Legislature State of Nevada Secretary of State Carson City Clark County City of Las Vegas Douglas County Reno City Council Sparks City Council Washoe County Commission Washoe Registrar of Voters The campaign against forcibly-paid newspaper obituaries 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 2008 first-place Nevada Press Association award winners The price of a piece / 6-17-2007 Boxing Pandora /9-23-2007 The Lady in the Red Dress 10-28-2007 1997 Pulitzer Prize entries ...and more ammo yet The life and times of Travus T. Hipp The best who ever was

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Copyright © 1982-2013 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 45-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 moved to Nevada's Daily Sparks Tribune on Aug. 12, 1988, and has originated in them parts ever since.
Whom to blame: How a hall-of-famer's hunch birthed the Barbwire in August of 1987
Tempus fugit.

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