BARBWIRE by ANDREW BARBANO Pirate Laureate of the High Desert Outback of the American Dream

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GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS PAST. Walmart must stop stuffing employees with stupid pills.

The bandidos are building a new store in the tax-subsidized, underachieving Sparks Marina Legends shopping center. (See Cabellyup.com/)

"Amelia McLear, senior manager of public affairs for Walmart, said the company has not closed any stores in the Reno-Sparks area and it does not plan to close any more with the addition of the Legends store," according to Garrett Valenzuela's report of a Sparks Planning Commission meeting in last week's Tribune.

Untrue.

When Walmart was trying to get its northwest Reno store approved, the Arkansas pirates likewise promised they were not "planning" to close any stores, especially Northtowne at McCarran and US395/I-580.

Activists warned that Wally World has littered the country with empty big boxes. Sure enough, Northtowne closed. (See the Wal-Mart War Room at NevadaLabor.com/)

LUMP OF COAL DEPT. Didja know that Reno car dealers threatened to stop all charitable contributions if the school repair tax passed?

So said a county commissioner during a hearing.

GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS PRESENT. I'm researching both a serious public safety danger as well as a burgeoning public health hazard that may end up rivaling the fabled Fallon cancer cluster.

If I'm getting hot leads like these, what are guys who do this for a living working on?

The Nevada Public Utilities Commission, NVEnergy and Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto's consumer advocate have caved to corporate welfare queen Apple's demand for secret proceedings.

Even those allowed to intervene in the Fort Churchill solar power plant case have to sign non-disclosure blood oaths.

When public business is not conducted in public, the great unwashed usually get their pockets vacuumed.

  And we don't even get kissed afterward.

  Which leads me to Sparks City Hall. One of these days, they're gonna get busted for illegally vague meeting notices.

This week's agenda noted a hearing on minor and major deviations to a quantitative standard in city code.

Huh?

GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS YET TO COME. I loved last Sunday's Reno Gazette-Journal multi-page spread about how Reno is making progress toward becoming a college town.

About time after well over 100 years.

The stories all but ignored gambling, a word no longer used in polite publications.

A front-page New Yorker-esque non-scale drawing totally eliminated the downtown casino district.

A reader from Mars would assume that hotel-casinos don't exist in these parts.

The illustration showed the northwest Walmart (obviously critical for a university environment), the Little Waldorf Saloon (ditto) and UN,R to the north with the mid-town retail district in the foreground.

The tenderloin was eliminated save for the mucky Truckee River.

Perhaps it was a purported forecast of Reno after global thermonuclear war when God herself pays the wages of sin with the grapes of wrath.

Happy Thanksgibleting to you and yours.

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

WEB EXTRAS...

SUPPORT THE RETURN OF COMMUNITY TV. Support the cause at Barbwire.TV by putting your money where my mouth is.

Keep sending show suggestions.

Current frontrunners include (pardon the pun) wild mustangs as canned goods, education,  i-Guns and gay Olympics.

  Please forward additional ideas or vote on the above.

  I encourage you to donate to the cause at Barbwire.TV/

The medium that shapes public opinion needs at least one refuge where it is not filtered through the distorted green eye shades of prissy corporate accountants for whom profit is the only priority; where self-censorship is the journalist's normal work environment and where all sins of omission are tacitly encouraged and forgiven with the wave of a balance sheet.

This is important.

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.

Happy Thanksgibleting to you and yours.

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... John F. Kennedy's 2014 Inaugural Address Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 11-21-2013 Sparks Tribune JFK, Jr.: Hope dies hard and yet springs eternal Barbwire by Barbano / Daily Sparks Tribune / 7-25-1999 Your better life today had President Kennedy lived Barbwire by Barbano / Daily Sparks Tribune / 12-28-1997 The bloody guns of October fire on November Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 11-7-2013 Sparks Tribune Let's persuade Apple to start making i-Guns here Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 10-24-2013 Sparks Tribune Death on the job: Nevada workers remain cheap and disposable Updates on two Laborers' Local 169 members killed and two injured on I-80 Worker dies trimming trees at MGM's Mirage on Las Vegas Strip ...and more ammo.. Four Immigration Reform Marches in Reno Nov. 23 Nevada Day Required Reading The Lady in the Red Dress The Barbwire's classic Nevada Day column written in 1983 The compleat history of the Silver State in 500 words SO WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? Sparks Tribune 10-31-2013 and previously 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 yet 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 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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