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


Barbwire
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Je Suis Charlie

¡Feliz año nuevo!
César Chávez Celebration XIII / Celebración de César Chávez XIII
Tuesday 31 March 2015
/ Martes 31 de Marzo 2015
Circus Circus Reno

Site map
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"If voting mattered, they wouldn't let us do it."Travus T. Hipp, 1982

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   Everybody knows the dice are loaded.
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.

Everybody knows the scene is dead
   But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
   What everybody knows.
— Leonard Cohen

Parsing our parsimonious public pursers
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 2-17-2015 Sparks Tribune

"No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in session." — Judge Gideon J. Tucker, 1866 (often erroneously attributed to Mark Twain).


WE WON: BIG NEWS FROM THE NEVADA PRESS ASSOCIATION CONFAB IN GOMORRAH SOUTH —> BARBWIRE NOMINEE GUY RICHARDSON INDUCTED INTO HALL OF FAME ON FIRST BALLOT

Support Don Dondero next

SIX PACK!
Barbwire wins sixth Nevada Press Association award

We Don't Need No Education—> Neverending Barbwire Series

Barbwire.TV
Watch NevadaLabor.com for show times.
Help us get the word out.

Support the project at http://resurge.tv#donate

SUING FOR SCHOOLS
Updated 8-30-2011
Reruns on Carson-Dayton 226

Additional programs
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 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 as well as ongoing efforts at developing new media, including a regional, non-corporate community radio station and the return of community television to Reno-Sparks-Washoe.

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 selected on-demand re-runs from the Barbwire.TV archives

Barbwire.TV:
15-year overnight success

Daily Sparks Tribune 2-10-2008

The Barbwire's Greatest Hits
Highlights from radio days
mp3 file


Tomorrow's news today —> Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential

State lawmakers will take a giant step toward cutting your paycheck this week.

So warned Sen. Patricia Spearman, D-North Las Vegas, before the Reno-Sparks NAACP last Thursday. Senate Bill 119 would gut a large portion of Nevada's longstanding prevailing wage law.

As I noted last week, area-standard pay is by far the best guarantee that publicly-subsidized Tesla work and other construction jobs go to Nevadans.

Spearman added that a school maintenance and construction bill requested by Sen. Debbie Smith, D-Sparks, was "highjacked" to wipe out area-standard wages.

Businesses want their customers to have less money to spend, right?

In any region, the benchmark for the worth of anyone's labor is set by the skilled trades, mostly union journeymen.

For every 10 percent increase in unionization in an area, the average wage rises by about five percent.

The legendary Union Wage Effect is well documented in books by economist Richard Freeman.

Cutting skilled wages erodes the paychecks of the entire community.

THE MOON MUST BE FULL. Even the nefarious Nevada Policy Research Institute hates SB119, calling it a blank check for school districts to raise taxes in perpetuity: "The primary savings would come from spending new tax dollars more efficiently, not more efficiently spending the tax dollars we currently pay," quoth the moonhowler think tank.

Follytix makes for strange bedfellows, indeed.

Call or write your lawmakers.

Spearman is also preparing an "omnibus voting rights bill," equal pay legislation and (hooray!) a rebirth of the Equal Rights Amendment.

GUNS AND SCHOOLS. The NAACP also heard from Ananda Tomas of Moms Demand Action.

She's leading the charge against Machine Gun Michele Fiore, R-Gomorrah South, who wants guns on school campuses.

See the expanded Barbwire at NevadaLabor.com for details.

Interim Washoe School Superintendent Traci Davis provided the keynote address, attending with new Trustee Veronica Frenkel.

Davis said she has ended former Superintendent Heath Morrison's practice of cooking the books by erasing the existence of over-18 returning dropouts, resulting in inflated graduation rates.

65 YEARS OF KICKING THE CAN DOWN THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD. Read Tribune alumnus Dennis Myers' tour de force about a tour de farce in the Feb. 5 Reno News & Review. His cover story "No Fair" provides a quick and vicious history lesson about Nevada government failing to take care of its people.

MYERS: Nevadans may well wonder why one of the state’s biggest and most familiar problems could be ignored so assiduously for decades, like an elephant in the room. In the end, the explanation comes down to a rule of thumb for politicians: Offending the affluent comes with consequences. Offending the working poor does not.

He also posits a tax solution which liberals may find quite surprising. (I resemble that remark.)

POLITICAL GREENHORNS. Freshman Assemblycritter Chris Edwards, R-LV, went to Las Vegas cops and reported a bribe offered in exchange for supporting a caucus meeting that could have resulted in the defrocking of Speaker John Hambrick, R-Gomorrah South.

Dumb.

If somebody offers you a bribe, the first thing you say is "I didn't hear you." If anyone asks, you say "what bribe offer?" The moment you utter "bribe," you've permanently dirtied yourself and everyone around you.

The Edwards affair looks like typical backroom maneuvering among a bunch of confused dogs who caught the truck and don't have a clue on what to do save moisten the tires.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR for César Chávez Celebration XIII on the great one's birthday, Tuesday, March 31, at Circus Circus Reno.


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

The Underbelly of the News—>Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential

ONLINE EXTRAS...

TOMORROW'S NEWS TODAY: FEEL UP YOUR FIRE METER. The Reno Gazette-Journal did big spreads on three consecutive Sundays (Sept. 14, Sept. 21 and Sept. 28) on NV Energy smart meter fires. Welcome aboard. Barbwire readers were two years ahead on the fire meter issue. (Touch a Smart Meter, Go to Jail — 11 October 2012)

FIRE METER UPDATES: THE NEVADA FIRE MARSHALL'S INVESTIGATION concluded "don't worry, be happy." I'm still worried and will continue fondling NVE's precious equipment —> If your smart meter feels very hot, not just from sunshine, call 911. In its Sunday 21 Dec. 2014 front page headline major story, the Reno Gazette-Journal published results of the NVEnergy-commissioned "don't worry, be happy" echo study.

On 1-27-2015, the RGJ published an analysis based on veteran reporter Anjeanette Damon's review of more than 1,000 pages of documents. Barbwire bottom line: NVE handles this like auto manufacturers handle defects —> It's cheaper to pay legal settlements after people are injured or killed than to fix the problem.

Don'tcha worry 'bout a thing! If you can't trust your power company, who can you trust?

DIDN'T THEY MAKE A MOVIE CALLED "THE INCREDIBLES?" On 2-6-2015, the RGJ reported that the Public Utilities Commission has ordered NVE to hire an independent laboratory to review the material.

ANTE INTO THE GAME: Support the new season of Barbwire.TV by putting your money where my mouth is.

A thousand thanks to those who already responded and keep sending show suggestions

"Media is the plural of mediocre."
                              — Jimmy Breslin

  Stay tuned.

  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. We've got a lot of work to do.

Get ahead of corporate-influenced news—>Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential.

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

 






Andrew Barbano is a 46-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 and DoctorLawyerWatch.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 Sparks Tribune since 1988.

Peruse the Underbelly of the News —> Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential

Smoking Guns...
Get ahead of corporate-influenced news—>Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential

The flush of victory and the irony of deceit
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 2-10-2015 Sparks Tribune

Senate Republicans take a jackhammer to the bedrock of Nevada trade unionism
The last bastion of local hire comes under fire
By Sean Whaley / Las Vegas Review-Journal 2-4-2015

Follytix, Foxcatchers and corporate weasels
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 2-3-2015 Sparks Tribune

Machine Gun Michele and cheap Ma Bell
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 1-27-2015 Sparks Tribune

Education Dysfunction Part LIII—>
Gov. Veto El Obtusè talks some trash
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 1-20-2015 Sparks Tribune

Good grief: Je suis Charlie Brown
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 1-13-2015 Sparks Tribune

Corporate media: Thou shalt censor thyself
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 1-6-2015 Sparks Tribune

The ever-expanding Ira Hansen Archive of an anachronism

BREAKING BAD
Walter White and some other white guy
Who's,,,
...Who?

Breaking Bad 5: Machine Gun Michele & the good ole boys
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 12-16-2014 Sparks Tribune

Breaking Bad 4: Ira and his ammosexuals flip us the finger
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 12-9-2014 Sparks Tribune / Updated 12-11-2014

 

Union decline and rising inequality in two charts
by Colin Gordon
Economic Policy Institute / 6-5-2012
Labor Day: State of the Unions
By Mark Robison / Reno Gazette-Journal / Sunday 9-1-2013

The above graph was 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.

WOMEN AND UNIONS — ORPHAN MAJORITIES
The Barbwire Labor Day column
Reno Gazette-Journal / 9-3-2012


...and more ammo...

We Don't Need No Education
The continuing Barbwire series

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

...and more ammo yet

IMF Head Says Inequality Threatens Democracy. Here Are 7 Charts Proving She’s Right.
By Erika Eichelberger / Mother Jones/BillMoyers.com 5-30-2014
“The behavior of the financial sector has not changed fundamentally…since the crisis.
The industry still prizes short-term profit.”

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



Nevada Press Assn. Better Newspaper Contest

2013-14: BARBWIRE SCORES SIXTH NEVADA PRESS ASSOCIATION AWARD

BRONZE 2014
Hopelessly trying to win an earthquake / 4-18-2013

The 2013 Loony Tunes Legislative Lexicon / 5-30-2013

The politics of media ga-ga boosterism / 3-20-2014

2012: WE WON —> BIG NEWS FROM THE NEVADA PRESS ASSOCIATION GOMORRAH SOUTH CONFAB—> BARBWIRE NOMINEE GUY RICHARDSON INDUCTED INTO NPA HALL OF FAME ON FIRST BALLOT

Support legendary photographer Don Dondero next

2010 GOLD 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

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





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


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We Don't Need No Education
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Copyright © 1982-2015 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 46-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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