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

Barbwire Archives

"Irony is a state of affairs or event that seems contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result."

TRUMPETING STRUMPETRY. I announced Democrats for Trump (NVCaucus.com) on Sam Shad's show two weeks ago.

Even without David Letterman and Jon Stewart, The Donald has guaranteed that we will laugh again. And again. And again.

NAKED AMBITION. This Wednesday, Shad's guests include defrocked Assembly Republican leader Pat Hickey, R-Reno, and Jill Tolles, Hickey's anointed heir apparent.

Ms. Tolles has a lot to prove. Parent Leaders for Education, her GOP-leaning education lobby, was unable to secure even one vote among four Republican county commissioners to increase taxes for school repair in Dec. 2013. Only Democrat Kitty Jung tried to move the issue to a vote.

Ex-Tribune columniator Ira Hansen defrocked Hickey after the last election. The Barbwire returned the favor by defrocking Sparks Assemblyman Hansen as incoming speaker. (First newsbreak here Nov. 18; viral Nov. 20 with a little help from ex-Tribunista Dennis Myers; New York Times Nov. 25. Read the full, sad, bizarro neverending story for yourself.) [UPDATE: Mr. Hickey did not appear on the program.]

Ironic colonic: Tony Fianacca's Sparks Florist voicemail must have been full when Ira called to send bouquets to the Tribune for making him a national figure.

NAKED STUPIDITY. Reno City Hall jumps when I holler. I implored Black Tower councilcritters not to spend a quarter-million implementing a butt-ugly logo (a stop sign outlining a capital "R").

That mess would have filled this entire column save that I can't get a straight answer as to whether or not this fiasco can be reversed. They swallowed the sales pitch, guts, feathers and all.

Now Reno will have two logos. Go figger.

Ironic colonic: They placed a ban on new strip clubs the same day they approved the stop sign.

THE WORD OF GOD. Local ecumenicist Rajan Zed ramrods a weekly Reno Kazoo-Journal religion Q&A. A few Sundays ago, the yes/no question involved performing non-traditional marriages.

The Catholic Diocese "did not provide (an) answer," Zed told me.

Ironic colonic: Perhaps silence equates to progress. Perhaps not.

REPO DEPOT. Lots of news last week about Wired Magazine hackers remotely hijacking new cars.

In 2013, Candice Smith of Las Vegas testified before the Nevada Legislature that she thought she was going to die on a freeway when her car dealer hit her GPS kill switch. The story went nationwide, including the Times, but nowhere in Nevada. Why? Local corporate media avoid pissing off major advertisers.

Ironic colonic: Nevada car dealers tried and failed to get remote repossession legalized in the waning hours of this year's legislative session. Again, web search blanko.

ADIOS. Memorial services were held an hour apart Saturday for two heavyweights.

Congenial local union leader Johnny Byrne, 90, was a Virginia City native who also served as deputy state labor commissioner.

Erma Arvilla Rupp Fritchen, 84, became a freedom rider when such activity was life threatening. The retired Sparks teacher went south with former Reno-Sparks NAACP President Eddie Scott and was even served food in an Alabama church basement by a seamstress named Rosa Parks. (Barbwire 1-14-2007)

MY BEST TO THE VERY BEST. Happy 80th birthday to 32-year Nevada Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, born 7-28-1935 in Mounds, Louisiana.

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

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BARBWIRE WEB EXTRAS...

WHO NEEDS BOOKS? Get on my e-list for breaking developments in the neverending fight to save the Duncan/Traner and Verdi libraries from closure.

FROM DARRYL FEEMSTER: Special Library Open House Saturday 8 August 2015, 11:00 a.m.—3:00 p.m. 1650 Carville Drive, Reno

"We are on the road to a library open house and back to school celebration at the Duncan Community Library on August 8 from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. We have back to school supplies, food and more but we need people willing to help. Please let me know if you know of anyone that will come out to make it a great day for our community's youth. Please call me at 775-722-4303. I really need people to help get the word out so give me a call."

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.) Myers once again looks positively psychic. Actually, he just reads history.

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. UPDATE: The report said all is well. I still recommend feeling up your fire meter on a regular basis.

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 keep sending show suggestions.

  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.

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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.

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Smoking Guns... Get ahead of corporate-influenced news—>Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential 22 July 2015 To: City of Reno, Mayor and Council From: Andrew Barbano Re: Proposed new city logo, Item J.6 on the 22 July 2015 council agenda Executive Summary: Please don't The Hon. Mlle. Mayor and Council: Don't do this logo thing today. The proposed black-on-white capital "R" captured in an octagon borrowed from the second Reno arch is neither innovative nor imaginative. The proposed new logo is both plain and plain ugly. It's also quite trite. Local graphic artists chafe when telling stories of inexperienced clients who insist on what they perceive as a unique image idea: their own initials superimposed over the outline of the State of Nevada. Even that's better than the Octo-R. Replacing the meaningless octagon with the state's outline would at least provide beholders a sense of place. We might even reverse the R like Toys R Us to prove we have a flair for thinking outside the literacy box (see below). Given that the state's new education budget is actually stagnant, that would at least constitute truth in advertising. (Barbwire 7 July 2015 et seq.) All this reminds me of the infamous comma controversy, the big brouhaha at UNR a few years back over a comma vs. a hyphen in the institution's fully-expressed name. They settled on placing a comma in the middle of the school's monicker leading to sentences like this: University of Nevada, Reno is a grammatical clunker. So which entity stands accused of clunkerdom, Reno or the U? Because of the comma, the reader can't know. Sister Ellen Marie passed out D's for that kind of fuzzy writing. She might excuse the Octo-R idea in an eighth-grade art assignment, but spending the public's money on such a cliché will be a taxpayer travesty. Of course, if the idea is to look like a retro backwater, please sally forth. Northern Nevada is populated by dozens of very qualified designers. Turn them loose on coming up with some ideas and you will be blown away by what you get. Besides, the R in the octagon might bring trademark infringement lawsuits from the likes of the infamous Octomom and who knows who else. This logo is uncool even if placed above a Twitter hashtag. Please don't stub your collective tic-tac-toes on this ticky-tacky concept. Be well. Raise hell. Andrew Barbano 44-year Reno resident and media maven Barbwire.US Democrats for Trump Moving the needle and needling the weasels Education funding hike non-existent / Confederate flags fly in Sparks Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 7-21-2015 Sparks Tribune School, life, death, taxes and other high ironies Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 7-14-2015 Sparks Tribune All the news you never knew you needed to know Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 7-7-2015 Sparks Tribune / Updated 7-9-2015 Applying Christian forgiveness to a fault Barbwire by Barbano / From the Tuesday 6-30-2015 Sparks Tribune Life & death tickle the underbelly of the news Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 6-23-2015 Sparks Tribune Al Capone takes stock of Nevada education Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 6-16-2015 Sparks Tribune / Updated 6-17-2015 The 2015 Nevada Legislature's greatest hits Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 6-9-2015 Sparks Tribune Chaos theory: Republicans learn to use their majority — on each other Cover Story by Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 6-4-2015 Several related stories linked thereat Stench of sulfur suffuses Nevada's year of the gun Barbwire by Barbano / Uncensored full-length edition expanded from the censored Tuesday 6-2-2015 Sparks Tribune Updated D-Day, 6-6-2015: How I handled a similar situation Dogs and ponies, DARE traps and tokenism Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 5-26-2015 Sparks Tribune Corporate welfare unites me with the moonhowlers Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 5-19-2015 Sparks Tribune Hotplates, hotheads, hot rumors and hot Moose Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 5-12-2015 Sparks Tribune MayDay! The bright side of riots in the streets Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 5-5-2015 Sparks Tribune In the Uber-Nevada Legislature, words can kill Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 4-28-2015 Sparks Tribune Tesla rewrites history to chisel worker paychecks Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 4-21-2015 Sparks Tribune Radiation Nation: Gomorrah South bakes in the glow of victory Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 4-14-2015 Sparks Tribune Revenge, redistricting and amnesia in Cartoon City Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 4-7-2015 Sparks Tribune Harry Reid, Eddy Arnold, César Chávez and Gaga Madonna Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 3-31-2015 Sparks Tribune High noon for the high desert outback of the American Dream Small minds discuss people, average minds discuss events, great minds discuss ideas. Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 3-24-2015 Sparks Tribune St. Patrick, I need a green energy beer Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 3-17-2015 Sparks Tribune Michele Fiore: the Italian girl mama wanted for me? Barbwire by Barbano / Excised from the 3-10-2015 Sparks Tribune as "not suitable" / Updated 3-12 and 3-13-2015 Who was that lady I saw you with last night? That was no lady, that was...none of your damned business! But can she cook? Barbano to legislative committee: Let Tesla, Switch and Apple help pay for police officer video cameras Clinging to the Ledge: guts, feathers and all Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 3-3-2015 Sparks Tribune We don't need no stinking wages! It became necessary to destroy the community in order to save it Barbwire by Barbano / Special online edition 2-26-2015 The skeleton of the underbelly of the news Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 2-24-2015 Sparks Tribune Parsing our parsimonious public pursers Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 2-17-2015 Sparks Tribune What else is new? Southern Nevada CLC authorizes strike sanction vs. wage violator. 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 We Don't Need No Education Archive 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 and 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 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   Get ahead of corporate-influenced news—>Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential

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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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