Barbwire by Barbano: Not necessarily news

   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...
   Everybody talking to their pockets.
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
   and a long red rose.
   Everybody knows. Everybody knows.
That's how it goes. Everybody knows.

— Leonard Cohen, 1934-2016

I hope you understand I just had to go back to the island.
— Leon Russell, 1942-2016

Not necessarily news
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 3-21-2017 Sparks Tribune / Expansions in blue

Perhaps newspapers are no longer the first draft of history.

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

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Be well. Raise hell.

Andrew

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I was reminded of that fading tradition last week when I picked up a mint condition set of Winston Churchill's "A History of the English Speaking Peoples" at Grassroots Books.

Churchill published the four-volume series as a followup to his six-volume "The Second World War" which won him a Pulitzer. And the old boy wrote it all longhand!

Every time some peacenik advocates diplomacy over combat, the warmongers always shout "appeasement" and trash the memory of UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain who cut a deal with Hitler.

"History will not be kind to Neville, for I shall write the history," Churchill groused. A few years ago, a historian defended Chamberlain, asserting that Chamberlain bought precious time to prepare for the crucial Battle of Britain.

I guarantee that as Tsar Donaldov Vladimirovitch and his saber-rattlesnakes bring us to the nuclear brink with North Korea, some video game warriors will warn against "appeasement."

America has accepted a perpetual state of war and lots of greedy swine are hogging serious profits as obituaries proliferate. Speaking of which...

DISSING THE GRATEFUL DEAD. I have long decried the ghoulish habit of newspapers charging for obituaries. There was a time long ago when "vital statistics" like weddings, births and deaths were published by every local paper as a matter of civic duty. Not no more. I refused to write an obit a few years back on the anniversary of an old friend's death. As part of a neverending family fight, his widow wanted one of her daughters ignored. I refused to violate the first draft of history even for money.

If you are not a person of prominence or your family can't afford to pay for an obituary, your passing doesn't qualify for notice these days. Even then, family-written obits are often besotted with poor grammar, incomplete information or outright falsehoods.

And so we come to the passing of sweet Roxana Cupples who died March 9 at 77. The dark-haired beauty was my first employee in 1971. My ad agency leased a 13th-floor corner office at what is now Reno City Hall. I needed help while waiting for my crew from Gomorrah South. I found Roxanne.

We lost touch until I crashed the annual Washoe County Republican dinner a few years back as the only Democrat in the crowd. Rox introduced me to her husband, Gordon, who died preparing to flee the Caughlin Ranch fire not long thereafter.

Her March 19 Reno Gazette-Journal obit omitted that she had once been married to William F. Harrah hisself. He apparently had a weakness for willowy brunettes, as a previous spouse was country singer Bobbie Gentry.

Lady history deserves better as does forever-young Rox. A newspaper of record has now corrected her first draft.

SINS OF OMISSION, PART DEUX. Last Sunday's RGJ was filled with outrage at "news" of Washoe County School District financial woes. It was no surprise to regular Barbwire readers. This column has been years ahead of major corporate papers, catching both Washoe and Clark phonying up graduation stats and also buying toxic turf for athletic fields. (See We Don't Need No Education/)

After the 2015 legislative session, only the Barbwire reported that education funding remained flat despite a $1.3 billion tax increase. Hence Washoe's woes, the bitter fruits of corporate welfare.

TRIPLE PLAY. On March 13, the Associated Press reported that Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., will not vote for Trumpcare. KOLO TV-8 used it at 11:00 p.m. I included it in an e-bulletin to subscribers later that night. Nada in the Reno paper as yet. I guess it ain't news.

VIVA CHAVEZ. I've invited Gov. Sandoval to speak at César Chávez XV at Circus Circus March 29. No response at presstime. All are welcome. See CesarChavezNevada.com for tickets.

¡Sí se puede!

Dio benedica l'America.

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)
______________
Andrew Barbano is a 48-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com. E-mail <barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us> Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988.

ONLINE EXTRAS —>

END OF TIMES SURVIVAL KIT. Defend yourself with humorous or humorless but always-peerless predictions for 2017 by subscribing to the Barbwire Confidential News Service.

Last year's dark foreshadowings unfortunately became reality. I thus suggest inoculation by signing onto the HushHush! list at BallotBoxing.US/ It's cheap as well as enlightening entertainment

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THE GOOD DON. Nominations are afoot for the Nevada Press Association Hall of Fame. Time to ramp up for world-famous Tribune photographer Don Dondero. Here's the compelling case for his induction.

SMOKING GUNS —> Death Panels 2.0
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 3-14-2017 Sparks Tribune
Positively negative
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 3-7-2017 Sparks Tribune / Updated 3-9 and 3-12-2017
7Equal Rights Betrayal
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 2-28-2017 Sparks Tribune / Updated 3-1, 3-3 and 3-6-2017
Reidless and Rudderless?
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 2-21-2017 Sparks Tribune
Kate Smith & Lady Gaga
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 2-14-2017 Sparks Tribune / Updated 2-16, 2-17 and 2-21-2017
"By the 1920s, pseudo-scientists and polemicists in the 1920s popularized the notion that Italians were a separate race from Anglo- Americans. 'There’s no doubt those ideas were still around in 1942.' "

The Gorsuch Nonesuch: Poison Annie's Revenge
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 2-7-2017 Sparks Tribune
Smoot, smut and stash
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 1-31-2017 Sparks Tribune
The last question
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 1-24-2017 Sparks Tribune
Patient Zero Plagues
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 1-17-2017 Sparks Tribune
Democrats in Margaritaville
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 1-10-2017 Sparks Tribune
Regressions, Transitions and Predictions
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 1-3-2017 Sparks Tribune

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, 2014) 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)

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.

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.