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


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Je Suis Charlie
"Our republic and its press will rise or fall together." — Joseph Pulitzer

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"Media is the plural of mediocre."
— Jimmy Breslin (1928-2017)

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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...
   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.


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


Buy local? 'Bye local and goodbye to Paul Laxalt
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 8-8-2018 Sparks Tribune / Expansions in blue


Greatest Hits Dept.

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

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8 the hard way!
Barbwire wins 8th Nevada Press Association award

GOLD 2017
Don't ask Renown Med for marijuana to help your chemo
10-4-2016
We Don't Need No Education
Toxic turf threat ignored

12-13-2016
Kate Smith & Lady Gaga
2-14-2017

Bronze 6-pack
In the Uber-Nevada legislature, words can kill
4-28-2015
On artificial turf, don't breathe unless absolutely necessary (above)
11-24-2015
Leading questions, lead-headed leaders
1-19-2016

Hopelessly trying to win an earthquake
4-18-2013
2013 Loony Tunes Legislative Lexicon
5-30-2013
The politics of media ga-ga boosterism
3-20-2014

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

1997 Pulitzer Prize entries

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
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

BUY LOCAL? 'BYE LOCAL. A local couple of my acquaintance is into big trucks for business and pleasure — to the tune of buying new ones very frequently.

They have found the 16-hour drive to Boise, Idaho, worthwhile, saving an average of $20,000 on each purchase. I'd like to hear from local dealers as to why that's so. I am informed that Idaho purveyors will even provide airfare.

PAUL LAXALT, FINANCIAL GENIUS. At Monday presstime came news of the death of former Nevada Lt. Governor, Governor and U.S. Senator Paul Laxalt at age 96. It was not generally known, but the Republican legend was arguably the most successful investor in Nevada history. Court records in his 1983 libel case against the McClatchy newspapers showed that he got his now long-closed Ormsby House Hotel-Casino in Carson City built for a total personal investment of $60. Sixty. Dollars. SIX-OH. 60 percent of a hundred, six sawbucks, a tenner over half-a-hundred. Top that, Sheldon Adelson or Warren Buffet.

BAD TO WORSE TO WORSER. In the past two weeks, I have reported about the 2006 Washoe County Commission's cowardly caving to Minnesota developers by handing them $15 million plus attorneys' fees for hurting their feelings by trying to acquire the Ballardini Ranch for a park. The 1,019-acre southwest Reno tract remains the last large swath of undeveloped land in the Truckee Meadows.

The Great Recession stopped the previous development and the carpetbaggers now appear desperate. They've resorted to posting signs on southwest McCarran Blvd. offering the property for subdivision. Which means they have been unable to market it in more than a dozen years, even at the height of the now-fading Tesla boom. Construction in the hilly region would probably be quite expensive not to mention all the potential environmental issues.

With Great Depression2 looming (see BarbanoMedia.com), the public may well be able to play fire sale with the developers before any more of their windfall goes to taxes.

My previously published numbers have twice proven incorrect. I first reported the above figure. Then I was informed that the county financed the deal which by now has cost Washoe County taxpayers more than $30 million.

The latest shocker: Total costs to date stand at a whopping $35,175,000.00 of which $3,560,000.00 remains outstanding with interest costs still accumulating. Time to stop putting Band-Aids on this hemorrhaging machine-gun wound. You may access the entire sordid saga of Love's Labours Lost via ProtectOurWashoe.org

THE FOUR PERPS: Only former Reno mayor and now Judge Pete Sferrazza voted against the Ballardini debacle in 2006. The Democrat said he could have supported the settlement if the public had gotten something out of it. He could see nothing.

By popular demand, here are the four Republicans who chickened out in the face of mean ole nasty lawyers: Bob Larkin, Jim Galloway, David Humke (a recently disgraced Washoe Family Court judge) and Bonnie Weber (now running a second time for Reno City Council after losing to Paul McKenzie four years ago).

SPEAKING OF NON-RESPONSIVE. The ACLU has not answered my question about the execution drug it's fighting. If it's a prescription drug, is the state breaking the law by threatening to use it or has some MD actually prescribed it? If the latter, who?...Last week, KRNV TV-4/KRXI TV-11 News advised people NOT to use fans to cool their homes. Huh? The Washoe County Health Dept. advised no such thing. It was bad editing by a green reporter. I complained to no avail.

THE BIG 3-0. This coming Sunday marks 30 years since the first Barbwire appeared in the Rail City's newspaper of record since 1910. "The Chilling of Hot August Nights" brought the first of my eight Nevada Press Association awards.

I'll add more memories of the early days of the Barbwire as time, space and the political season allow.

1910 REDUX. That year not only spawned the Tribune but also the Fight of the Century. "Great White Hope" and undefeated former champion James Jeffries was soundly thrashed by Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion. The fight took place in a wooden stadium built for the occasion at E. 4th and Toano, site of a state historical marker. Johnson trained at a resort on Mayberry Drive. Tim Elam, the current property owner, built a monument at the corner of Mayberry at Sherwood.

On Friday, August 17, at 4:30 p.m., we complete the triangle. The Reno-Sparks NAACP, United Auto Workers Local 2162/AFL-CIO, the Sparks-based Northern Nevada Central Labor Council/AFL-CIO and the Great Basin Youth Soccer League will dedicate a plaque at Jeffries' training site, now the soccer fields on West Moana Lane. It will precede the first UNR women's soccer game of the season at 5:30 (no high-back chairs, please). Admission is free with a can of food for the Food Bank of Northern Nevada. Food trucks and other fun stuff will be announced soon. Watch RenoSparksNAACP.org/

CORRECT AGAIN. The Reno Gazette-Journal last Sunday published news of a major push to expand the Reno-Sparks Convention Center to the tune of a quarter-billion or so. Barbwire readers were tipped off on May 9.


Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.) / être bien, élever l'enfer (And my French.) / Stammi bene. Scatenare l'inferno. (And Italian.)
_______
Andrew Barbano is a 49-year Nevadan, executive 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 BallotBoxing.US and SenJoeNeal.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 and received its 8th Nevada Press Association award and 5th first-place at the 30 Sept. 2017 NPA annual convention in Carson City. (That trophy and about six bucks will get you a Latte Mocha Cotsafracas Chingade at just about any Starbux worldwide, guaranteed.)

WEB XTRAS & SMOKING GUNS —>

Sore-oppressed Soul-Sister Cities:
Menlo Park and Reno-Sparks-Fernley share similarly sad high-tech stretch marks

"All humanity has left the area": paying for Tesla's Gigafactory
Barbano and Nevada conservatives decry corporate welfare depredations

By Rory Carroll / The Guardian 7-3-2018

Editor's Note: The Guardian publishes 180,000 newspapers daily in London and environs and generates ONE BILLION monthly web page views. (I should live so long.)

"Facebook is taking everything": rising rents drive out Silicon Valley families
Property companies advertising their proximity to Facebook’s campus are giving low-income residents a choice: pay a huge rent increase or move out
By Sam Levin / The Guardian 6-20-2018

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


Metastasizical Statisticals

Trump FCC chair investigated for Sinclair ties
TheVerge.com / 2-15-2018

Ready for Trump TV? Inside Sinclair Broadcasting’s Plot to Take Over Your Local News
Its mix of terrorism alerts, right-wing commentary and “classic propaganda” could soon reach 3/4 of the US.
By Andy Kroll/Mother Jones Oct.-Nov. 2017

How Sinclair Broadcasting puts a partisan tilt on trusted local news
By William Brangham/ PBS NewsHour 10-10-2017

Top-down Democrats haven't learned
By Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 8-10-2017

More Faux than Fox? Corporate octopus Sinclair moves to dominate Nevada and U.S. television
By Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 8-3-2017


  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.

 

END OF TIMES SURVIVAL KIT. Defend yourself with humorous or humorless but always-peerless pontification by subscribing to the Barbwire Confidential News Service. Scandalous bonuses for new subscribers.

Hush Hush!

"Media is the plural of mediocre."
— Jimmy Breslin (1928-2017)

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. Thank you kindly for your support.

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

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

For all the news you never knew you needed to know 'til now: Tell your friends and friendly enemies to subscribe to Barbwire Confidential for warm laughter, cheap thrills, hot scoops and occasional cold logic at BallotBoxing.US/ Cheap at twice the price. (Hush Hush!)


Smoking Guns—>
Analog anachronisms and digital dinosaurs
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 8-1-2018 Sparks Tribune
Ballardini black hole: Let's get our millions back
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 7-25-2018 Sparks Tribune
Putin & the Blowfish: High treason season of the witch
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 7-18-2018 Sparks Tribune
SCOTUS coitus interruptus and terminal Teslacide
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 7-11-2018 Sparks Tribune
Fake boobs and fake news: Guts, feathers and all
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 7-4-2018 Sparks Tribune
Cat house to state house: Any publicity is good publicity
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 6-27-2018 Sparks Tribune
Ghost in the machine: The return of NAGPAC
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 6-20-2018 Sparks Tribune
Lucky June 13: Cheap shots and low blows
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 6-13-2018 Sparks Tribun
A duo of D-Days visit Nevada this week
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 6-6-2018 Sparks Tribune
Grandma, gold standards, forearms and tin ears
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 5-23-2018 Sparks Tribune
Mother Dolores: Our village loses its patron saint
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno
/ Expanded from the 5-30-2018 Sparks Tribune
Beer & music and rent & pillage
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 5-16-2018 Sparks Tribune
Stormy weather: Poll dancing for fun & prophet
Barbwire by Andres Luis Barbáno / Expanded from the 5-9-2018 Sparks Tribune
Flint, Nevada: Dirty deeds done dirt cheap
Barbwire by Andres Luis Barbáno / Expanded from the 5-2-2018 Sparks Tribune


$75 dead or alive: Still crazy after all these years
A mass murderer becomes famous on TV a century later

How come nobody noticed 'til now?
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno
/ Expanded from the 2-21-2018 Sparks Tribune

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory owners Max Blank and Isaac Harris. Is not Mr. Harris eerily familiar to television junkies?

From the Emmy-winning opening slate of the blockbuster "Cheers" television series. Combined with its "Frasier" spinoff, it lasted 20 years.
The "shirtwaist kings" immigrated from Russia and made a fortune manufacturing "Gibson Girl"-style blouses. (Photo, "The American Experience"/PBS)
The Emmy-winning opening slate of the "Cheers" television series before the "slate" of creators is superimposed. Looks like Mr. Harris' dead ringer (at left) is having a bloody good time.

"Who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" Chico Marx disguised as Groucho Marx in "Duck Soup" (1933)
Back to the story of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist holocaust

SITE NAVIGATION TIPS: When all else fails, read the instructions (A favorite John Hanks aphorism I've been using for decades)

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Guinn Watch | Deciding Factors
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DoctorLawyerWatch.com | Barbwire Oilogopoly Archive
Barbwire Nevada Corporate Welfare Archive
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Copyright © 1982-2018 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 49-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and SenJoeNeal.org; and former chair of the City of Reno's Citizens Cable Compliance Committee. He is the executive producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration and serves as first vice-president and political action chair 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.

Betty J. Barbano
2-7-1941 / 12-27-2005

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