BARBWIRE by ANDREW BARBANO Pirate Laureate of the High Desert Outback of the American Dream The Barbwire Molly Ivins Memorial Columniator Hall of Flames

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Traci Davis will stand naked before the Washoe County school board Monday morning.

She may have her top gun lawyer at her side, but she will nonetheless face a substantial disadvantage to save her career.

The school district’s taxpayer-paid PR apparat ran a political campaign against her for most of June. She needed to hire her own PR firm but I guess she doesn’t think that way. Too bad.

Image is everything. If she looked like Halle Berry and was an extroverted pol like Barack Obama, she’d be in better shape. That’s harsh but true.

Now let’s play a game. See if you can name our national disease without my ever typing the magic word.

THE WICKED WITCHES OF THE WEST. Like every community, Reno-Sparks has a yin and a yang, a light side and a dark side, an angel on one shoulder and Satan hisself on the other.

Our bright angel is Ms. Rosy Scenario, sweetness and light, everything’s gonna be alright. Don’t talk to those displaced renters or payday loan victims.

Her evil twin is Ms. Sub Rosa, who flushes the cruel undercurrents of the disease whose name we must not speak.

Ms. Davis has tried to attack Sub Rosa with only marginal effect. The district doyennes countered with a confusing sheaf storm of alleged smoking gun documents, totally disorganized, the equivalent of old grocery lists and notes from mother. School district boss lady Katy Singlaub Simon Holland has promised an organized and contextual presentation on Monday.

Ms. Davis’ top gun attorney William Peterson (not the CSI-Las Vegas star) countered with a paperwork storm of his own. That’s what lawyers do. This guy is good. His former client, fired administrator Pedro Martinez, walked with about $1.2 million after a previous board of trustees was intimidated by a megalomaniacal businessman who…ahem...still influences a couple of current school board members.

His power trip was exacerbated by the Reno Kazoo-Journal’s kneejerk reaction to any alleged open meeting law violation. The best journalist in Nevada torpedoed that issue with a cover exposé in the Reno News & Review. (10-23-2014. Click here and search for "Martinez.") Alas and alack, the mythology persists and infects.

Remembering the Martinez debacle, the current board has narrowly focused on a single issue to try to oust Ms. Davis. In doing so, they may break Nevada’s open meeting law by creating such a hue-and-cry. The school board’s meeting room is a glorified postage stamp. seating only a few dozen. They have announced preparing overflow rooms with TV screens.

By promoting major public attendance with a minimal venue, they have potentially provided Ms. Davis an appealable issue no matter what the board decides at Monday’s inquisition.

Nevada Revised Statutes 241.02 — Meetings to be open and public; limitations on closure of meetings; notice of meetings; copy of materials; exceptions.
      1. Except as otherwise provided by specific statute, all meetings of public bodies must be open and public, and all persons must be permitted to attend any meeting of these public bodies. (Emphasis added.)

My first reaction after reading just about everything written about this remains “what’s the big deal?” The best the school district PR machine has been able to assert is that Ms. Davis would’a-could’a-should’a known that one or more of her subordinates leaked allegedly confidential information about the special education apparat.

FUNNY FACE. That’s hilarious on its face. The Washoe County School District is world-class when it comes to hiding information under the guise of “we can’t speak about personnel matters.” Until it otherwise suits them. They pretty much held that line until a few weeks ago when they opened the full court press political campaign against Ms. Davis. Now, it’s Katy Bar the Door (apologies to anyone too young to get the golden age of radio reference).

Some board members have reportedly said that their entire job consists of asking questions of the superintendent. For one of the top five employers in the county with thousands of students and staff, that’s a communication disaster waiting to happen.

Greenhorn school trustees soon learn how complicated are the vagaries of education administration. If you ever get a chance to go to a finance committee meeting, say you have a previous appointment to watch the paint dry on your new Stutz Bearcat Roadster. (Wish I had thought of that before attending one.) You soon learn that the district is bound by a labyrinth of rules, regulations, laws and court settlements dating back decades. Most board trustees are totally unqualified to even attend, let alone listen or participate. Again, their job is mostly trying not to be seen as micromanaging their superintendent.

It’s a lot easier to say “that’s confidential” than to say “I’m in way over my head.”

This teapot tempestion obscures the fact that Davis has arguably produced a successful tenure. Graduation rates have increased even without Martinez or his predecessor to run their career-promoting shell games. The public had enough faith in Davis and the district to vote for a sales tax increase to build new schools desperately needed due to growth uncompensated by Nevada’s myriad corporate welfare tax scheme queens. Other sources of revenue could have been included, but boomtown Nevada, with its stingy legislature and regressive taxation structure, has always placed the heaviest costs of development on the least among us.

Ms. Davis accepted lower pay than Martinez when she won the top job. Hey, she’s a woman and a single mother. They work for less. That’s the American way.

On Monday morning, Ms. Davis will not have the same defensive weapons which were available to Mr. Martinez (now comfortably ensconced as San Antonio’s school boss while seeking his PhD). He threw a hissy fit when fabrications on his resumé were questioned. His insubordination merited termination.

Guys can get away with macho displays of little-boy anger. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas perfectly played the Shibboleth card to defuse damning evidence that he was a male chauvinist piglet. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh pulled a Clarence by throwing a beer besotted tantrum over anyone — especially some woman — daring to accuse him of a less than monastic life. Pedro perfectly played the patriarchal card. Like Clarence and Kavanaugh, the perp morphed himself into a hapless victim. (Remind you of anybody often in the news these days?)

In contrast, Ms. Davis must remain demure while she demurs. PR and political death await any woman judged as (gasp!) “shrill.” Which is why Ms. Davis needed a PR firm for counter-spin. Alas, former Sparks elementary school student Karl Rove is unavailable.

I bring this defense of Ms. Davis as one of her consistent critics. She doesn’t like me and I don’t blame her. See the We Don’t Need No Education Archive at NevadaLabor.com for some of my greatest hits.

Nonetheless, I recognize injustice here. Special ed has always been a problem, especially misclassification of black and brown students as developmentally disabled. (There’s that shadowy Shibboleth again.) At least Superintendent Davis tried to do something about years of institutional drift and abuse.

I’ve been doing this stuff awhile. I exposed overt racism at Shaw Middle School in Spanish Springs while Ms. Davis’ predecessors did nothing. I scooped all other media by a month regarding the overt racism which led to the attempted murder of two African-American students at Yerington High School in Lyon County. I investigated and printed stories about how the Washoe and Clark County school districts published inflated graduation statistics. Mr. Martinez and his predecessor Heath Morrison were masterful con artists at that shell game. I was a year ahead of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and two years ahead of the Reno Gazette-Journal on that issue. (See the We Don’t Need No Education Archive.)

And I have a day job.

The kneejerk defense of Pedro Martinez was one more assertion of an endangered locker room patriarchy. Monday can thus rightly be termed as a Pedro hangover. The white male power structure of the old apartheid Reno abides, cleverly camouflaged by Ms. Sub Rosa and her self-righteous acolytes. Poke a stick in that sacred bear’s cave at your peril.

DEMAGOGUERY MEANS NEVER HAVING TO SAY YOU’RE SORRY. Perhaps ambitious interim superintendent Kristen McNeill and board chair Holland overplayed their hand last week and inadvertently provided an opportunity for Ms. Davis and her lawyer.

They shut down the district HQ for two days because they apparently quaked in fear that Superintendent Davis might (gasp!) show up for work. You know how THOSE (Shibboleth) PEOPLE are when they get angry. So a whole bunch of people got two days off with pay at a yet undisclosed cost to thee and me. (McNeill and WCSD lawyer Neil Rombardo are called "Cracker" and "Barrel" by underlings.)

There exists more here than meets the eye. This dustup would be just another water cooler conversation about administrative hijinx if other motivations were not in play. Sub Rosa and her guys are still formidable adversaries when they punch the right buttons.

What kinda Shibboleth town do we remain no matter the best spin from Ms. Rosy Scenario? I know a radio newsman ordered not to run interviews with Rev. Jesse Jackson because the station appeals to a “white bread” audience. So it’s OK to dance to Motown, just get off my radio station and my lawn.

Some Reno stations play sanitized rock because program directors are ordered to avoid all rap/hip-hop which their research shows produce automatic tuneout. Try to find a Wonder Bread music station that plays the Aerosmith/RunDMC version of “Walk this Way” or UB40’s reggae cut of Neil Diamond’s “Red Red Wine” with the concluding rap track. Nada.

Americans don’t have room for nuance in the age of postage-stamp-sized video screens. Form supersedes substance in the post-rule of law era.

As actor Billy Crystal so memorably said, “it’s more important to look good than feel good.”

Monday morning in the community of my residence for 48 years feels very bad indeed.

WHERE TO WATCH? LOTSA LUCK. Without success, I have approached local governments about carrying Monday’s show trial on their Charter/Spectrum cable channels. The Washoe County School District had one for free that it seldom used and apparently abandoned. Last Saturday, I scrolled thru more than 200 channels and found nothing. I will link the district’s YouTube site to the web edition of this column at Barbwire.US/ Local educational and governmental channels are only available to premium subscribers anyway. High-speed Internet users have real-time access to online video. Alast and alack, there are tens of thousands of residents of this community who have neither smart-phone nor web access. (The Media Audit, 2018) Just the way the school district likes it.

It may not take too long. Ms. Davis will only be allowed a whole 20 minutes to defend her life and livelihood.

Local TV stations make millions using the public airwaves. None will telecast Monday's meanderings. I will link the school board's gang e-mail address to the web version of this bulletin at Barbwire.US/

LATEST ODDS: Three bound-for-glory board members (including Holland) to fire Davis, three against and trustee Scott Kelley in the Anthony Kennedy/John Roberts swing position. Making access as difficult as possible, the Inquisition starts at 8:00 a.m. PDT in the Green Monster administrative building at 425 E. 9th Street in Reno (89512). I hope somebody remembers to tell staff to show up for work. (Aw, who cares. Give ‘em 4th of July week off. It’s only taxpayer money.) BTW: Parking will be close to impossible, but that will be good if so many try to get in that it violates the open meeting law and takes the match back to deuce.

As Woody Allen remarked so long ago, 80 percent of success is showing up. Please consider doing so. It should prove a tad more interesting than a damned finance committee meeting.

Tell our public servants to take this Shibboleth and shove it.

¡Sí se puede!

UPDATE on Independence Day: Reactions to the above post and upload have run about 3-1 positive with e-list cancellation requests coming mostly from Republicans. This one warmed the cockles of my flaming liberal heart. It came from a highly-placed DEMOCRATIC official somewhere in the bowels of a Nevada government: "Please remove me and anyone in this office from your inappropriate and offensive emails."

Barbwire Response: Thank you for reading and writing. Be well. Raise hell.

That person would do well to remember that politics does not reward the shy.

UPDATE 7-5-2019— An emblematic Republican response, albeit more polite than usual: "As usual you skim the cream off the top without looking for the curdled milk below. Have a happy fourth."

Barbwire Response: Curds are actually beneficial. They are the source of cheese and yogurt. Other Kurds are at war with Syria, Russia, Iraq, Turkey and us turkeys. (War comes from a more toxic culture and produces only sorrow.) I never drink milk, but nonetheless lead a sometime cheesy life as I occasionally root for the Green Bay Packers. Be well. Raise hell.

Update: Witness at the execution
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the Wednesday 7-3-2019 Sparks Tribune
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BLACK LIKE ME 2119: The problem as solution
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 2-13-2019 Sparks Tribune / Updated 2-14 and 2-16-2019
Breaking News —> Culinary Union defeats decert at Circus Circus Reno
Dear Readers: The above column served as the conclusion of remarks I submitted before the "Tahoe Talks: Racism in America" symposium at the Incline Village, Nev., Library on February 12, 2019. So you might want to read "FADE TO BLACK" before you read "Black Like Me 2119".

	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

Triangle tragedy recalled as requiem "The Fire in My Mouth," a new oratorio by Pulitzer honoree Julia Wolfe, premiered with the New York Philharmonic Jan. 24 By Michael Cooper / The New York Times 1-23-2019

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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Copyright © 1982-2019 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 50-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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