FROM THE FRONT LINES. Luigi Barbano is a noted commercial photographer in northern Italy, one hour south of Turin. He worked for awhile in Florida, then returned to the motherland. My probable distant cousin Luigi lives right in the belly of the beast. Here's his report.

"All is a mess," he wrote, adding "I’m good but the situation sucks. I think this is a social test of dictatorship and nothing more. (It is) very difficult to get real data and understand how everything is managed," he stated. Sound familiar?

"We are in total lockdown. Today, it is not possible to get out of the municipality if not for an emergency or work," he said, adding that the required papers have no provision for allowing you to get back home.

"I made some videos on YouTube talking about the situation and will probably add an update," he stated.

The link to Luigi's YouTube page and much more commentary from him will appear with the expanded web edition of this column at Barbwire.US/ [LUIGI BARBANO VIDEO ]
[TALE OF 2 CITIES — NEW YORK / NORTHERN ITALIA PHOTO GALLERY]

"The only thing this virus is demonstrating is that the health care in Italy is at a third world level," Luigi said, adding "our Commies in charge are assholes with no clue and a good crisis cannot be wasted."

Sound familiar? Former Chicago Mayor and Bill Clinton Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel famously said the same thing. Apparently US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Treasury Secretary Steve Munchkin (spelling intentional) are using death and destruction to further enrich their buds. I guess the trillion-dollar 2017 corporate tax cut wasn't enough either for the capitalists stateside or the Commies in Italia.

WORKPLACE WOES. Health care workers and first responders are not the only ones with targets on their backs. How about those in grocery stores who keep us from starving? Or the workers who pass out free meals at schools or homeless shelters. And the people who bring stuff to your door like postal workers or Meals on Wheels.

Last Monday, The New York Times reported that FedEx, UPS and XPO Logistics employees are being brutally abused. Many have fallen ill but are pushed to come to work sick and "fearful of what will happen if they don't," Times reporters wrote.

"The companies have become among the few power sources keeping the lights on in the darkening US economy. UPS, for example, is one of the main companies that deliver packages for Amazon," the Times noted.

Last Wednesday, "UPS agreed to give people 10 paid days off if they or their immediate family received a coronavirus diagnosis or need to quarantine themselves," the Times added. (UPS is unionized. FedEx is very anti-union.)

"The shortage created by the public has put essential personal protective equipment in short supply not only for UPS employees but also for health care workers and first responders," stated Teamsters Local 533 Principal Officer Debbie Calkins who represents Nevada UPS workers. The main hub for UPS is located in Sparks.

FEEL SORRY FOR FAUCI. My heart goes out to good Dr. Anthony Fauci who has to walk a fine line between getting accurate Coronavirus info to the public and not get fired while correcting Czar Donaldov's muttonheaded fantasies. Fauci realizes that we are much better off with him as lead epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control rather than some Trump puppet who has video of our king and Stormy Daniels or somesuch.

STUPID KIDS DEPT. What can explain all those students on the longest spring break in US history cavorting on the beaches of Florida, convinced that the new plague only affects old folks, i.e., people over 30?

One idiot was quoted as saying "if I get, I get it."

Perhaps serious first-time spring breakers don't worry about dying because they never intend to return — if they do it right.

Perhaps the goal of some is to...(insert obscene four-letter active verb for intimate interpersonal procreative proclivity)...themselves to death.

BACK TO THE FUTURE. The Coronavirus is undoubtedly bringing replays of the old makeout line from the dawn of the atomic age (which I NEVER uttered): "The bomb may drop tomorrow and you and I will never know the magical pleasures we might miss tonight." Or something to that effect in the backseat of a '60 Chevy.

Drop bomb, insert virus and rock 'n' roll, all you stud puppies and male chauvinist pigs.

Everything old is new again. Oink.

SAFE SEX IN GOMORRAH SOUTH. Last week, I related the words of eminent British contagion mathematician Adam Kucharski.

Coronavirus transmission probability is "a measure of the chance the infection will get across during an interaction," Dr. Kucharski said, "for example, during a sexual encounter, the virus won't necessarily get across."

I still wanna know how that works. Readers have ventured guesses. A Sparks resident said you can't get the plague if you're having sex alone. Touché.

As always, Gomorrah South has gone one better. Entrepreneurial procurers have figured out a way to make money out of fear. A Las Vegas strip club is offering a drive-thru peep show. I assume cocktails and hand sanitizer are included.

UNINTENTIONAL SATIRE DEPT. At 11:00 p.m. last Saturday, KRNV TV-4 ran an item about healthy eating during the plague and showed a video montage of examples including a hand grabbing a package of SPAM (!) off a grocery store shelf. So pick your poison — heart attack or Coronavirus. I'd rather end it all on spring break.

SAVE THE DATE — SATURDAY, MAY 30 For obvious reasons, I've moved César Chávez XVIII from March 31, the great labor leader's 93rd birthday. It will be held at the Atlantis Resort, sponsored by Laborers' Union Local 169, the Reno-Sparks NAACP and the usual suspects. Doors open 5:30, dinner 6:30-ish. I don't know how I'll top my greatest hits of a cherried-out Aretha Franklin 1965 pink Cadillac convertible (with suitable live music) followed by Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak with suitable politics, but I'm working on it. Ex-Tribunite Dennis Myers will become the first journalist inducted to the César Chávez Nevada Labor Hall of Fame. In addition to the HOF, nominations remain open for union organizer, employer and project of the year. Reservations at CesarChavezNevada.com/

If I have to move it again, I will. I'm already shopping for union-made Christmas pIñatas. Maybe I can get one that looks like Mitch McConnell.

Be careful out there. And take care of each other.

Andrew Barbano is a 51-year Nevadan, executive producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration, first vice-president and political action chair of the Reno-Sparks NAACP, superannuated 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 and Protect Our Washoe.org and ChantalCoalition.org/ He is a withdrawn-in-good-standing member of Culinary Local 226. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us. He has lived in both northern and southern Nevada during his half-century+ in the Silver State. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988 and received its 10th Nevada Press Association award (6 of 10 first-place) at the 21 Sept. 2019 NPA annual convention in Ely. In 1996, he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for a six-month investigative series. His multi-media road construction zone safety campaign for Laborers' Union Local 169 won a first-place award from the National Safety Council in a nationwide competition. (Such ephemera and about six bucks will get you a Latte Mocha Cotsafracas Chingade at just about any Starbux worldwide, guaranteed.) His work has appeared on CNN, in The New York Times, The Guardian of London/UK and more important publications.

WEB XTRAS & SMOKING GUNS —>

Veni, Vidi, Jockocracy?
Locker room rules: Caesars goes commando, union vows resistance to Eldorado empire
By Bryan Horwath / Las Vegas Sun 6-28-2019 / Reno Gazette-Journal 7-8-2019

Eldorado-Caesars merger means labor union battles far beyond Reno & Las Vegas
Culinary Union leader D. Taylor: "Where are they going to cut?"
Building trade union campaigns continue
By Ed Komenda / Reno Gazette-Journal / 6-27-2019

[4-20-2019] — About 100 demonstrators from almost all the region's unions, local community service organizations and political activists joined Culinary Union members picketing Circus Circus in the late afternoon of April 18. A couple of CC suits came out to see what all the fuss was about, as if they didn't already know. In addition to the familiar union "contract now!" chants came calls for a strike against the Carano jocks. ¡Viva Huelga! ¡Sí se puede!

REAL NEWS DEPT. In January 2019, Culinary Union Local 226 defeated an attempt by Circus Circus-Reno to decertify (terminate) the union's representation of its workers. No word on whether management plans to appeal the result to the National Labor Relations Board which was recently put out of business for 35 days. Thank you, Czar Donaldov.