I detest biblical allusions purporting to demonstrate that God is micro-managing matters on this tiny speck of stardust, but here goes anyway. Alleluia!

According to the Old Testament, God hisself ordered seven plagues upon Egypt so that Pharaoh Ramses II, a fellow member of the gods club, would listen to Moses and let the Israelites get outta Dodge.

Look around you today. Huge fires, storms, floods, pestilence, even disease which can kill a lot of firstborns. The whole package is afoot. All that's missing are the boils and locusts. Global warming will take care of the former and I predict a phenomenal spring for Mormon Crickets this year. (At least we can eat locusts and crickets.)

Alas and alack, two new members of the gods club, Chinese dictator Xi Xin Ping and our own Czar Donaldov the Dim, did not recognize messages from the chairman of the board.

China put a world-renown epidemic smoke alarm in place after the SARS virus plague almost 20 years ago. Instant computerized reporting to the top. The Chinese bureaucracy failed to use it because they were afraid to report bad news to Beijing. Only whistleblowers got the job done, including one Dr. Li Wenliang who was publicly shamed for it. He died of the virus, contracted from his patients.

Here in the land of the free and home of brave, we did ditto, save for a few precious US senators who got the warning in an intelligence briefing last October and did the humane thing — they dumped a lot of their stock holdings at the top of the market.

We can only abuse Mrs. God, aka Mother Nature, for so long before she starts complaining. The Coronavirus has resulted in clean air worldwide because fossil fuel industrial plants have shut down. So now, when you inhale the virus, you get it from an otherwise pristine atmosphere. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.

The Leninists in charge of Chinese follytix probably never stopped to think for a moment about such worthless philosophical meanderings. Here in these parts, we've been getting messages from beyond for quite some time.

The conquistadores of the "New World" destroyed the native population, first with smallpox, then with organized genocide. Remember Civil War Gen. Phil Sheridan's famed admonition "the only good Indian is a dead Indian"? I saw that phrase framed above the desk of an Elko newspaper publisher years ago.

Now, the jungles still slightly occupied by descendants of those destroyed tribes are taking their revenge. In southern climes, they send us refined mindbending vegetables like heroin and cocaine. In the north, their green felt jungles vacuum whitey's pockets in their casinos.

And the legacy of slavery — the constitutionally imposed Electoral College — gave us Donald Trump who did the same thing his "friend" President Xi did in China: ignore the plague until it was too late.

Payback's a bitch, baby. Whether you think it was God, Mother Nature or Karma, it's all the same. We are being stirred with a long stick. We failed to learn the lessons of previous plagues, even dismantling a very efficient system put in place during the cold war. After we beat them dirty Russkies, who needed it, right?

As author Max Brooks noted last week, if Coronavirus had hit in 1965, it would be a footnote in an obscure medical journal. In 2020, Leninism and capitalism both took their people into the same damned place.

He who forgets history is condemned to repeat it.

THE FIRE NEXT TIME. Millions have lost their jobs and their employer-paid health insurance as well. How many can now pay their own way? Who will get re-hired? Will it make Medicare for All seem irresistibly attractive? Stay tuned.

PUBLIC SERVICE UNIONISM. Congratulations to Teamsters Local 533 President Gary Watson whose entreaties to County Commissioner Kitty Jung, Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve, the Reno City Council and Waste Management paid off quickly.

As of Monday, March 30, WM trucks will not pick up any item outside a container. That means anything requiring special handling by drivers. including bulky items, used oil, and "bag and tag." (The Coronavirus can live for days on plastic.)

WM will pick up extra items in your personal cart (not used oil or household hazardous waste) but takes no responsibility for damage to non-standard receptacles done by their trucks' mechanical arms. But not everyone is a WM client and some stuff is too big.

So Brother Watson is now working on the other half of the job. WM closed its Reno, Incline and Fernley transfer stations where people could dump their own trash. Watson worries that it will result in illegal dumping and create pollution, pest infestation and jeopardy to cleanup crews. Mayor Schieve has suggested placing public dumpsters on city land where people can drive up and throw stuff in without coming near anyone else. Good idea.

Call your local officials and bring some heat. This is important.

IN THE EXPANDED BARBWIRE WEB EDITION: Still photos from one of my high-rise ironworker pals from a deserted New York City and shots of the stillness from northern Italy plus video from my cousin Luigi in the belly of the beast. [LUIGI BARBANO VIDEO ] [TALE OF 2 CITIES — NEW YORK / NORTHERN ITALIA PHOTO GALLERY]

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. The event 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.

THE MOST IMPORTANT DATE: On April Fools Day 1976 in Carson City, I met a gorgeous blonde with long hair down below her waist and a great sense of humor. She gave me the rest of her life. Betty and I were together for the next 30 years.

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.