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

Barbwire Archives

Photo: Debra Reid, Sparks Tribune

 

An Alternative National Anthem By Leonard Cohen (1934-2016) & Sharon Robinson © 1988 CBS Records, Inc.    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 that the boat is leaking. Everybody knows that the captain lied.    Everybody got this broken feeling Like their father or their dog just died.    Everybody talking to their pockets. Everybody wants a box of chocolates    And a long stem rose. Everybody knows.    Everybody knows that you love me, baby. Everybody knows you really do.    Everybody knows that you've been faithful, Give or take a time or two.    Everybody knows you've been discreet But there were so many people you just had to meet    Without your clothes. Everybody knows.

Everybody knows that it's now or never. Everybody knows that it's me or you.    And everybody knows that you live forever When you've done a line or two.    Everybody knows the deal is rotten Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton    For your ribbons and bows And everybody knows.    Everybody knows that the plague is coming. Everybody knows that it's moving fast.    Everybody knows that the naked man & woman — Just a shining artifact of the past.    Everybody knows the scene is dead But there's gonna be a meter on your bed    That will disclose What everybody knows.    And everybody knows that you're in trouble. Everybody knows what you've been through    From the bloody cross on top of Calvary To the beach at Malibu.    Everybody knows it's coming apart. Take one last look at this Sacred Heart    Before it blows. And everybody knows. 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

"The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you'll never have." — Kierkegaard

 

How Renown stole our county hospital
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 3-16-2022 / Updated 3-16-2022 & 4-4-2024 GMT/ Expansions in blue

   Everybody knows that the boat is leaking.
Everybody knows that the captain lied.
   Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died.
   Everybody talking to their pockets.
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
   And a long stem rose.
Everybody knows.

— Leonard Cohen (1934-2016) & Sharon Robinson

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 Barbwire nominee Dennis Myers elected to NPA Hall of Fame Support Don Dondero and Jake Highton and David Toll next. Send endorsements Eee-yo-leven! Barbwire wins 11th Nevada Press Association award GOLD 2017-18 2018 First-Place Winners From the depths of despair to the den of iniquity & holy of holies "Excellent work. These are some of the most moving columns I've read." — NPA contest judge/9-29-2018 The Grasshopper and the Dragonfly 9-6-2017 Kicked off the Ledge 4-18-2017 NATIONAL NEWS FIRST-BREAK Back to the Future in Mississippi West Nevada 10-18-2017 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 More statewide and national award winners We Don't Need No Education—> Neverending Barbwire Series 1997 Pulitzer Prize entries Barbwire.TV: 15-year overnight success Daily Sparks Tribune 2-10-2008 The Barbwire's Greatest Hits BEATING LUSH RAMBO AT HIS OWN GAME: Highlights from radio days mp3 file The Dean's List    The Dean of Reno Bloggers could very well be Andrew Barbano, self-described "fighter of public demons," who started putting his "Barbwire" columns online in 1996 and now runs 10 sites. RENO NEWS & REVIEW, 11-9-2006 Tomorrow's news today —> Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential TOP SECRET— HushHush!

The overlords of the number one local monetary vacuum cleaner, aka Renown Health, are in a tizzy.

They fired their eight-year CEO who was only making a penurious $2 million a year or so and nobody but us poor taxpayers are asking WTF?

Could it be that the bitter fruits of their 1985 theft of our county hospital are finally rotting in the open?

I have built and continually updated a whole website about that scandal. Renown apparently remains a den of pimps and thieves. That's the way it was born.

NevadaLabor.com is the only place on the web you can get the damning grand jury report that finally gave us an autopsy a decade after the body politic's interests had been assassinated.

A BAD TRIP DOWN AMNESIA LANE. The Reagan administration was riding high in the 1980s, preaching the gospel of deregulation.

The Nevada Legislature had established the Nevada Health Systems Agency to try to control runaway health care costs. The industry made sure their minions killed it after five years.

The last thing the NHSA executive director did before he blew town was authorize the founding of Sparks Family Hospital (now Northern Nevada Medical Center).

The facts were clear. A third hospital would only increase everyone's costs based on this valley's population. Didn't matter.

The Nevada Legislature passed AB289 in 1987 in an attempt to reduce costs. A report to the 2005 session showed it worked. (Links with the expanded web edition of this column at NevadaLabor.com/)

Lawmakers paid off campaign contributions by killing that, too.

See a pattern?

In 2004, Nevada doctors made it impossible to bring malpractice lawsuits by circulating a bogus initiative petition supported by a huge ad campaign screaming that malpractice insurance costs were causing physicians to leave Nevada in droves. (Remember the TV spots with lines of whitecoats hitch-hiking thru the desert to California?)

It worked and that's why you no longer see ambulance-chasing lawyers hustling for malpractice cases.

The initiative capped legal fees at such a low level that any settlement or court decision would not even cover costs.

So lawyers chase accidents and those harmed by doctors can go suck a rock. (See "My Doctor Killed Me," Barbwire 2-24-2008)

Which brings me to the biggest ripoff of all.

With deregulation in vogue, a few guys (who yet live in infamy on a bronze plaque in the palatial Renown Regional Medical Center atrium) figured out a way to steal our county hospital.

Washoe Medical Center had always covered expenses while taking care of the community, although it sometimes did allow the Catholic Church to dictate medical procedures.

And to this day, you can't get a marijuana cigarette there to save your life from starving thru chemo cancer therapy. (Happened to a Teamsters brother of mine, now dead. Barbwire 10-4-2016, Nevada Press Association. first place winner)

The Reaganaut hospital bandidos created a propaganda campaign screaming that the cost of providing indigent care would soon bankrupt Washoe County.

The crooks controlled the financial info (and thus the news flow), rushed a bill thru the legislature, greased some county commissioners, found a corrupt deputy DA who went on to become a judge and PRESTO! They scored a health care operation worth between $60 million and $120 million for just $3 million. (1985 dollars)

The deal was sold as a way to take the soon-to-go-belly-up white elephant off the backs of the taxpayers.

The new Renown would cover all health care for those who could not pay.

Alas and alack, the corrupt deputy DA removed that provision from the final contract so taxpayers still send a big check to Renown every month to this very day. (See the grand jury report.)

The new non-profit never reduced health care costs, the second broken promise. Instead, Renown has paid monster executive salaries and expanded the empire.

Ain't deregulation great, Ron?

And those are just the lowlights. Go to NevadaLabor.com, read it and weep.

But shed no tears for the Renown octopus and the local medical hierarchy.

I hope a lot more oozes from under the tents of that encampment of Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves.

   Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton
   For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows.

GREAT MINDS THINK ALIKE DEPT. Ukraine has "shown military experts that in a conventional war, the U.S. would smoke Russia." (Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Maureen Dowd, NYTimes, 3-13-2022)

Barbwire 2-16-2022: "The United States has never lost a conventional war although Korea ended in an uneasy tie....The late Iraqi dictator (and onetime U.S. ally) Saddam Hussein was the only guy stupid enough to risk fighting us in a conventional WW2-style ground war. The U.S. military today remains the baddest buncha sonsabitches who ever got into a fight.

"Czar Donaldov's buddy Bad Vlad seems intent on re-fighting WW2 over little ole Ukraine....If he invades, not only will Ukraine rue the day it ever gave up its nukes in exchange for some vague promise of protection from the west, but the Red Army will get its ass kicked."

SCREWED R US. Ma Bell just jacked up my cel-phone charges and now I get more dropped calls than ever. I'm a fool for sticking around.

I called to see if the old bitch wanted to compete for my business. Alas and alack, I was offered a new iPhone to save a whopping THREE WHOLE DOLLARS a month.

No deal.

So a kid in the Philippines gave me the number of AT&T's "Customer Loyalty Dept." The number had been disconnected.

I plan to return the favor.

ADDING INSULT TO INJURY, the kid admitted he had voted for murderous dictator Rodrigo Duterte in the last election.

Guess I can't blame him. MaBell was recording the call

Take care of each other and be careful out there.

¡Sí se puede!

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)
être bien, élever l'enfer (Pardon my French.)
Stammi bene. Scatenare l'inferno. (And Italian.)
___________________
Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 53-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com, SenJoeNeal.org, DoctorLawyerWatch.com, BallotBoxing.US, ConsumerCoalitionv.org, Rentvolution.org, MIssissippiWestNV.org and CesarChavezNevada.com among others. He is a longtime member of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his comments are entirely his own. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988. E-mail <barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us> Lyrics to "Everybody Knows" by Leonard Cohen (1934-2016) & Sharon Robinson.

Health care bandidos and flaming ammotextuals
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno
Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 4-3-2024

 

Oil Ain't All That's Rigged
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 3-9-2022
Updated 3-10-2022 GMT/ Expansions in blue

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.

— Leonard Cohen (1934-2016) & Sharon Robinson

Blame Ukraine? Not so fast.

Would you rather read about sex, oil or oil and sex? If you chose number three, please continue.

Biden administration study finds There's no such thing as a free labor market With union rights reform dead again in Congress, feds try to use anti-trust laws against the malady Hasn't worked against the BigOil oligopoly, but hope springs eternal.

The New York Times Business Section (Labor sections have been extinct for 40 years) By Eduardo Porter / 3-8-2022

It's not what you think, as the wife said to her husband when he walked in on her and her boyfriend.

The big news this week is neither bloody war nor truck convoys protesting non-existent mask mandates.

It's gasoline. I'd like to say I've never witnessed worse reportage in many decades of news addiction, but this one scrapes bottom.

The price of gasoline is rigged by a small number of oil companies with smart lawyers. I've been reporting on it for decades. (See the Barbwire Oilogopoly Archives at NevadaLabor.com/)

Alas and alack, as national news departments long ago realized, the public just doesn't much care. The powerful plead helplessness. Kinda like local officials saying they can't do much about homelessness. (See below.)

PASSING THE BUCKS. Just as our local bus system overlords say the collapse of the system on their watch is somebody else's fault, few government regulators decry the fixing of gas prices.

When the cost of a barrel of oil from somewhere on the sands of Araby rises at 9:00 a.m., why does the price at the pump go up by 9:15? Because the old con works. Very few media organizations (back when they could afford investigative journalism) would touch the story. Oil just isn't sexy unless applied by a big-breasted "masseuse" to the back of a powerful politician with cameras rolling. (In lobbyist terms, that's called greasing the skids.)

With the lack of media attention to this blatant price fixing, the public has been conditioned to accept and pay at the phony levels while blaming whomever they don't like. Meanwhile, the biggies laugh all the way to the bank. When open market per barrel prices start to decline, per-gallon costs recede much more slowly, of course.

Just about everything you get at a supermarket works that way, especially prescription drugs whether developed with taxpayer money or not.

BigOil long ago found the obvious hole in antitrust law. You can fix prices as long as you never talk to each other about it. For more than four decades, one "discount" chain sets the price on its road signs in the morning and area "competitors" price accordingly within minutes. Technically, no communication — just drive-bys assassinating your wallet.

Think about it. Your corner gas station has a few thousand gallons underground to start the day. At 8:00 a.m., war breaks out between the Saudis and Yemen. Or Ukraine and Russia. Oil futures spike worldwide. The gas already at local stations, acquired much cheaper, immediately skyrockets in price. The oil on the sands of Araby will not reach refineries for days or weeks. Same thing happens every time there's a refinery fire somewhere or a forest fire near a refinery.

If they thought the public would swallow a price hike because Tom Brady loses a Super Bowl, they would do so.

RENO CITY COUNCIL PASSES RENT CONTROL. They actually did, in 1978. Then big money forced city hall to renege. At least it sparked the election of Reno's greatest mayor, the late Barbara Bennett, the following year.

The legit media have ignored history but the Barbwire never forgets. (Nevada Press Association first-place winner, 7-17-2019).

I was thus bemused last week when Reno City Hall threw up its collective hands. No less than former Nevada Assembly Speaker, D-LV, and current Clark County Commission Chair Marilyn Fitzpatrick raised the issue.

It's really simple. Rent regulation should trigger when availability drops below five percent and switch off above that level.

All them conservatives crying socialism miss the point. Socialism, defined as anything that helps people, is all around us: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public education, parks, roads, police, fire and other first responders.

Capitalism without regulation is tyranny. As is Leninism as practiced by Czar Vladimir the Last. Eric Hofer, the longshoreman-philosopher, noted in the 1950s that taken to their logical conclusions of one big outfit having swallowed up all the smaller ones, Leninism and capitalism take us to the same exploitive place.

But that ain't sexy.

TWO CZARS DON'T MAKE A RIGHT. Were Trump still president, he'd invite Putin to the White House for a testimonial dinner, a presidential medal of freedom and a blow job. Not necessarily in that order.

GAZETTE BURGERS, ANYONE? I feel sorry for Reno Gazette-Journal executive editor Brian Duggan. He had to send a letter to subscribers this week notifying them that the Saturday paper would no longer be printed. Internet clients could find a Saturday edition on the newspaper's website.

What about longtime subscribers like some of my neighbors who have no web access? They will continue to pay for seven papers a week but get only six.

Not Mr. Duggan's fault. That's what happens when soulless corporations take over companies then bleed, skin, butcher and dump the carcass roadside. The current owners scored $7 million selling the former Kazoo-Journal building to the City of Reno to be converted to a new police station but still canned reporters.

The RGJ marketing department has never been one to miss sales opportunities, but they've blown this one big time. They should at least offer a Burger King coupon to all their screwed subscribers for a free 10-pack of chicken nuggets, which BK just downsized to eight for the same price.

A perfect pairing of junk food kiss-offs. An Orwellian match made in heaven: Less is more in an "eedition." (Eek.)

Yeah, sure, and war is actually a "special military operation."

THE ROLLING LOGANS. Sparks transit operator Michael Lansborough is home recovering from major heart surgery. The longtime RTCRide driver is sole support of his wife and son, Logan, who has no lower legs due to a genetic flaw but still took to his wheelchair and joined dad on downtown Reno picket lines during last year's Hat Trick Strikes. (Photos at the front page of NevadaLabor.com/)

Friends set up GoFundMe page.  <https://gofund.me/7eae2ed0>

Be generous. If you'd prefer to mail a check, make it payable to Michael Lansborough and send to his attention at Teamsters Local 533, 1190 Selmi Drive, Suite 100, Reno NV 89512.

Thanks to all the Barbwire readers and union members who have continue to send support.  Join me in donating. Please. And tell your friends.

Take care of each other and be careful out there.

¡Sí se puede!

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)
être bien, élever l'enfer (Pardon my French.)
Stammi bene. Scatenare l'inferno. (And Italian.)
___________________
Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 53-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com, SenJoeNeal.org, BallotBoxing.US, ConsumerCoalitionv.org, Rentvolution.org, MIssissippiWestNV.org and CesarChavezNevada.com among others. He is a longtime member of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his comments are entirely his own. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988. E-mail <barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us>

Eve of Destruction
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 3-2-2022 / Updated 3-3 & 3-4-2022 / Expansions in blue

"God gave Noah the rainbow sign. No more water, the fire next time!" — from a traditional spiritual

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 Barbwire nominee Dennis Myers elected to NPA Hall of Fame Support Don Dondero and Jake Highton and David Toll next. Send endorsements Eee-yo-leven! Barbwire wins 11th Nevada Press Association award GOLD 2017-18 2018 First-Place Winners From the depths of despair to the den of iniquity & holy of holies "Excellent work. These are some of the most moving columns I've read." — NPA contest judge/9-29-2018 The Grasshopper and the Dragonfly 9-6-2017 Kicked off the Ledge 4-18-2017 NATIONAL NEWS FIRST-BREAK Back to the Future in Mississippi West Nevada 10-18-2017 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 More statewide and national award winners We Don't Need No Education—> Neverending Barbwire Series 1997 Pulitzer Prize entries Barbwire.TV: 15-year overnight success Daily Sparks Tribune 2-10-2008 The Barbwire's Greatest Hits BEATING LUSH RAMBO AT HIS OWN GAME: Highlights from radio days mp3 file The Dean's List    The Dean of Reno Bloggers could very well be Andrew Barbano, self-described "fighter of public demons," who started putting his "Barbwire" columns online in 1996 and now runs 10 sites. RENO NEWS & REVIEW, 11-9-2006 Tomorrow's news today —> Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential TOP SECRET— HushHush!

Last week, Czar Vladimir the Last raised the specter of nuclear weapons in his personal war against Ukraine.

Somewhere in North Korea, Kim Jong Un is jumping up and down screaming "he's stealing my act!"

Several days earlier, NBC "Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd raised that exact question, might Vlad the Impaler launch a tactical nuke?

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists' legendary doomsday clock was set at 100 seconds to midnight in January before the despot rode out to join the other three macabre horsemen, his paranoia peaking just as murmurs of the "Julius Caesar solution" circulated. [UPDATE 3/4/22: Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, just called for "someone close" to the Czar — meaning the rare person who can get close enough — to off him as a humanitarian service. I have a better suggestion: THE HAND OF GOD, a convenient outbreak of a new or existing Coronavirus strain to disable the Russian war machine. It's pretty well-known that Russian vaccines are substandard and thus may already be quite vulnerable to all viral permutations. Red Army soldiers have been living like superspreader sardines for weeks. So, let us wish for a humane but rampant plague causing no deaths to mercifully end this slaughter. Alleluia. Amen.]

Things have reached a point that the gloomiest doomsday forecast since the 1964 films "Fail Safe" and "Dr. Strangelove" is now hopeful by comparison. (See below.)

I've been down this road many times, especially after 9/11/2001.

From the 11-11-2001 Tribune:

"Imagine yourself a total stranger in the strangest of lands, a star-traveler from a distant galaxy. You are charged with examining the denizens of this small planet and reporting back.

"Dear Boss: I recommend that we steer well clear of the major tribes of this world. They are constantly at war killing their own kind and other life forms. The whole planet seems locked in a neverending orgy of consumption. The stronger eat the weaker as they do on many other primal orbs, but this place seems to suffer from inverse evolution. The higher the intelligence of the species, the more often I have witnessed killing for no reason at all.

"The most numerous life forms, single-celled organisms and their close relatives, have learned to survive by inhabiting larger creatures either as parasites or symbionts.

"In sheer numbers, the dominant species, by far, are viruses and bacteria. These are followed by various vegetable life forms and exoskeletal, multi-legged animals.

"The most intelligent inhabitants have evolved in very divergent ways. Dolphins prefer the simple life of the sea. Although humans do not differ from each other to any appreciable degree, they nonetheless group together in primitive and illogical ways. They ostracize and exploit their own based on the superficial and the imagined.

"They often kill each other in slavish devotion to this superficiality. Such concentration on the meaningless produces so much pain and suffering. They have invested great volumes of treasure and work in order to traverse this small globe faster and faster. Apparently, only speed matters.

"They are addicted to placing themselves into flimsy, portable canisters filled with high explosives. Then, in an ongoing orgy of bravado and arrogance, they hurtle the canisters toward each other at great speed. On land, sea and air, most usually miss by at least a few inches. Nonetheless, every year tens of thousands are killed and hundreds of thousands become seriously and painfully injured whenever these shells encounter a maloccurrence.

"The crude fuel for these devices pollutes and endangers the entire planet when burned. As a semi-scarce and hard to extract natural resource, possession of the fuel has become the source of endless war.

"Recommendation: avoid this planet until the current dominant life forms evolve into more interesting species or are replaced by others. End report."

From the 10-28-2001 Tribune:

"GOV. GLOOM'S CRYSTAL BALL. In 1985, a series of short stories on nuclear disarmament were solicited from prominent people. Gov. Richard Lamm, D-Colo., co-authored one. The scenario: a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan causes such macabre destruction that the world puts down its nukes.

"Every time India and Pakistan rattle their glowing sabers, I am reminded that life imitates art. Such a result would prove perfectly consistent with the history of the tribes of mankind. Genetically almost identical, people nonetheless kill and maim each other over superficial, superstition-based tribal differences.

"Will some god or superior extra-terrestrial send some future Lot to our big blue global Sodom and Gomorrah? Will that emissary again prove unable to find 10 just men? Would that almighty feel justified in raining fire and brimstone down on such a corrupt place? We've been warned many times."

Lamm beat out more than 1,300 entrants in that 1985 essay contest sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.

"I feel with an Old Testament certainty that we cannot continue indefinitely the way the world is now going with the world's weapons set on a hair trigger and the doomsday clock at five minutes to midnight," the late Colorado governor stated when informed he'd won.

There's the prelude. We may be living (and dying) through the sequel. Barry McGuire's 1968 anthem will be a hit all over again.

       Don't you understand what I'm trying to say?
Can't you feel the fear that I'm feeling today?
       If the button is pushed, there's no running away
There'll be no one to save with the world in a grave
       The poundin' of the drums, the pride and disgrace
You can bury your dead but don't leave a trace
       Hate your next door neighbor but don't forget to say grace
And you tell me over and over and over and over again my friend
       You don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.

Bye bye Miss American Pie.

When will we ever learn?

THE ROLLING LOGANS. Sparks RTCRide transit operator Michael Lansborough survived major heart surgery and even attended a Teamsters Union meeting last month (chauffeured by fellow Teamster Tim Radley.)

Mike is sole support of his wife and son, Logan, who has no lower legs due to a genetic flaw but nonetheless took to his wheelchair and joined his dad in downtown Reno picket lines during the Hat Trick Strikes of 2021. (Photos at the front page of NevadaLabor.com/)

A GoFundMe page has been set up by friends  <https://gofund.me/7eae2ed0>

Be generous. If you would like to help by check, make it payable to Michael Lansborough and send to his attention at Teamsters Local 533, 1190 Selmi Drive, Suite 100, Reno NV 89512.

Thanks to all the Barbwire readers and union members who have anted in, the most positive news I've seen recently.

Join me in donating. Please. And tell your friends.

Take care of each other and be careful out there.

¡Sí se puede!

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)
être bien, élever l'enfer (Pardon my French.)
Stammi bene. Scatenare l'inferno. (And Italian.)
___________________
Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 53-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com, SenJoeNeal.org, BallotBoxing.US, ConsumerCoalitionv.org, Rentvolution.org, MIssissippiWestNV.org and CesarChavezNevada.com among others. He is a longtime member of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his comments are entirely his own. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988. E-mail <barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us>

 

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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!)

	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 © 1982-2022 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 53-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 a longtime member 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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