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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Photo: Debra Reid, Sparks Tribune

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. — Leonard Cohen, 1934-2016 By Leonard Cohen (1934-2016) & Sharon Robinson © 1988 CBS Records, Inc.

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

Miss Priscilla Goodbody channels Princess Cassandra
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 7-19-2023 / Expansions in blue.

The seer of Troy warned against letting that towering wooden horse through the city's gates. Alas, no one listened to Princess Cassandra.

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 and Foster Church and Norman Cardoza 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!

America today stands at the precipice of becoming an electoral autocracy, a dictatorship masquerading as a democracy.

Modern Cassandras have warned and warned again. The evidence abounds from local Nevada governments all the way up to the lifestyles of the rich and infamous.

Miss Priscilla Goodbody is alive and well right here in River City. Tonight Show legend Johnny Carson hung that handle on TV network censors. (Barbwire 7-12-2023) Mr. Carson is dead but Priscilla and her minions live forever.

Last week, local moonhowlers persuaded three Republican Washoe County commissioners not to re-appoint a longtime library board member, falsely accusing the panel of promulgating pornography to children. The pitchforkers were so benighted that they did not know that board members don't order books.

Same thing happened a few years back when the now-former Douglas County library director came under fire for daring to mention Black Lives Matter. Priscilla's partisans in Nevada's wealthy Confederate Alabaster Bastion almost caused a riot, supported by the county sheriff hisself. (Links with this column at NevadaLabor.com/)

Like Afghanistan's Taliban, American moonhowlers wax wealthy among the dumb and dumber. Who needs schools or libraries when you can easily invent your own alternative facts?

Decades ago, my old ad agency boss, a car salesman by trade, advised "TV spots won't work if you're not telling people what they want to hear."

Selling cars or candidates, it all works the same. A legendary auto salesman once gave me the secret of sales success: "Get 'em in here, mislead 'em, and get 'em outta here."

Instance in point...

DOWN THE TUBES. Newbie Sen. Tommy Tuberville is a Republican and football coach. Those are apparently the only qualifications necessary to get elected to the U.S. Senate from Alabama. Tommy Touchdown is the perfect pol for the Trump era.

This guy couldn't name the three branches of government but he won a lotta games at Auburn, so he oughtta be a senator, right?

Coaches exploit opponent weaknesses to win. Tuberville has used the cockamamie single-senator veto rule to cripple the U.S. military by blocking almost 300 top-level promotions.

He may be undermining national security, but he foreshadows a Trump second term. In the last few days, both the fake news New York Times and that fortress of liberalism, The Economist magazine, have published major pieces about the growing Trump shadow government.

The Economist reported on the Texas-based America First Policy Institute. The Times printed more than a full page about Trump's Project 25, seeded by the seedy Heritage Foundation.

Both are developing policies, lists of loyalists and transition plans so that Czar Donaldov can bulldoze democracy from his golf cart come 2025. Grand design: transfer most government power to the president. Congress and the courts may as well not show up for work.

Trump would eliminate civil service rules so everybody owes his or her job to the bleached blonde boss who can axe them at whim. Shades of Khaddafi's Libya. Think of "The Apprentice" TV show on a national scale with wholesale firings nationally and worldwide. Who needs the EPA anyway?

Trump's idol, Czar Vladimir Putin, provides an abject lesson about what happens to dictators who surround themselves with yes-men and ass-kissers.

Russia, China, Hungary, Belarus, India, Turkey and others have elections that don't matter.

The specter of electoral autocracy has already risen over the American horizon.

NO LABELS, NO SHAME. "No Labels" is a clever right-wing front cloaked in the dark money aura of bringing Americans together with a third-party choice for president next year.

Translation: Do unto President Biden what Ross Perot did to Bush the Elder and as Ralph Nader did to Al Gore. (And for that matter, what Teddy Roosevelt did to his protege William Howard Taft which resulted in the election of overt racist Woodrow Wilson — who also opposed women getting the right to vote).

President Bush the Lesser's personal hatchetman (and former Sparks schoolboy) Karl Rove was as ruthless as he was soul-less: Go right at the opponent's main strength and destroy him. John Kerry was a war hero, so smear his military record as false and his medals as undeserved. It worked.

Us old campaign managers recognize a shuck and jive when we see it. Wanna torpedo Biden? Pull a Rove rave by undercutting him with his strongest base of support, African Americans. Joining one of Fox News boss Rupert Murdoch's kids at "No Labels" is no less that Ben Chavis, former national president of the NAACP. With Chavis as wingman for that kamikaze squadron, Biden can crash and burn.

The poster boys leading this week's national rollout were Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, former Republican Utah Governor and Ambassador to China John Huntsman, a onetime Republican candidate for president; and ex-senator and ex-Democrat Joe Lieberman of Travelers Insurance — oops, I mean Connecticut.

Karl Rove destroyed John McCain's presidential ambitions by smearing McCain in the South Carolina primary by distributing flyers on church parking lots which accused McCain of having (gasp!) a black baby. Rove's buddy Bush the Lesser went on to "win" the presidency. (Believe it or else, Coach Tuber Tommy actually said that Al Gore was the president-elect in 2000.)

In 2020, Biden was going down the tubervilles to Bernie Sanders until powerful S. Carolina Rep. James Clyburn saved him by rallying Palmetto State African Americans to his side.

Were I advising today's billionaire GOP puppeteers, I would tell them to do exactly what was announced this week: Break Biden by cracking his Black base and Trump wins again.

This is a cancer on the body politic, so let's call it like it is: COVID '24, against which true democracy is the only vaccine.

The game's afoot. Priscilla and Cassandra have prognosticated: Play or perish.

Stay safe, get vaxxed and pray for those cruelly afflicted by the cruelly small minds on this small planet, especially victims of our perpetual wars.

¡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 54-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com, SenJoeNeal.org, DoctorLawyerWatch.com, BallotBoxing.US, ConsumerCoalitionv.org, ChantalCoalition.org, Rentvolution.org, MIssissippiWestNV.org and CesarChavezNevada.com among others. He is a longtime member of the Reno-Sparks NAACP and Sparks-based Communications Workers of America Local 9413/AFL-CIO. As always, his comments are entirely his own. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988.

Breaking News —> Masks work!

Nevada usually tops the bad lists and craters on the good ones.That frequent criticism is not only true, but also understated.

When we're really embarrassed, we just invent a list.

You've probably heard politicians or economic development boosters smugly assert that "Las Vegas has more churches per capita," a frequent trope whenever anyone questions our morality.

I once tried to find out "more churches per capita than where?" No one could complete the non-comparison. It was just bogus PR spin from tourism promotional types trying to paint Gomorrah South as a family attraction.

I guess the point is we're better than nothing.

We just cannot avoid trying to portray ourselves and something we ain't.

Last week, I saw a news report about the mass exodus of Californians heading to Texas, Florida, Idaho and "no-tax Nevada."

Huh?

Fun spin but a full-blown lie. Nevada may not officially have a state income tax but we make up for it with hidden levies, often called "fees," and high sales taxes which brutalize those of lower income.

Such grinding policies spawn paucity and poverty, leaving schools, health care, parks, roads, first responders and so many other community needs to go begging.

We cannot be far from disc jockeys again sponsoring "fill your favorite pot hole" contests.

I got my first Nevada drivers license in 1969 in a 12-wide mobile home out in a barren Las Vegas field. All I had to do was turn in my fancy full-color laminated California i.d. for a hand-typed piece of heavy paper. No test, no nothing. I dared ask why.

"We've grown so fast that we haven't enacted laws that have been on the books in other states for decades," responded a wise but harried DMV lady.

At a 1981 legislative hearing, the immortal Sen. Ken Redelsperger, R-Pahrump, accidentally uttered unchallengeable wisdom for the ages: "We don't want to be the first to do something."

Not to worry.

For longer than I can remember, I have advised that if you have substantial income, especially without children, you will do real good in these parts. If you don't fit that description and belong to the lower 80 percent, especially with kids, go somewhere else.

Which brings me to the unchallengeable wisdom of a now world-famous everyman named Adam Steelmon who has paid for a Nevada vanity auto license plate for two decades. It reads "GOBK2CA" (Go back to California).

He should get a medal for truth in advertising as his story has gone viral, another public relations coup for the Silver State.

Alas and alack, this poor lout has seen his license plate revoked by DMV censors working for Miss Priscilla Goodbody (see below). Mr. Steelmon has appealed his case.

He told media types that he has only received one negative comment in all those years. Law enforcement officers from Nevada to Texas have pulled him over to say they like his plate.

Unfortunately, as a carpenter from Galilee once opined, a prophet is without honor in his own country.

Legendary Tonight Show host Johnny Carson termed network censors as "Miss Priscilla Goodbody," a proper puritan appellation if ever there was one. She has apparently expanded her enterprise to upgrade Nevada's moral climate.

Carson liked to ridicule the fact that people in commercials could hold up a beer but could not be shown drinking it on camera. Although that's now permissible in this increasingly libertine age, beer advertisers still stick to the old Television Code prohibition.

I remember one spot wherein NBA hall-of-famer Bill Russell held up a brew followed by a thunderous lightning strike. The camera then returned to a smiling Russell holding a less-than full glass. He would still go thirsty today.

So Mr. Steelmon must defend his creativity before our righteous protectors of the public welfare.

At least he's been paying good money to the state for the privilege, which is more than I can say for Nevada's ever-expanding list of corporate welfare queens who are lightly taxed when taxed at all.

So you be the judge. Is "GOBK2CA" any more lewd and lascivious than BUTY, BANGLA, DOBY, DRTBAGG, 69DROP, DOUCME, KRACKO or RNECK, all of which Ms. Goodbody OK'd?

She approved BUCK UP despite objections. The Reno Rodeo Assn. might agree, given their recent "Buckin' Good Time" ad campaign. How RNECK.

Somebody even complained about AFM, probably an application from a member of the American Federation of Musicians union. At least that one survived.

ADVICE TO FUTURE APPLICANTS: Avoid the letter "F" no matter what. Ditto anything remotely drug-related, including marijuana, legal or not.

However, KGRAM somehow got thru the dirty minded and drug-phobic process.

Must have caught Ms. Goodbody in a rare good mood. Perhaps she's lightening up in her old age. Or perhaps lighting up?

GET USED TO IT. License plate abbreviations have become epidemic in the cyberworld of LOL, BFF and OMG. So what does it matter that legions of school kids from LA to New York City can't read?

I can't communicate on a glorified postage stamp-sized TV screen. I'm still hung up on an archaic form called complete sentences. People who think like me are dinosaurs.

Given the evidence on the record, we are going back to the future. Text and license plate abbreviations are already obsolete as we increasingly use the latter day equivalent of Egyptian hieroglyphics. Only today, we call them emojis.

Who needs words when you can just look at the pictures?

All I can add is WTF!

Stay safe, get vaxxed and pray for those cruelly afflicted by the cruelly small minds on this small planet.

¡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 54-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com, SenJoeNeal.org, DoctorLawyerWatch.com, BallotBoxing.US, ConsumerCoalitionv.org, ChantalCoalition.org, Rentvolution.org, MIssissippiWestNV.org and CesarChavezNevada.com among others. He is a longtime member of the Reno-Sparks NAACP and Sparks-based Communications Workers of America Local 9413/AFL-CIO. As always, his comments are entirely his own. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988.

Breaking News —> Masks work!

It all started with Hollywood superstar Paul Newman. Although I did a little work for his Budweiser Lightning CanAm racing team back in my motorsports days, my most recent encounter occurred much closer to home.

My refrigerator, actually.

I keep a couple of pizzas in the freezer to consult whenever temptation visits. I always buy Newman's Own.

Even though they cost more, all profits go to charity. The late Mr. Newman's foundation long ago eclipsed $100 million to non-profit organizations.

Even though he died in 2008 ("Paul Newman: Driven Star" Barbwire 9-28-2008), his image still sells very well.

I once had a major New York ad agency fly their chief counsel to Reno to negotiate a Newman racing sponsorship for one of their big time clients. They offered a laughable amount.

"Paul's getting $3 million a picture," his racing partner chuckled when I told him about it.

The most successful movie star since WW2 was not only a good race driver, he was also pretty stylish in the kitchen. His salad dressings were so popular that he started making batches in his Connecticut garage to give to friends.

Pretty soon, they were in grocery stores, then started what is known in the trade as brand extensions. Hence my pizzas and other products.

And so it came to pass late one night last week that I needed a pizza, a desire soon assuaged by firing up a Newman's Own Stone Fired Quattro Formaggi (four cheese) beauty.

And then the humour descended upon me: I needed a beer to go with it. There, in the back of my fridge, was a lonely Bud Light, perfect for the occasion.

Alas and alack, moonhowlers have toppled Bud Light from its well-deserved number one ranking after more than two decades. Thanks to their unpatriotic efforts, a foreign import now rules.

About three months ago, a transgender podcaster named Dylan Mulvaney posted a Bud Light promotional video. Trolls pounced.

Anheuser-Busch had even given Mulvaney a can of Bud Light with her picture on it. String her up!

I have not read any of their viral infections and do not intend to do so.

The results of the insults speak for themselves. Apparently there were a lot of manhood-challenged Bud Light drinkers who possessed loyalty worthy of a pre-teen Donald Trump. (I pity their wives.)

Two Bud marketing execs who had OK'd the Mulvaney influencer video are now on "administrative leave," the term normally applied to cops who shot somebody.

Brand loyalty and sports team affinity is as fickle as teenage crushes.

Wanting to belong remains an innate human tribal desire. Why else would anyone put hyper-expensive Las Vegas Raiders tickets on a high interest credit card to watch guys beat on each other when they need binoculars to see which of the little ants down on the field is which?

But hey, you've bought your way into the tribe which gathers on the parking lot, all wearing expensive Raiders paraphernalia to partake of the body and blood of their gods (hot dogs and beer) before venturing several miles into the holy of holies.

If the Bud bosses had been paying me, I would have risked my job advising them to rise above the bigotry.

Look how Nike hugely benefited as the only corporate sponsor to stand with former UNR/49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick when he protested America's endemic racism.

Oh, I forgot, we no longer have a racism problem. Gov. Ron DeSatanist told me so. And that pillar of civic virtue, Clarence Thomas, even coined the term "racialism" because racism no longer exists.

Wiseman George Carlin once advised to beware when they start adding syllables.

Shell shock became combat fatigue, he groused. Over the decades, it morphed into traumatic stress syndrome and is now post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Shell shock" perfectly described the damage done to soldiers who've undergone such suffering, Carlin said. Now, we have bloodless "PTSD."

George Carlin lost his lucrative Gomorrah South gigs when he stopped doing the Hippy Dippy Weatherman and held up a mirror to America. He prospered, as did Nike.

Bud's bosses, not so much.

Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth turned into a waffle maker on "CBS Mornings."

"There's a big social conversation taking place right now and big brands are right in the middle of it...not just our industry or Bud Light," he mumbled, adding "What we need to understand is, deeply understand and appreciate, is the consumer and what they want, what they care about and what they expect from big brands."

How about balls? Macho woman bashers understand brass balls. They don't appreciate soggy soothing suits.

All this reminds me of Schlitz. Ever heard of them? Back in the mid-1970s, Schlitz was the world's largest brewery.

I had several beers with one of their execs in Honolulu in 1974. He was there in advance of their national convention. I tried to use the connection to get a future gathering in northern Nevada but soon confronted the awful truth: We didn't have enough hotel rooms to handle the action.

Not long thereafter, the owning family's corporate CEO, Henry Uihlein, died of cancer. The rudderless company went sideways.

Somebody tinkered with the ingredients of the flagship brand.

One batch was so modified that when poured, it wouldn't create a "head" of foam, which is useless. The 1970s equivalent of trolls went to work. Competitors planted the word that Schlitz was selling (gasp) "green beer." Zounds.

Beer does not need aging or foam, but brewers add ingredients just like detergent marketers. Housewives were used to soap creating bubbles. Detergents, which were much more efficient, didn't do so. But bubbles told housewives that the detergent was working. So they add bubble chemicals to this very day, as do brewers.

It's all a marketing mirage like the beer-broads-bras-macho mystique. I know a Sparks businessman who used to smoke. One day, he was out of Camels. A woman offered him a Virginia Slim, a brand targeted to addict women with flowers on the tall thin packaging.

My Sparks friend recoiled, refusing to put a "Vagina Slime" into his mouth. That's marketing and salesmanship, baby.

Cigarettes and beer are both drug delivery systems. The only real differences are illusions created by the advertising department. Kinda like with politicians.

For me, I will remain a good Christian and enjoy my vices in moderation. An occasional Paul Newman pizza with one Bud Light.

I'm an old marketing and advertising dinosaur, immunized against spin.

Have a Bud Light.

Stay safe, get vaxxed and pray for those cruelly afflicted by the cruelly small minds on this small planet.

¡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 54-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com, SenJoeNeal.org, DoctorLawyerWatch.com, BallotBoxing.US, ConsumerCoalitionv.org, ChantalCoalition.org, Rentvolution.org, MIssissippiWestNV.org and CesarChavezNevada.com among others. He is a longtime member of the Reno-Sparks NAACP and Sparks-based Communications Workers of America Local 9413/AFL-CIO. As always, his comments are entirely his own. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988.

 

Breaking News —> Masks work!

If you strike a king
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 6-28-2023

Invasion of the Chicken Pluckers
Gov. Ron DeSatanist soils the Silver State at GOP testiclefest
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 6-21-2023 / Expansions in blue

Politicians with nothing to hide
The Barbwire Nakedly & Unabashedly Announces Its New Fleshing Out Follytix Forum—>
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 6-14-2023
More naked reality

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$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

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 © 1982-2023 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 54-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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