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

A tale of two cupcakes
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 9-6-2023 / Expansions in blue.

"Your first game should be against East Cupcake," NCAA champion basketball coach Al McGuire said many years ago.

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 and Guy Louis Rocha 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 second contest of the season should be against East Cupcake State, preferably home games, the story goes.

The University of Nevada-Reno Wolf Pack just took that lesson the hard way. They were not even accorded the honor of Cupcake Number One. That diss went to fellow Mountain West Conference competitor San Jose State.

The only distinction for UNR was that they lost worse against the powerhouse University of Southern California Trojans.

SJO got dumped 56-28. The Nevadians lost 66-14. And we didn't even get kissed afterward.

USC improved its national ranking from fifth to fourth after last Saturday's debacle.

The East Cupcake States of the world know they are whoring out their students for a quick payday. Playing the part of the Washington Generals to a major school's Harlem Globetrotters is usually worth upwards of half a million to the lovable losers depending on the TV deal.

Only during blue moons and earthquakes can teams like the Wolf Pack compete against majors. Last month's blue moon didn't help.

UNR gives out about five or six dozen football scholarships every year. The biggies get double that and stars from big schools can now get pro endorsement contracts. No more cash, cars and concubines under the table for them.

Meanwhile, East Cupcakers stand under street lights looking for small change.

Cupcake States risk not only embarrassment but injury to their less competitive lineups. Taking one for the team is one thing. Taking a full game of hits is quite another.

Its never been a secret that Silver State education starves as a result of ever-increasing corporate tax breaks for billionaires combined with super-low levies on our extractive industries (gambling and mining).

Notwithstanding millions from the state, UNR has to scrounge. One time, they needed a new basketball floor but had no money to pay for it. So they skimmed funds earmarked for campus landscaping.

Basketball floors are made of wood and landscaping involves wood in a different form, so I guess that justifies the shuck. There are many such examples out there. (See the Pulitzer-nominated Barbwire University Scandals archive at NevadaLabor.com/)

College athletic programs are taxpayer-paid farm systems for very profitable pro sports teams. It's time to equalize the game. Paying East Cupcakes to lose is a disgrace.

Sometimes losing can be a religious experience. UNR played Notre Dame (yes, THAT Notre Dame) in South Bend a few years back. They were down 28-0 at halftime despite having Nevada G.O.A.T. Colin Kaepernick at quarterback.

The Catholic coach showed mercy and only ran up the score by one touchdown in the second half. I guess he looked up at the Touchdown Jesus mural lording over the field and did the Christian thing. UNR, playing pre-conversion Mary Magdelene, got a nice tip for its 35-0 shellacking.

Great moral lesson for the kids, eh wot?

Alleluia.

GEORGE CARLIN, CALL YOUR OFFICE. The great moralist and humorist warned to beware when someone tries to change the spin using more syllables. "Shell shock" from WW1 morphed into "combat fatigue," then "traumatic stress syndrome" followed by "post-traumatic stress syndrome" and "post-traumatic stress disorder." So now, we live with the bloodless "PTSD" to describe the effect of the horrors of war, aka shell shock.

When the problem persists, we often change the label. Over the past two centuries, we've gone from "slave" to "colored" to "negro" to "black" to "African American" to "African-American" (Carlin said beware of hyphens.) Now, it's "People of Color."

At least the names have changed.

Now comes the latest from the anti-abortion lobby which is smarting over news of all the women who have died due to untreated pregnancy complications resulting in dead mothers and dead-in-the-womb stillbirths.

So now, they call abortions of fetuses which cannot survive full-term delivery "maternal-fetal separation." Which many doctors still will not perform in moonhowler states no matter what it's called. As a result of all this, many regions are losing maternal care specialists to states where doctoring isn't a crime.

Who's hurt the worst? Blacks and browns. 'Twas ever thus in the land of the free and home of the brave with liberty and justice for some.

BE VERY AFRAID. A report came in at press time that a December convention scheduled in Austin, Texas, is being fronted by an outfit pimping eugenics (aka genetic racial superiority facilitated by forced sterilization). I thought that stuff went out with Hitler and the Nazis. Alas and alack, everything old is new again, especially to people susceptible to mental spoonfeeding and diapering.

Wonder if madcap Gov. Greg Abbott will deliver the keynote address flanked by his border brownshirts. See TheGuardian.com/

Sieg heil!

REAL MEDICAL CARE DEPT. The UNR med school's rural outreach program is hosting its latest free clinic in Silver Springs this Saturday, Sept. 9, from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The location is 3595 Highway 50, suite 3. Call (775) 750-2121 or e-mail <ruraloutreachclinic@gmail.com> for appointments or more information. Spanish speakers may call Rose Meza at (775) 770-8679. E-mail <rosemeza@nevada.unr.edu>

Tell 'em you heard about it on the Barbwire.

JANIS JOPLIN, CALL YOUR OFFICE. Big Brother and the Holding Company will perform at Carson City's Brewery Arts Center on Sept. 16. Much more next week. Get out your old tie-dyes and stay tuned.

¡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 August 12, 1988.

Breaking News —> Masks work!

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." — H.L. Mencken (paraphrased)

The last bastion of our beleaguered democracy is under new and unexpected assault.

A bunch of Wall Street bandidos are pushing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to allow big league betting on follytix. This ain't no bar-room pool. This monster is the zombie spawn of the 2007-08 Wall Street meltdown — derivatives!

Zounds.

That debacle sent the country into a recessionary tailspin by allowing investors to gamble on price movements of "bundles" of mortgages.

Many of those bags concealed rotten loans which went belly up. American investors lost a few trillion and many saw their life savings erased. The stalking horse for this stampede is which party will control Congress in 2025. Individuals could bet up to a quarter million and big firms up to $100 million.

What could possibly go wrong? First and foremost, it's pretty easy for rich guys to buy elections given the holes punched in U.S. law by a whole buncha blackguards I don't like. (You know who they are.) This adds further distortion.

Over my decades of flaying follytix in Nevada, I've seen how informal and perhaps illegal betting can influence balloting and campaign momentum — if the stakes are high enough and players powerful enough. War stories in a future Barbwire.

Allowing betting on elections would concentrate even more power in the hands (and dark money accounts) of the favored few.

U.S. election laws have been rendered so porous by Crowing Clarence and the Self-Righteous Supremes that all this can be done legally — and even openly if the high-profile spin will help.

NVEnergy boss Warren Buffet laying down a million on the outcome of a Nevada governor's race might just cause some ripples. A megalomaniac like disgraced casino mogul Steve Wynn would have loved the grandeur and spotlight focused on his putting his megamoney where his megamouth is.

The guys with the best polling operations stand to make the most. (I've seen it right here in River City. Trouble.)

Piling worst upon worse, why should government give the indolent rich an incentive to really try to rig elections? Czar Vladimir provided the template by his pro-Brexit trolling which broke the European Union followed by his pro-Czar Donaldov depredations in 2016.

No wonder Trump came out of the closet as a Putin groupie at their first meeting when the Orange Crusher said he believed the KGBer's assertion that he had not meddled in the Hillary muddle. That was worse than President Dubya saying he had looked into Putin's eyes and seen his soul. Aaargh.

We just witnessed more chilling election interference by another Trumpista.

Hungarian dictator Viktor Orban just announced his support of Trump's re-election as the only way to "solve" the Ukraine War. (Remember, Trump called Putin "a genius" who was going to score "all that land" as his idol began massing tanks for an invasion.)

Don't bet against these bastards. Look how far they've gotten by maximizing the larceny in their soul-less hearts.

Do we really need more undercutting of election integrity?

COLD COMFORT DEPT. Unions have been touting a recent decision by the National Labor Relations Board that will order management to bargain with their workers' union if the company has broken the law during an election.

I need to do more research and talk to some lawyers, but this is pretty much already the case. In 1993, the Carpenters Union lost an election to organize most of the unrepresented workers at the Reno Hilton (now the Grand Sierra). Hilton broke every law on the books and the union filed for a "bargaining order."

Alas, such mandates could only be issued if 50 percent of the current workers plus one had signed cards stating they wanted a union. The union was three — count 'em — three cards short. The chief organizer was shortly replaced.

With U.S. law stacked against workers, no organizer files for an election with less than 50 percent (or many more) signatures, even though the law requires only one in three.

The benefit of the new wrinkle seems to be making elections happen faster and stopping union busters from delaying a vote to death — often by illegally firing union advocates.

Every little bit helps but Presidents Clinton, Obama and Biden supported Canadian-style card-check elections and failed to deliver. In Canada, once a majority of workers sign with the union, they get one. That's a principal reason that one in three Canadian workers are represented and their standard of living shows it. Anti-labor laws in the U.S. have cut union ranks from about one in three after WW2 to a little over one in 10 today.

Links with the Barbwire expanded edition at NevadaLabor.com/ More later.

FAKE NEWS DEPT. Virginia City is advertising a Labor Day parade for Monday, Sept. 4. It ain't. Don't go. Years ago, I started complaining that it had been turned into a celebration of the Confederacy and advocated that organized labor stop participating. We did so. Now, VC has a weekend of "Civil War Days" followed by a parade sporting a disgusting number of Confederate re-enactors with a few blue coats sprinkled in.

REAL LABOR DAY. The Northern Nevada Central Labor Council/AFL-CIO and affiliated unions will again sponsor Laborfest on Monday at Reno's Idlewild Park, 10a-4p. Music, food trucks, show-n-shine, beer garden, artisan row, kids zone — and organizing, of course. See RenoLaborfest.com/

IN MEMORIAM. Memorial service for longtime Reno attorney Gary Silverman will be held at 10:00 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 31, at Temple Emanu-El, 1031 Manzanita Lane, Reno.

Celebration of the life of my dear friend Renate Neumann (Barbwire 8-16-2023) will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 7 at Mountain View Mortuary, 425 Stoker Ave. in Reno.

MONEYBALL. Thursday, Aug. 31, is the last day to pay quarterly Washoe County property taxes without penalty. Go to washoecounty.gov/treas/ Also, if you are a sole surviving spouse, you can qualify for a small annual tax credit thereat. It can be deducted from auto registration fees this year and your 2024 property tax if you apply by June 15. (Wish I had known about it 18 years ago.)

FAKE NEWS2 DEPT. I'd love to have the PR account for whomever is selling the latest expedition to find the mythical Loch Ness Monster, especially if fees were based on number of hits online. The mess media (not a typo) are covering it like the second coming. Fine by me. People have needed escapist diversion for a long time. Fantasy fare has dominated entertainment for more than a decade.

But I wish they'd stop showing that grainy black-and-white photo of the most famous Nessie hoax. Some Scottish tricksters, probably seriously drunk, bought a dime store toy dragon, staged the photo and released it to the world in 1934. Great for tourism. One of them 'fessed up on his deathbed.

Just about every "news" source has used that shot to illustrate the latest Nessie madness without noting that the photo is a shuck. Better to spend your time watching the 1987 "Loch Ness" movie starring Ted Danson and the Muppets.

Eminent scientists long ago stated that a prehistoric plesiosaur, or a large descendant thereof, could never survive on the puny food supply in the highland lake. Oh well, it's better than dis-reality TV, speaking of which...

TUMS & ROLAIDS DEPT. I don't know about you, but I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired of eight years of all Trump all the time. I've seen enough re-runs.

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 August 12, 1988.

Breaking News —> Masks work!

 

Life as a color cartoon
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 8-23-2023 / Updated 8-24-2023 GMT / Expansions in blue.

Since the first cave dweller scrawled on a rock, artists have been trying to enlighten us. We ignore them at our peril and we thus live in the most perilous of times. And so we slog forward as best we can.

LAUGH OR CRY DEPT. Cartoonists condense reality better than even bumper sticker...er...meme writers. Quadruple Pulitzer Prize winner Garry Trudeau delivered a typical gut punchline in last Sunday's "Doonesbury,"

The scene, a DeSantis Florida classroom.

Teacher: "...then came the Civil War, caused by a controversial labor practice. Moving on..."
Black Kid: "Huh?"
Blonde Girl: "Who won? Did the whites win?"

Ouch.

Words matter. So does silence.

MARK TWAIN & BIG WILL. A few years ago, some revisionist published a sanitized version of "Huckleberry Finn" with the word "slave" replacing the reviled en-thing. Sign of the times, I suppose. Even the Bible has undergone housecleaning.

More than a half-century after the legendary Britannica Great Books collection was first published in 1952, Associate Editor Mortimer Adler was asked if he would add any titles. The volumes span the western tradition from Aeschylus to Freud. Yes, he responded, Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" and Twain's magnum opus.

Twain labored long and hard to capture the language of the old south where he grew up. Now, even Cliffs Notes risk being banned rather than smiting the sacrosanct sensibilities of our precious snowflakes.

In Gov. Ron DeSatanist's Florida, anything is fair game as long as it generates media exposure for the wannabe godhead.

The Bob Englehart cartoon I posted at NevadaLabor.com will remain forever current.

It shows a Puritan leader making an announcement to his righteous school board true believers.

"We've solved the book banning problem. We're not going to teach kids to read," quoth the holy man.

Not even William Shakespeare has proved immune to Orwellian revisionists. Pentameter must be like Devil worship, right?

Words matter.

RAINBOW BEND. When President John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, the country went thru self analysis and self-flagellation. Was America a sick society, suffused with hatred creating a miasma of violence?

We now have a poster-child moment with the murder of shopkeeper Laura Ann Carleton of Cedar Glen, California, 60 miles east of Los Angeles.

Her crime? Displaying a rainbow pride flag in front of her store named "mag.pi." The 66 year-old mother of nine was beloved in her community and is now the latest casualty of the culture wars. Sad and sick.

Right after JFK was blown away, a cartoonist said it all without words, drawing an American flag shot off its pole by a rope-piercing bullet.

ORWELLIAN HELLSBELLIAN AWARD: This week's winner is Russia's Wagner Group mercenary mogul Yevgeny Prigozhin who asserted that his shock troops are making "Africa even more free." Words matter.

[[ UPDATE: A private plane, reportedly with Mr. Prigozhin aboard, was reported crashed on Aug. 23. ]]

GET EVEN, PART DEUX. Much has been written about the Marion, Kansas, police dept. ransacking the local weekly newspaper's offices and the home of its 98 year-old owner, contributing to her death the next day.

Less noticed was the case of the Wausau, Wisconsin, Pilot & Review, a non-profit news website founded by a former Gannett chain journalist.

The publication reported that a wealthy state senator had called a 13 year-old boy a "fag" at a county board meeting. The paper acted on a tip and obtained several confirmations.

Didn't matter, the rich guy sued and lost. But the little paper is almost bankrupt as a result, an example of a cancer spreading throughout the American body politic. It's basically the Donald Trump strategy to shut up the fake news media.

The Pilot & Review has been forced to spend almost $150,000 to beat back the lawsuit. The judge threw it out of court but Mr. Magabux is appealing.

Founder-editor Shereen Siewert told the New York Times that she has no idea how to continue paying both her lawyers and her staff of four.

I have an idea.

By putting in the work, people who can read and write proper English can represent themselves in court. (Sincere apologies to all my valiant attorney friends.)

Small media can effectively fight delicately sensitive and vindictive wealthy individuals who possess bottomless funding to sue the humble into silence — especially in states without legal protection from SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) actions. [Nevada has a SLAPP law.]

Hire a lawyer to consult on strategy but have staff and/or volunteers do the basics: thoroughly learn court rules, hit the law library, find standard forms, use the Internet.

Journalists are already good writers and researchers, so write and research, dammit. Use your power of the pen to great effect. The court house is your house, too.

This is an imperfect solution, but it's better than being forced to stand silent in the face of money, power and corruption.

FUKUSHIMA YOURSELF. This week's accidental self-satire award goes to the place bearing the name of the most-banned dirty word in the English language. The moniker more than adequately describes the Japanese government's contempt for all living things.

One might think that the nation suffering from the world's worst use of nuclear technologies for the past 78 years would know better. Alas and alack, apparently not. They plan to release into the Pacific Ocean millions of gallons of radioactive water from their blown-up nuke power plant.

As satirist Tom Lehrer once sang, "fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, but they don't live long if they try."

Fukushima.

HOW TO SPEAK MAGA DEPT. Closed minds cannot be opened with either logic or humor. So try logical humor.

Question: You believe in the U.S. Constitution, right?
MAGAN: Yes.
Q: You also believe that Donald Trump was elected to a second term in 2020, correct?
M: Yes.

The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice."

Therefore, by your own admission, Donald Trump is thus ineligible to appear on the 2024 ballot.

Game, set, match. Next case.

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 August 12, 1988.

Breaking News —> Masks work!

 

 

The Perseid Meteor Shower arrived last weekend to carry my dear friend Renate Neumann across the universe.

Larry Barbano as Renate saw him In a younger day, when he had more hair on his scalp and less on his face, he couldn't buy a beer in San Francisco because so many people mistook him for the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia.

Barbwire Man as Renate saw him

UPDATE: Renate's memorial service will be held at Reno's Mountain View Mortuary, 425 Stoker, at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 7. It will include her final art show with over 150 paintings by Renate and other Reno Portrait Society artists.

She left this form on Saturday, August 12, suffering from complications brought on by Parkinson's Disease. The great artist's hands could paint no more and we stand much diminished for it.

Renate and her husband Peter were among the first to welcome me to northern Nevada when I moved here from Las Vegas in 1971.

I had worked on Supreme Court Justice Al Gunderson's campaign and he invited me to dinner at the Pagni Family's Jubilee Italian Restaurant in Pleasant Valley between Reno and Carson City. Renate and Peter were the judge's other dinner guests that memorable evening.

It marked the beginning of a 53-year friendship. Pete and Renate married on January 23, 1969 at the Reno home of hall of fame photographer Don Dondero and his wife, Liz.

Peter Chase Neumann was in the early stages of building a top gun law practice and Renate was a commercial artist at Doyle McKenna, the longtime advertising agency for the Sparks Nugget. She freelanced a little work for my fledgling media enterprise after I opened my own store awhile later.

Renate was an excellent graphic designer but her genius truly shone thru on canvas. My brother, Larry, was visiting one me one summer and by chance, we ran into Renate. She knew a good subject when she saw one and asked my big little brother to sit for her portraiture group.

The fee structure was rather curious. Twenty bucks for posing clothed, but only $15 for sitting nude. I never asked why. I could only guess that the rights fee was pro-rated on the weight of clothing.

Sometime later, I also sat for her group. Fully dressed.

Renate later included the Barbano boys' portraits at a weekend showing at the downtown Reno First United Methodist Church. I had never seen the finished work before that day.

Our dear sainted Italian mother Mary would have said her sons never looked better. Somewhere, I have a photo of Renate holding those portraits. If I can unearth it, I will include it in the Barbwire expanded web edition at NevadaLabor.com/

Renate brought beauty wherever she went. She had a radiant kindness about her. The moment you met her, you knew you had a friend in the petite lady with the movie star presence. She was the real deal, complete with an elegant German accent somewhere betwixt supermodel Heidi Klum and actresses Elke Sommer and Marlene Dietrich.

When she talked, people listened. The closest I ever saw Renate get to losing her cool came once when I mentioned something with canola oil in it.

"Throw it away!" she interjected and lectured me on all its detriments.

Renate and Peter founded the Angel Kiss Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to helping families of cancer-stricken children. Their White Water Race & Jazz Festival set the standard for every downtown Reno riverfront event which followed. (See the Barbwire of June 26, 2005, linked to the online edition.)

Even in her final days, Renate exercised regularly, as best she was able. She had just turned 84 on July 31.

I was notified when Peter Neumann copied me on an e-mail to her family in Germany.

I bowed my head, wept awhile, prayed, cried a little more, sang a few songs in breaking voice, then played Eva Cassidy blues followed by Beethoven's 7th Symphony. It's the most transcendent composition I know and always uplifts me from low and into a soaring soundscape that emulates flight.

I also emanated a meditation to my late wife Betty to embrace our friend Renate as she embarks on her next journey.

I put on a little music from Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter, then went outside to breathe a beautiful Saturday afternoon.

Reach out your hand
If your cup be empty
If your cup is full,
May it be again.

Let it be known
There is a fountain
That was not made
By the hands of men.

IN MEMORIAM. My father, Andrew Henry Barbano, died of Parkinson's as did Renate.

As fate would have it, a few days ago, I was informed that Dr. Mindy Lokshin had retired from the general practice of medicine. (She's married to longtime Sparks allergist Dr. Boris Lokshin.)

Dr. Mindy apparently un-retired rather quickly, helping start the Parkinson Support Center of Northern Nevada. Their purpose is "improvement of the quality of life for those living with Parkinson's disease, their families and care partners."

Their goal is "connecting people to the information, support services, programs and activities they need to enhance wellness and live an active, engaged life."

It's a completely local non-profit, not affiliated with any national organization.

From 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. this Saturday, August 19, they are hosting a showing of "STILL — A Michael J. Fox Movie." The film stars America's most famous Parkinson's victim. A question and answer session follows with Dr. Varga, a movement disorder specialist.

Admission is free and light refreshments will be provided.

The location is Five Star Senior Living, 3201 Plumas Street in Reno. Reservations are necessary. You may call (775) 525-0205 or e-mail <anne@pscnn.org>

They deserve your support. Tell them Renate Neumann referred you.

¡Sí se puede!

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.

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 August 12, 1988. Lyrics from the Grateful Dead's "Ripple," 1970.

Breaking News —> Masks work!

 

 

“Mr. X, may we ask you a question? It's amazing, is it not, that the city pays you slightly less than fifty bucks a week, yet you've purchased a private yacht?”

X: “I am positive your honor must be joking! Any working man can do what I have done. For a month or two I simply gave up smoking, and I put my extra pennies one by one into...

“A little tin box, a little tin box
That a little tin key unlocks.
There is nothing unorthodox
About a little tin box.

"A little tin box, a little tin box
That a little tin key unlocks.
There is honor and purity,
Lots of security,
In a little tin box.”

The above exchange comes from the hit 1959 Broadway musical "Fiorello!"

The Barbwire is eminently qualified to deal with the scandals hereinbelow because I played a corrupt judge in the Fresno State production of that show.

"Fiorello!" was about a little Italian guy elected to clean up Tammany Hall politics after the corrupt regime of flamboyant Mayor Jimmy Walker.

Fiorello LaGuardia (for whom the New York City airport is named) served as Big Apple mayor from 1934 to 1946.

When newspapers went on strike, he even went on radio to read the comics so little kids (and a few big kids) would not miss out.

"Little Tin Box" is my second-favorite song from the show. Retired Laborers' Local 169 Business Manager Dan Rusnak reminded me about it after he read last Sunday's New York Times front page story revealing how Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas sorta purchased "the Rolls Royce of motor coaches" in 1999.

At that time, most of the household income for Clarence and his wife came from his government salary of $167,900.

So how could he afford a luxury house on wheels which cost $267,230 used?

New ones today cost from $1.8 to $2.5 million.

In 1999, the retail base price was $1 million or much more "depending on the bells and whistles. It was a rich man's toy," according to the Phoenix dealer who sold it to Clarence.

The Ginny and Clarence dreamboat had only 93,618 miles on it, "relatively few for a vehicle that experts say can easily log a million miles in its lifetime," the Times reported.

Clarence has always made a big deal of his up-from-poverty roots and has preached about his identification with the common man throughout his charmed life.

Hence his announced love for the open road to commune with the common folk, "in a condo on wheels," as he once bragged about it.

I don't have the space or the interest to recount the fraudulent and banal facts about Clarence's carefully contrived personal mythology.

"He told me he saved up all his money to buy it," said talk show personality Armstrong Williams. Hmmm...where have I heard that before?

A little tin box, a little tin box
That a little tin key unlocks.
There is nothing unorthodox
About a little tin box.

Clarence noticed the rolling ocean liner while visiting Phoenix to attend a dinner at the conservative Goldwater Institute.

"In a speech that night," the Times reported, "he said he had never yearned to be a federal judge. 'Pure and simple, I wanted to be rich,' he said."

It pays to have rich friends, one of whom "loaned" him the quarter-million-plus to acquire the wheel-house. Whether or not Clarence ever paid him back, they won't say.

Maybe they lost the little tin box holding the records.

The Broadway song introduced a new term into the legal lexicon and resulted in a national public relations coup for Nevada.

In 1984, Federal District Judge Harry Claiborne brazenly asserted a "tin box" defense to explain where he got the money to live a Clarence-style life.

Harry may have been corrupt, but the olden-days Las Vegas legend was one helluva defense attorney — most of the time.

Back when I lived in Gomorrah South, I was told — only partially in jest — that if I ever wanted to commit murder, hire Harry Claiborne and I would never be convicted.

Alas, without home field advantage, Harry lost his biggest trial. In 1984, he was convicted of tax evasion in an away game at Reno.

The Nevada Supreme Court reinstated his law license after he served 17 months.

After all, he was a helluva lawyer, tin box and all.

Can't say the same for Clarence, tin motorhome and all.

PG-13 WARNING. During Fiorello's run at Fresno State, two of my fellow cast members got engaged, spawning a bawdy drama department one-liner.

Courtesy of my male chauvinist piggy castmates, herewith a trip in the Wayback Machine, adapted for the Barbwire...

Q: What did Ginny Thomas give Clarence on their honeymoon?
A: A little tin box.

BARBWIRE CODA: Clarence gave it back with a little tin key to stash "consulting" fees. On January 6.

BEEN THERE, DONE THAT DEPT. August 11, 1973, is regarded as the birth of hip-hop. I mildly disagree.

Back in 1970, I wrote and voiced a rhyming radio spot for advertising clients selling their Instant Trim exercise program.

Here's a vaguely-remembered line: "Come on in and do some slim when you get it on with Instant Trim."

Alas, no mention of killing cops or raping women. I could'a been a contender.

ON THAT CONCLUDING MUSICAL NOTE, my favorite Fiorello song:

Politics and poker, politics and poker
Everybody's broke and getting broker.
Everybody knows the trouble that we're in.
Decisions, decisions when you gamble on your friends.

Politics and poker, politics and poker
Make the average guy a heavy a smoker.
Bless the nominee and give him our regards
In poker and politics
You've gotta have the cards!

¡Sí se puede!

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.

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. "Fiorello!" book by George Abbott and Jerome Weidman; music by Jerry Bock; lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, slightly adapted.

Breaking News —> Masks work!

   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

This here news junkie has become so sick of the 24/7 Donald Xi Putin Show that I've cut back viewing. Cartoon violence on standard TV shoot-em-ups is often quite preferable to reality.

Perhaps there's an upside to this over-saturation of servitude to power-besotted psychos.

The signs in the heavens (cough, hack!) are pretty clear that Mother Nature is sending her spoiled brats a serious warning thru the muck and mire: Get fixed or get gone.

Barbwire-ites know of my simple solvent for the Herculean task of clearing the Augean stables of current humanity: Women. In command. Period.

Long before writing became popular, there were countless predictions of Armageddon. One of my erstwhile talk radio listeners even gave me a copy of "A History of the End of the World." This came as the world trembled that Saddam Hussein could use (non-existent) nukes against Bush the Elder's invasion to protect the Lone Star royal family's Persian Gulf drilling rights.

Same fears abide today, only worse, as many nations actually possess the nuclear button.

So maybe we stand at the apotheosis, the apogee, the highest point, the culmination of...what, exactly?

Exactly. We either climb to new heights of enlightenment, or crash down, smothered under various clouds of the mushroom, fire or ozone varieties. Pick your poison.

Meanwhile, moonhowlers meander over the nit-pickety small. Should Washoe County school children be exposed to the words "penis" and "vulva"? Doesn't much matter to little kids without enough to eat or roofs over their heads.

This tiny blue picayune pixel of a planet, in the tick of time occupied by our species' sentience, doesn't matter all that much.

Yet.

Today, we have arrived at a point prepared to soar into a sparkling age in which there is no war, no want, no wantonness.

Where science and art synergize into a symphony of wonder and achievement.

Welcome to Wonderland, Alice.

We have matured to a point where we actually control our collective futures, forward or backward, to the garden or to the graveyard.

"The world is in an uproar. The danger zone is everywhere." So warned Ray Charles in 1962, a bluesy predictive parable for the parabola of our arc on this watery ark.

Artists and philosophers have been trying to show us the way for millennia.

Are we finally ready to grow up? For every Jacinda Ardern there be a plethora of guys with guns.

The former New Zealand prime minister gave birth while successfully protecting her country from the COVID plague while puerile pubescent boys were playing target practice around the globe.

I may be a born critic, but I am eternally a guarded optimist with abiding faith in humanity's resilience.

Look at our newly immortal media magicians. Tony Bennett overcame many pronouncements of the demise of his career to become an international and American icon.

Paul Reubens (aka Pee Wee Herman) rose above ridicule and vilification, as did Sinead O'Connor.

All three recently departed awesome artists demonstrated how history will judge you kindly if you practice kindness to others, no matter the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

They were all living examples of the old Texas football axiom: Dance with who brung ya to the ball.

Translation: Stick to what you're best at, then fortune will smile upon you.

Which is why we live within what may well prove our finest or fatal hour: We have the ability to rise with our wonders or fail with our faults.

The ultimate in pro-choice.

¡Sí se puede!

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.

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!

 

Miss Priscilla Goodbody channels Princess Cassandra
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Love Letters from Miss Priscilla Goodbody
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True Confession: I drink Bud Light
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Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 6-14-2023
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