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

Siren princesses traumatize trolls
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 2-7-2024 / Updated 2-8-2024 GMT / Expansions in blue

I usually avoid Hollywood award shows but made an exception for last Sunday's Grammys when I learned of Joni Mitchell's inclusion.

It was one helluva show, and not just for the American icon.

Stevie Wonder's "For Once in My Life" duet with the late great Tony Bennett was perfect. Echoing the technology that won every award in the book for Natalie Cole (who recorded "Unforgettable" in 2012 with her long-dead dad Nat King Cole), Stevie Wonder sang and played live, trading verses with the immortal Benedetto on the big screen.

Between Ms. Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" and the superstar duet, I was glad I had Kleenex handy.

Last year, Joni Mitchell was honored by the Library of Congress with the Gershwin Prize for popular song. She sang George Gershwin's "Summertime" and later closed the show with what I consider her greatest work, "The Circle Game."

Pretty good for an octogenerian who beat childhood polio only to suffer a brain aneurism 10 years ago requiring her to re-learn talking, walking, singing and playing guitar.

Olivia Rodrigo rang my chimes with the unintentionally ironic "Vampire," a song I plan to extensively use on my new show.

I used to think I was smart
You made me look so naive

The way you sold me for parts
As you sunk in your teeth

Soulsucker, dream crusher
Bleedin' me dry like a (goddamn) vampire

Ahem...On the broadcast, Ms. Rodrigo sang "dream crusher" instead of the hit version which rhymes a bit better with "soulsucker." Get it? She also edited the blasphemy word for TV.

Mss. Mitchell and Swift and their friends propelled the Sunday show to its highest ratings since 2020, up 34 percent from last year at almost 17 million viewers.

Understandable. Unforgettable.

Women dominated the '24 Grammys. Bueno. Even former first lady Michelle Obama beat Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders for the best audio book narration.

If women can become a governing majority, the human species may yet stand a chance at avoiding self-annihilation.

Wannabe hip hop king T-Rump (Barbwire 12-27-23 and 1-31-24) probably lost sleep when he saw a show get great ratings that failed to mention him even once.

Save for, perhaps, Ms. Rodrigo.

GRANDPA BERNIE STILL BURNS BRIGHTLY. The great advocate for the little people kicked serious butt on Seth Myers' Monday show, as did Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren who guested on Steven Colbert's soirée.

Sen. Warren reiterated that T-Rump doesn't want the bi-partisan border bill to pass. He thrives on chaos, presenting himself as the panacea. She also blasted companies that artificially skyrocket grocery prices, still using the pandemic as an excuse. (Barbwire 11-29-2023)

Sen. Sanders decried the huge uptick in prescription drug prices. (More than 900 have risen since December.)

He also reiterated his opposition to giving any money to the Israeli government until they stop their wholesale slaughter of Palestinian civilians.

Bernie is uniquely positioned to make such demands. He's a Jewish kid from Brooklyn.

GOING TO THE DOGS. Wall Street vulture Alden Global Capital just sold the Baltimore Sun to the boss of Sinclair Broadcast Group which owns more than 200 stations, including NBC-4 and FOX-11, among a dozen northwestern Nevada signals. (Barbwire 1-31-2024)

Alden bought a bunch of newspapers, eviscerated them, sold off their real estate and dumped the skeletons on main street. (After its merger, Gannett did the same thing with the Reno Gazette-Journal, selling off the RGJ building to the City of Reno for remodeling as a police station. Net profit: $7 million.)

Alden recently acquired 200 Greyhound depots and is closing many terminals in city centers, leaving low income riders to hitchhike.

Greyhound was started by the nation's railroads who decided they weren't making enough money on passengers.

So they made the service awful and started an alternative across their parking lots: Greyhound.

They thus kept passenger revenue and eliminated dining and sleeping cars, engineers, conductors and baggage porters — remaining jobs now handled by one beleaguered driver.

I haven't been able to verify if Reno is slated for closure. Stay tuned.

SPEAKING OF SHUTDOWNS. T-Rump's postmaster general is still doing his best to ruin the mail service and thus screw up voting. For the second time in less than 20 years, the Reno main post office on Vassar Street is facing evisceration.

The postal service will hold a public meeting in Reno next Tuesday, Feb. 13 about its new plan to ship all mail from eastern California and central and northern Nevada to Sacramento for sorting.

Mail from Sparks to Reno used to take a day. T-Rump's boy has already turned that into two days or more. Hey, who needs prescriptions anyway?

The forum is scheduled for the convenient hour of 3:00 p.m. next Tuesday (why no Zoom or streaming?) at the former Airport Plaza Hotel on Plumb Lane across from the Reno airport. It's now known as the SureStay Plus, not exactly a memorable rebranding.

I will link the URL of an online survey to this column at NevadaLabor.com/ Deadline: Feb. 28.

This is one serious debacle in the making, just in time to ensure that a lot of November mail-in ballots are creatively delayed and in jeopardy of not counting.

The first thing T-Rump's shill did in 2020 was to junk multiple millions of dollars' worth of mail sorting equipment.

A union letter carrier mused how ironic it would be if USPS execs from Sacramento could not attend their own meeting because Donner Pass is closed.

Coming soon: T-Rump, the man who raps America, announces his hip hop back-up band. All naming suggestions welcome.

ON THIS DATE: Betty Joyce Luffman, who would become my wife, was born. We had 30 great years together. Remember her with laughter. Barbano.net/

Betty J. Barbano 2-7-1941 / 12-27-2005 Remember her laughter Larry Barbano, Frater Mei 1947-2023

To Die For
My daughters were born 65 years ago yesterday. Alas, their youth was cut in twain.
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 1-17-2024

MEMENTO AMORE: ANDY & BETTY CODA FROM MANY DECADES AGO

Vaxx up, stay safe, pray for Ukraine and almost 100 other currently war-torn lands.

¡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 55-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!

 

Commissar T-Rump Serves Czar RasPutin
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 1-31-2024 / Expansions in blue

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!

Today's mish-mashed media morass of news and entertainment (there's a difference?) favors the defrocked president.

Throw so much out there many times a day that it's hard for the pros, let alone the proles, to focus on any one thing.

So T-Rump can focus all at will.

Detectives look for motive when they investigate crimes. Commissar T-Rump is currently destroying any legislation to address the chaos at the southern border — and simultaneously kill funding for Ukraine. Who does that serve?

His boss, Czar RasPutin the Impatient Impaler.

When the wannabe Soviet Union Part Deux massed tanks and troops at the Ukrainian border in 2022, Commissar T-Rump rejoiced, calling RasPutin "a genius" who was about to get "all that land."

Life is just one big real estate scam to the abused son of Old Man Fred. (More on that later.)

Sure, fearful western democracies have spent and will expend lots of money supporting the Ukrainian people against Russia's invasion. But no matter who buys the weapons, most of the western arsenal is manufactured in gun happy USA.

So tearing out a major chunk of US Ukraine funding allows Czar RasPutin to do what he's already starting to do: take back the real estate Ukraine has reclaimed from the 2014 Russian invasion and push opposing forces westward toward NATO.

All thanks to that groupie of dictators who considers himself president in absentia.

MAGA moonhowlers have co-opted racist Patrick Buchanan's schtick from his two very lucrative presidential campaigns of bygone years.

Buchanan trashed immigrants as "those people invading my country!" He didn't get far against the Bush dynasty, but he made a ton of money, even hiring his sister to run his organization for a hugely inflated salary. (Bay Buchanan is currently pimping gold coins on late night TV infomercials.)

No less than the pope of American conservatism, National Review Magazine founder and longtime PBS "Firing Line" host William F. Buckley, Jr., concluded after exhaustive research that he could "no longer defend" Patrick Buchanan against charges of racism.

No less than legendary German Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck once made an envious remark about the fortunate geography of the United States "surrounded on three sides by fish."

Alas and alack, trashing "the other" always works for crypto fascists.

Just a few years ago, Republicans would jump all over anyone, especially a dirty pinko redistributionist Democrat, for doing anything (real or imagined) to help them there godless Commie Russkies. No more.

To steal a Yogi-ism, if Tailgunner Joe McCarthy, R-Wisc., was alive, he'd be turning over in his grave.

FROM THE DEN OF INIQUITY, MORE INEQUITY: Thanks to Gov. Ron DeSatanist appointees, Florida's state university system has wiped out sociology classes.

Apparently students can sign up, but the courses won't count toward graduation.

Sociology classes will be replaced by a "factual history course."

Fake news, institutionalized, eh wot?

CAN JON STEWART SUE FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT? Commissar Donaldov is a master at stealing other people's potshots and taking them for his own.

In his first incarnation on "The Daily Show" which he ended after 16 years in 2015, Jon Stewart proudly called the program an exercise in "fake news."

T-Rump apparently liked the term so much he scammed it to tar any media coverage he didn't like. Which is always a lot. Every hour of every day.

Stewart will shortly return to his erstwhile Comedy Central home one night a week thru the end of this year. He will soon find he needs more than 22 minutes every seven days.

WHICH IS ONE REASON WHY the Barbwire llve call-in news/talk/rock show will return soon. Stay tuned.

FAKE NEWS, PART DEUX. The media mogul who owns the Reno NBC and FOX TV affiliates just bought the legendary Baltimore Sun newspaper, once home to the greatest columnist of them all, H.L. Mencken. The Barbwire has long been the sole local critic of Channels 4 and 11 interlarding moonhowler propaganda with their news programming.

It's not the fault of their very worthy journalists. But when Sinclair Broadcast Group sends out an order that all news departments use a certain piece of spin, all must comply.

Many Baltimore Sun reporters have already left for a startup publication. Nevada Press Assn. Hall of Fame columnist John L. Smith quit the Las Vegas Review-Journal after owner Sheldon Adelson pushed him to print biased info. The late Gomorrah South casino mogul was T-Rump's largest campaign donor. His widow just bought the Dallas Mavericks NBA team.

Sinclair boss David T. Smith's partner in the Maryland deal is Armstrong Williams, who lost most of his personal media empire (TV and print) after it was revealed that he was on the take under the table from the George W. Bush White House to use their propaganda.

POETIC JUSTICE DEPT. Writer E. Jean Carroll has beaten her sexual abuser T-Rump in court twice. He will, of course, appeal in aeternam.

Ms. Carroll now has court judgments of $88.3 million against the Commissar. I don't know New York law, but to appeal a civil judgment in Nevada, the losing side has to post a bond to guarantee payment if the appeal fails.

Bonds are obtained from insurance companies, usually for a 10 percent fee. So Trump may have to come with almost $9 million cash — IF he can find any insurance company dumb enough to do business with him.

Ms. Carroll can also file liens against all T-Rump properties in New York.

The Commissar has made a fat living for decades flipping real estate to avoid paying income tax on his profits. The liens could stop all his company transactions unless he pays up.

His trial on civil fraud is due to get underway soon. It could cause his outfit to lose all its New York business licenses.

Couldn't happen to a nicer more honorable guy.

But that's just fake news, right?

Vaxx up, stay safe, pray for Ukraine and almost 100 other currently war-torn lands.

¡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.)

If you can stand it, read on —>

T-Rump raps America
Donald Trump's campaign goes hip-hop
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 12-27-2023

___________________
Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 55-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!

 

Ben Franklin's bleary bifocals
Guest-starring Peter Sellers & The Muppets
And a true story: Song from the streets of San Francisco
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 1-24-2024 / Updated 1-26 & 1-27-2024 GMT / Expansions in blue

Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women
They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane — Sons of the Pioneers*
MEMENTO AMORE: ANDY & BETTY CODA FROM MANY DECADES AGO

Once upon a time, Americans looked back wistfully on our formative days.

Such a time was 1976, the 200th anniversary of the founding of our great experiment in government by the people — more specifically, property-owning white guys, but that was then and this is now. Sorta.

We live in a time when black-robed ammotextuals act as unelected governments, viewing all laws and regulations as if it were still 1776.

The Bicentennial Celebration of 48 years ago was certainly a more innocent time. Nobody even objected to recognizing it as "bi."

The most trusted man in America, legendary CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite, closed each of his dominant evening newscasts with a historical note, concluding with "that's the way it was 200 years ago today."

Which reminds me of a plane ride I took to Denver 48 years ago this month, a business trip. As fate would have it, I got seated with a bunch of comedians, Fats Johnson and his band which had just concluded a gig at Tahoe.

Before I knew it, they were trying out their act on me.

Fats and his guys had a running gag lampooning the hallowed Cronkite. The best of the zingers I still remember almost half a century down the road.

"Two hundred years ago today, Ben Franklin invented bifocals. He took one look at his wife and promptly invented...cosmetics!" (baddaboom baddabing)

"And that's the way it was 200 years ago today."

I was soon laughing so uncontrollably that cabin attendants finally ordered me to calm down or face arrest upon landing.

Sparks-Reno-Washoe circa 1976 was quite a different place. The city councils had already begun flailing about, spending what would become billions trying to make dying downtowns attractive. The result is visible today: cheaply built rabbit warren apartments on "B" Street...er, sorry, "Victorian Square."

The latter was so anointed when Sparks City Hall decided to turn the main drag in front of the Nugget Casino into auld London of Sherlock Holmes' day.

At least they didn't make Rail City beat cops wear foot-tall helmets like the British bobbies of London. (I'm not making that up. It was part of the original plan.)

Downtown Reno hasn't fared any better. The city has yet to pay off the 1990s Union Pacific railroad trench construction millions, the magic solution that never happened.

Ga-ga city officials will never admit it, but both downtowns remain quite ugly. Alas and alack, the rest of the community reflects that DNA.

Much has been said recently about the mutual inability of the Washoe County School District and Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority to hold onto chief executives.

Maybe the answer lies all around us. They come here for a big salary and with high hopes, perhaps from communities that are not re-jiggered mining camps. Places that left you feeling good when you drove around.

That ain't us. Not no more, at least.

We once kept the blight downtown. Now, it has spread. Casinos spawned an underclass of the exploited, underpaid and disconnected, the classic transitory boomtown mining camp.

When various mining booms petered out, Nevada was destitute. So in 1931, our forefathers made a second deal with the devil. (The first was the federal Mining Law of 1872 which still plagues us today.)

At the dawn of the Great Depression, it took some serious backroom backslapping of prudish lawmakers to legalize what everybody already knew: there was (gasp!) gambling going on here.

It's now accepted political science that the best way to legalize a vice is to cut government a piece of the action.

There's even an old Sons of the Pioneers song about it: "Cigareetes and Whuskey and Wild Wild Women." (Fats Johnson and his crew probably sang it in their act.)

When the Comstock Lode federal freebies went bust, remaining people moved from Virginia City to Lake's Crossing on the Truckee River, which became Reno. Southern Pacific moved its railyards west toward people and Sparks, the Rail City, was born.

It became a pretty place save for racial apartheid. Nevada stumblingly came into the 20th Century about 60 years late. Sparks and Reno were fairly pleasant backwaters by the Bicentennial Year.

Then came the boom spawned by the MGM Grand (now the Grand Sierra). A half-dozen casinos opened up within a few months in 1978. And, as Bill Harrah hisself noted, a half-dozen others soon closed.

New casino executives were living in tents on the Truckee. (I filmed and interviewed them.)

It took several decades to digest the MGM boom and the little towns on the mucky Truckee were getting along until Nevada's greatest corporate welfare queen came to town.

His name was Elon Musk and Nevada public officials could not resist turning on the red light for him.

That political venereal disease abides today. Otherwise honest and well-intentioned people seek public office and soon succumb to the Silver State version of Stockholm Syndrome.

I remember from psych 101 in college that if you place sane and rational people into an insane asylum, within a couple of weeks, they begin to show signs of mental instability. Thus it is with many Nevada officials.

They get wined, dined and seduced with all the attention their wonderfulness deserves. They go thru serious withdrawal pains after they leave office and their rich and powerful former friends stop returning their phone calls.

So drive around our sprawling, ugly modern day boomtowns. Downtown Sparks is infected with cheaply built rabbit warren apartments worthy of Cold War Communist East Berlin. Drive down just about any busy street in this little valley and you can see their spawn.

Downtown Reno at the arch remains butt-ugly. The hearts of our communities reflect the reality which blithe residents have been bribed, schmoozed or propagandized into allowing.

And it ain't pretty.

Which may go a long way toward explaining why newcomers who take six-figure salaries to come here start updating their résumés right quickly.

Mining camp boomtowns soon get depressing.

Those of us who remain do the best we can with what we're left as bonanzas always devolve into busted borrascas.

Vaxx up, stay safe, pray for Ukraine and almost 100 other currently war-torn lands.

¡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.)

Breaking News —> Masks work!

 

* Lyrics by Tim Spencer. The 1947 song has been recorded by not only Roy Rogers' favorite backups, The Sons, but also Jim Croce and Buck Owens. My all-time favorite came with a killer production number between Peter Sellers and The Muppets. (I'm not making this up) from the "The Muppet Show," largely produced in the UK in the early 1980s. The late great Sellers (aka Dr. Strangelove and so many other characters) is at his best as a tipsy preacher. Enjoyjoy!

Cigareetes, Whisky & Wild, Wild Women Song by Sons of the Pioneers Ben Franklin would like this jingle. He lived it. SELLERS: Old John Barleycorn and the threefaces of Eve... Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane Once, I was happy and had a good wife I had enough money to last me for life I met with the gal and we went on a spree She started me smokin' and drinkin' whusky Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane Cigarettes are a blight on the whole human race A man is a monkey with one in his face Take warning dear friend, take warning dear brother A fire's on one end, a fool's on the t'other Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane Now, I am feeble and broken with age The lines on my face make a well-written page I'm leavin' this message, how sad but how true On women and whusky and what they can do Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane Write on the cross at the head of my grave For women and whusky, here lies a poor slave Take warning, dear stranger, take warning, dear friend Then write in big letters, these words at my end Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane From The Muppet Show Season 2, Episode 18 with Peter Sellers; initially aired 2-25-1978. Sellers and Muppets did not sing all verses. Ad libs are hilarious. Lyrics sources: Musixmatch and Genius.com Songwriter: Tim Spencer Modified slightly in Buck Owens version on Genius.com Cigareetes, Whisky and Wild, Wild Women lyrics © Unichappell Music Inc.

ANDY & BETTY CODA FROM MANY DECADES AGO One evening long ago, my wife and I were walking thru downtown San Francisco when something caught my eye, perhaps a marquee or a sign in a bar window. I started singing "Cigareetes and whisky and wild wild women..." "Two outta three ain't bad!" responded one of two guys walking together across the narrow street. Ah, summer in The City.

___________________
Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 55-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.

To Die For
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 1-17-2024 / Expansions in blue

My daughters were born 65 years ago yesterday.

Debra Joyce Donlevy and Donna Leslie Cline shared the same birthday and were fated to have their lives changed forever on the same night.

Debbie and Donna met in Phoenix in 1978. They became instant bff's (best friends forever). Debbie was visiting relatives and Donna came with her to drive home to Carson City.

Neither made it. It was the typical Nevada rollover: A dark, two-lane highway with a soft shoulder; auto drifted right; driver over-corrected; wheel planted in the earth; car rolled.

Both girls, then 19, were ejected. Debra, a victim of the usual rural Nevada health care, died enroute to Reno. (Barbwire 4-2-2006 and many updates thereafter.)

Donna was paralyzed for life.

She went on to become Miss Wheelchair Nevada, Miss Wheelchair America and a TV news anchor in Arizona, southern Nevada and Texas where she finally died of her old injuries at 40.

Debra (Carson High '77) was my wife Betty's firstborn and strikingly beautiful. I have made it one of my lifelong missions to tell the story of my erstwhile daughters at every opportunity. Another came last Sunday.

First responders were called to a rollover crash in northwest Reno on Leadership Parkway, north of McCarran Blvd.: "1 killed, 2 injured in rollover accident."

Three of five occupants were ejected.

"Police say speed was a factor. Alcohol impairment was not suspected," the Reno Gazette-Journal reported.

For me, it was déjà vu all over again.

The New York Times Magazine might well have used the Reno flipout as an example.

Last Sunday's Matthew Shaer magnum opus "The Road to Ruin" might was quite appropriately focused on Nevada, especially Gomorrah South.

Over the decades, I've had many former Las Vegans like me remark how much slower northern Nevadans drive. Alas and alack, perhaps not anymore after this region turned on the red light and became another Teslatute.

"After decades of declining fatality rates, why has dangerous driving surged again in America?" Shaer asked.

One of his principal sources is Dr. Debra Kuhls at the UNLV School of Medicine.

Before I even moved there more than five decades ago, friends told me how easy it was to navigate Las Vegas.

"All the streets are wide and run at right angles," a frycook buddy advised.

Indeed. To get a taste of that, look no further than E. Moana Lane in Reno, a two-way highway seven lanes wide. The zooming hardware quickly gets just plain scary. I cringed after seeing some hearty souls cross the shooting gallery on foot. One guy even stood in the middle of the road after navigating halfway, waiting for the other lanes to clear. I got out my phone ready to call 911 if he guessed wrong.

In LV, "many roads are flat and fast and conducive to speeding, which remains a reliable predictor of the severity of injury," Shaer reported.

Back in my talk show days (returning soon), I did a schtik about visitors from other worlds coming here and never to return: "The dominant life form is possessed of suicidal rituals. Millions of them are addicted to boarding explosive metallic mobile canisters and propelling them toward each other at higher and higher speeds, resulting in mass death and destruction. Recommendation: avoid that primitive planet."

Tell me I'm wrong.

The pandemic just made things worse. I've noticed and so have experts. Seatbelt use is down, drivers are increasingly plowing thru intersections.

"To Dr. Kuhls, it felt as if all the deadly habits that were on such flagrant display during the early months of the pandemic had become normalized," Shaer noted.

"New cars are stronger and less prone to spontaneously explode," he wrote. Alas, today's vehicles are "also taller and heavier. "Pickup trucks have added an average of 1,300 pounds since 1990, while the average full-size SUV now weighs around 5,000 pounds, at least a thousand more than mid-century sedans."

Transportation planner Angie Schmidt called this "the truckification of the family car."

Think heavier means safer? Think again.

"The bigger the vehicle, the less visibility it affords and the more destruction in can wreak," Shaer wrote.

SUVs or vans with a hood height greater than 40 inches, a dominant manufacturing specification, "are 45 percent more likely to kill pedestrians than smaller cars."

Which explains the curious increase in pedestrian and cyclist deaths in these parts.

Combine that with neglected roads, a few beers and pissed off people and you have the recipe for an epidemic.

"If I was to set out to create a situation that would make most people act badly and angrily, I couldn't come up with anything better than driving," said University of Wisconsin psychologist Ryan Martin.

Wise man George Carlin stated it better years ago when he re-defined two words: "A maniac is somebody driving faster than you. An asshole is somebody driving slower than you."

Add cell-phones and other distracted driving and you've got a worldwide recipe for carnage. Guns and cars kill at about the same numbers in today's America. Occasionally, both are involved.

Roundabouts, speed bumps, rumble strips, pedestrian bridges and narrower streets have all been effective at reducing death and dismemberment.

Traffic cameras to bust speeding drivers have also proven effective.

But not in Nevada where drunk or stoned driving is considered a constitutional right. The Silver State Legislature banned enforcement traffic cams years ago.

"A lot of people, a lot of politicians, consider us to be a frontier state with all the liberty that implies," Dr. Kuhls stated.

Critics of a piece like this often rebut these issues as insensitive to the needs of rural Nevada with its long lonely highways where speed limits are basically non-existent.

Nonsense.

The AAA Foundation recently noted that "a motorist's need for speed consistently fails to deliver shorter travel times. It would take driving 100 miles at 80 mph instead of 75 mph to shave just five minutes off the trip."

Tell that to the suicide jockeys on E. Moana Lane.

Drive — and walk — at your own risk.

Be careful out there.

Vaxx up, stay safe, pray for Ukraine and almost 100 other currently war-torn lands.

¡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 55-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!

 

 

 

Portents from the Terminator
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 1-10-2024 / Updated 1-11 & 1-13-2024 GMT/ Expansions in blue

"You know the world is going to hell when the best golfer is black and the best rapper is white." — Charles Barkley, 2003

Last Tuesday's Reno Gazette-Journal front page made me think of that bit of wit from Sir Charles. His pop culture portent has proven all too accurate.

"Pandemic Not Done" the RGJ reported with an article from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

"People who have dodged COVID entirely are in the minority," they noted.

I resemble that remark. Since Friday the 13th of March 2020, I have pretty much limited my life to medical appointments.

Those who must get out and about in the MAGA-infested world are not so lucky. Mask-wearing has become the MAGA equivalent of the scarlet letter "D."

"Repeat infections are common," KFF Health News noted. That's no small thing. Websearch the horror stories of people who have contracted long COVID. If you get it, your life as you have known it may well be over.

I even have a senior friend and regular reader who is needlessly fatalistic and cavalier about the Terminator.

"I have had all my shots and recently, a booster. I am now 80, an age where I might well end up a burden on my kids. Though I think I am fine, to lessen that possibility, I take just about every risk out there. I would like to leave my kids something and I certainly don't want to live on as a vegetable," he noted.

He is still a dynamically productive member of society who continues to do valuable work, employing others and helping the less fortunate, as he has all his life.

He's also a conservative but reasonable Republican (there are a few left). This troubled world needs more like him, not fewer.

Then there's a young relative of mine who has refused to vaccinate his children, both Washoe County School District students. I just don't understand.

I likewise can't fathom how the richest, fattest, most badass country in the world can let its children sicken and starve out in the cold.

The other Tuesday front page headline noted that Las Vegas Democratic Congressmember "Susie Lee and nonprofits discuss growing housing crisis."

They have their work cut out for them, given the competition.

To steal from Sir Charles, you know the world is going to hell when children are sick and hungry and taxpayers are subsidizing BigOil's predations (Google Koch Brothers and "Dark Money" by Naomi Klein).

Oil baron Charles Koch set the template for establishing tax-deductible non-profits as money laundries to funnel freebie money to MAGA Moonhowler causes.

As I noted last week, the cancer is spreading. Non-profits are now channeling tax-deductible money to pay for college level pro-sports athletes, some to the tune $500,000 a year.

Meanwhile outside of the jockocracy, real students go into debt for life to pay for college.

YOU'VE BEEN WARNED. AGAIN. The U.S. is facing the biggest COVID wave since Omicron. Why are we still playing make-believe? By Dr. Eric J. Topol / Los Angeles Times 1-4-2024 Dr. Topol expanded upon the above remarks on the Jan. 12 PBS NewsHour

Enough, dammit!

Get vaccinated so you may live to vote for liberals who have a heart like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.

TIME AND SPACE. There's just never enough, a principal reason the Barbwire live call-in news/talk/rock show will soon return.

I defeated Lush Rambo in this region back in the day and the great issues need a forum wherein no one goes unchallenged.

So, here are short shots which demand attention and will be expanded in the web edition of this column at the flagship of Nevada union activism, NevadaLabor.com/

DARRYL ROBERTS, CALL YOUR OFFICE. My friend Darryl is the award winning producer-director of "America the Beautiful," a film critical of the country's obsession with skinniness and phony beauty standards.

He interviewed former Miss Nevada and future Assembly Majority Leader Teresa Benitez Thompson, D-Reno, and César Chávez NevadaLabor.com Hall of Famer Darlene Jespersen for the film.

He also interviewed me and I vaguely recall ending up on the cutting room floor. He showed the film twice at UNR.

Darryl sounded the alarm on cancer-causing (cue Sylvester the Cat) Phthalates in cosmetics. They replaced lead to make lipstick shiny.

The Killer P's are endocrine disruptors, a class of potent chemicals which interfere with human hormone systems.

They also infest just about every plastic and synthetic from your refrigerator to your eyeglasses and plastic coffee cup.

These gremlins decrease testosterone, which is slumping in human males worldwide.

So get used to less sex.

Word just came out that with bee populations dying off, pansies are learning how to fertilize themselves. Bachelors and batchelorettes beware.

Consumer Reports just issued a blistering indictment of phthalates, finding them all over the food we eat every day.

CESAR CHAVEZ XVIII returns in March. I have made the case to make the late Tribunite and Barbwire and Nevada Press Association Hall of Famer Dennis Myers the first journalist inducted to the NevadaLabor.com César Chávez Hall of Fame, an honor delayed by plague still upon us. Stay tuned.

UNION MUSCLE IN THE TRENCHES. At presstime came news that both the Nevada State AFL-CIO and Railroad Workers United are looking to hire organizers. The rail folks are looking regionally while the AFL-CIO needs someone to work northern Nevada. Full details at NevadaLabor.com/

Contacts: Ron Kaminow at RWU (Call 608-358-5771; deadline is Friday, Jan. 26, 2024). E-mail your résumé to Susie Martinez, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Nevada State AFL-CIO. (AFL-CIO job requirements .pdf)

When labor gears up early, progressives win. When union attention gets diverted, as the late great Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., did awhile back trying to save his senate majority, disaster ensues.

The game's afoot.

EBENEZER SCROOGE LIVES. An initiative petition was just filed by a beneficial non-profit to cap interest rates on payday loan predators. All this got started when the late Gov. William Janklow, R-S. Dakota, got his state's usury (interest rate) law repealed.

That led to Citibank relocating its credit card business to his backwater.

The cancer soon spread to Nevada, where pols always have the red light on. A special legislative session was called, interest rates were allowed to skyrocket, and Citibank located a credit card center in Gomorrah South.

They were so ashamed of having bills and payments addressed in LV that they got a special zip code for "The Lakes, Nevada".

ADDING INSULT TO INJURY DEPT. According to Wikipedia, "Super Bowl LVIII is the upcoming American football championship game of the National Football League for the 2023 season and is scheduled to be played on February 11, 2024, at Allegiant Stadium in Paradise, Nevada."

Paradise Township is another convenient euphemism for bluenoses. The Lakes is also an old township name in Clark County south of the Las Vegas city limits, the area now known more widely by its nickname, the Las Vegas Strip.

BREAKING NEWS UPDATE: Powerful Culinary Union sets Las Vegas hotel strike deadline 1 week before Super Bowl

Vaxx up, stay safe, pray for Ukraine and almost 100 other currently war-torn lands.

¡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 55-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!