Barbwire by Barbano: Bandidos & Ammotextuals

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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   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

Health care bandidos and flaming ammotextuals
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 4-3-2024 / Expansions in blue / Updated 4-4-2024 GMT

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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

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TOP SECRET— HushHush!

Last week, this newspaper performed a true public service with the front page story entitled "Renown Health is a powerhouse in Northern Nevada. Is that a problem?"

The answer of course is not only yes, but hell yes!

Was the article comprehensive and hard-hitting? Alas, no.

Written by one of my old friend Jon Ralston's journalists, Tabitha Mueller of the Nevada Independent online service, I wondered how my old friend and Tribune colleague in columny Jake Highton would have graded it.

Prof. Highton's University of Nevada-Reno journalism classes were the toughest on campus. No grading on the curve. If you scored a C-plus on a project, that was a victory. B and A were as rare as Trump accuracy.

The late Jake's minions are spread far and wide. I published many of their comments when he died. (See the Barbwire Molly Ivins Memorial Columniators Hall of Flames at NevadaLabor.com/)

ALL, and I mean all, praised the old prof for being such a tough old sumbitch, the world's hardest taskmaster who produced great journalists.

In Jake's absence, I will assign a letter grade to Ms. Mueller's magnum opus: C.

Pretty good journalism, but an F in Google.

Renown spun its wonderfulness to Ms. Mueller as a benevolent non-profit. She developed the statistics to prove Renown a de facto monopoly without coming out and calling it one. Objective to a fault.

She printed that non-profit Renown barely covers expenses. While paying its top dogs multi-million dollar salaries.

I have worked on this issue since before Ms. Mueller was born. NevadaLabor.com has always been the ONLY source on the entire freakin' Internet to publish the 1995 Washoe County Grand Jury report on how a handful of greedy county hospital executives stole a solvent county hospital.

They used a Trumpian big lie, clever PR, three dumb and/or crooked county commissioners and a corrupt future judge to steal an asset worth about $120 million for...gulp...three, that's THREE, $3 million.

The big lie was a false alarm that paying for indigent care would soon bankrupt Washoe County. They selflessly offered to form a "non-profit" and kindly take this white elephant off the county's back. They would also lower health care costs and pay for ALL — yes, all — indigent care in perpetuity.

To this day, Washoe County hands a big check monthly to Renown for indigent care. Instead of cutting costs, they took the profits-without-a-name and devoted them to building an increasingly rapacious and expensive empire.

The corrupt future judge, the late Ed Dannon, took the honest district attorney's office lawyer drafting the final contract off the case. Dannon then removed the indigent care requirement from the contract.

The Renown octopus has engaged in monopolistic and anti-competitive practices. They try to sign doctors to non-competes to further pull the ladder up behind them. A group of surgeons kicked their asses in court a few years ago, but the contractual roulette continues.

The re-named Renown is indeed renowned and my candidate as poster child for everything wrong with the murderous and morally obtuse U.S. health care dinosaur.

Don't take my word for it. Read the grand jury report for yourself, only at NevadaLabor.com/

[UPDATE] READER REACTION [2]

MEA CULPA DEPT. Awhile back, I moved a small item that Renown and the UNR med school had split. I was wrongly informed. Get out the wet noodles.

LATE IN LIFE, IMMORTALITY. I thought I was onto something when I started using the nickname Quarantino to describe my anti-social and thus far Covid-free lifestyle. I have continued the monicker in order to constantly remind people that the Terminator still stalks and mutates.

Alas, my first websearch for the Q-word returned something like 188,000 hits.

In search of eternity, I decided to hit "ammotextual," my term for the six billygoats gruff on the U.S. Extreme Court.

Nada. I may have actually invented a totally new word, a personal contribution to the ever-evolving and messy lexicon of American English.

What's an ammotextual? A judge who worships at the cult of the gun and believes that anything non-existent in 1789 is unconstitutional.

So much for Social Security, Medicare, the FDA, the EPA and the U.S. Air Force.

It's the cowboy way. Yahoo.

OUT OF THE CLOSET. I have long been retained by some of the most prestigious PR accounts in the country. I have proven so good at it that no one has ever figured out who was calling the shots.

You've never heard of the National Liver Advisory Board, right? It's an organization devoted to promotion of the nutritional benefits and palatability of all types of liver. I was retained after marketing suffered a serious blow when Dr. Hannibal Lecter won an Oscar.

I am also the longtime PR consultant to the National Tort Feasors Assn. Without tort feasors, all those ambulance chasers you see advertising would be out of business. As would some TV stations and ad agencies.

But my biggie is the granddaddy of them all, the largest trade association in the world — into which I have just inducted a Sparks company. Here's my letter of congratulation:

"Dear (name redacted): Your conduct this day motivates me to inform you that I have the distinct privilege and high honor of inducting you into the nation's largest professional organization: The U.S. Professional Crastinators Alliance.

"No amateur crastinators ever allowed.

"As founder and CEO, I offer my personal congratulations. And nothing else.

"We have no dues, conduct no meetings, seminars or elections.

"Our members are too busy worrying about what they didn't worry about yesterday.

"You have proven by your exemplary conduct on this day that you are worthy of carrying forward our creed: Procrastination means never having to say you're sorry.

"You and your company scored a major discount that could not have happened any day other than today. Crunch time. Drop-dead deadline.

"If you want to induct your superiors, I authorize you do do so whenever. I won't get to it for awhile.

"What happened represents seminal evidence that professional crastinators know how to get things done. Eventually.

"Deadlines are for wimps. (Just ask an unbroken line of Sparks Tribune editors about the Barbwire).

"Very truly yours, Andrew Quarantino.

"ps: I will mail a signed copy whenever I get around to looking for stamps and an envelope."

¡Sí se puede!

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

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.

[2] READER COMMENT: Great article on Renown. My retired doctor did not like them at all. They basically kicked him out of the office he had been in for over 20 years because they wanted only Renown doctors in the building across from the hospital. When it became apparent that most independent doctors would have to join one of the hospital organizations, my doctor stated that he didn't want to join Renown because several of his friends had and they hated it.

How Renown stole our county hospital
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno
Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 3-16-2022

Breaking News —> Masks work!

Earthquakes and 2x4's
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 3-27-2024
Expansions in blue / Updated 3-28 & 4-3-2024 GMT

This week, the PBS News Hour reported on the again increasing rate of child poverty in the biggest, fattest, most badass country the world has ever known.

Child poverty dropped to record lows, as did the disparity between racial groups, thanks to Biden's 2021 legislation. Like many good things, it's been allowed to die. Children and families will die as a result.

The moonhowler House of Misrepresentatives actually passed a watered down version of the child tax credit program but it's just sitting in the Democratic Senate.

Low-tax/high cost-of-living states do the worst for their kids. Sound familiar? Look in the mirror.

Maybe Sen. Catherine Cortez-Masto can address the situation when she speaks in Reno April 5 at the sold-out César Chávez Celebration XVIII. [1]

Meanwhile, the Washoe County School District has announced serious cutbacks on childrens' summer meal programs.

Kids only need to eat when school's in session, right?

Many states have passed laws to help struggling families now that the feds are stuck in wet diapers. Alas and alack, Nevada is a lonely island among western states.

We haven't done a damned thing.

All this again raises the eternal question: What is the cost of NOT spending. Youngsters can't learn if they're hungry. Better educated students grow up to be more productive members of society and return education investment a thousandfold — including paying higher taxes.

America is like a dumb jock or recalcitrant jackass — critters who only learn when they've been rapped upside the head by a 2x4.

But give us a disaster and boy do we shine. Eventually. It took not one but two major Gomorrah South fatal high rise fires before the gambling-industrial complex would let state lawmakers consider Sen. Joe Neal's, D-NLV, toughest-in-the-nation mandatory sprinkler bill. It passed, then the gamblers figured out a way to stick Nevada taxpayers with the bill.

When the Orange Crusher ran the White House Real Estate office, only people dropping like flies by the thousands impelled him to do something.

Nonetheless, he still prescribed drinking fish tank cleaner or chlorine bleach until warm weather would cheaply eliminate the plague. Whatta guy.

In the dimbulb light of all of above came Reno Gazette-Journal editor Brett McGinness' brilliant piece entitled "Reno hasn't has a 6.0 quake in 110 years."

I had a 4.6 near my house in 2008 and I've never gotten over it.

Guess what! There is actually something called the U.S. Geological Survey Shakealert system. California, Oregon and Washington participate. Nevada monitoring stations feed info to the USGS but extra money would be needed to expand and implement the warning system to these parts.

Hungry kids. Less protection against earthquakes. When we get a major temblor that knocks down a couple hotels, maybe then we'll do the usual. After a bunch of bodies have been removed from the rubble. And after the plantation overlords devise a way to make you and me pay for their moral obtuseness.

THE JOKE I DARED NOT PRINT. Not long after the start of the Gaza War, I wrote an ad for a new high rise luxury condo on cheap balmy beachfront Mediterranean property. The BibiHamas Towers would be immunized against missile and artillery attacks because they would be jointly owned by Israel and Iran. I never developed the item because all that death and destruction are not fair game for satire.

Until...the fake news New York Times reported on Israeli real estate developers hosting shows in New Jersey and Toronto offering choice investment opportunities in the Holy Land. Complete with protestors, of course.

I'm on the mailing list of evangelicals promoting tours of Israel even in wartime. US fundamentalists are Israel's most solid tourist base, supporting the country in anticipation of the prophecy of Armageddon being fulfilled.

We're getting close.

DINOSAUR ALERT. If RINO means "Republican In Name Only," why can't Democrats have DINOs? I know more than a few Donkeyite dinosaurs. Like Sen. Joe Manchin, D-CoalMillions.

Manchin singlehandedly killed help for children in a tight senate vote. DINO Joe thus dons the dirty jacket.

After all, dinosaurs eventually morph into lumps of coal for hungry children's Christmas stockings.

A RACIST CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL? That's an oxymoron, right? Wrong. Coach Sara Schopper-Ramirez was fired 20 days after winning the state 4A girls basketball title. The former Sparks Reed High state championship coach says administrators pressured her to give white girls on the team more minutes.

Manogue's president has since taken leave and the athletic director quit. The best coverage so far has come from former RGJ sportswriter Chris Murray who broke the story for the Sinclair TV outfit. (Channels 4, 11 and 21) It will be linked to the expanded online edition of this column at NevadaLabor.com/

I've been on the inside of meetings with Washoe County School District officials and families victimized by rampant racism.

One official told me he has to handle a torrent of complaints, most of which never get media attention. And many which are summarily dismissed and/or ignored.

Manogue is a private school, so I surmise that Coach Schopper-Ramirez does not enjoy union representation.

Murray reported that the coach is planning legal action. Good. Manogue can afford the hush money but they can't unbreak the egg on their sanctimonious faces.

SPEAKING OF EGGS. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) wants President Biden to substitute potatoes for eggs at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll.

I appreciate PETA's complaints about agribusiness treatment of chickens, but potatoes are not symbols of renewal. Easter is the Christian adaptation of ubiquitous pagan vernal equinox rituals.

In Peru, the springtime goddess of fertility became the Blessed Virgin Mary after Spaniards invaded.

Sir David Attenborough named the simple egg as the most magnificent of nature's creations in one of his ecological documentaries. I cannot disagree with the great naturalist.

BARBWIRE CONFIDENTIAL. Sen. Cortez-Masto may not be the only big gun at the César event. I'm working on an even bigger one. Stay tuned.

[1] UPDATE P.M. 4-2-2024 — Sen. Cortez-Masto cancelled, past deadline for the 4-3-2024 Tribune.

¡Sí se puede!

Breaking News —> Masks work!

Rape means never having to say you're sorry
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 3-20-2024
Expansions in blue / Updated 3-24-2024 GMT

Such is the attitude of American malehood's favorite band, T-Rump and the Supremes. It's hard to choose the most ludicrously lewd among the too live crew of all those ammotextuals. You know them, the true believers who rule that anything non-existent in 1789 is unconstitutional.

Thus presages the demise of Social Security, Medicare and U.S. Air Force.

MAGA moonhowlers are already in Mitch the Ditch's court system trying to "prove" that just about anything but tariffs and the army are not the purview of the federal government.

I took serious heat for saying that the appointment of Neil Gorsuch would become Poison Annie's Revenge (Barbwire, 2-7-17 & 7-6-2022).

Neil's mom, Anne Gorsuch Burford, was appointed by King Ronald the Vague to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and destroy it from within. One of her aides went to prison for perjury. Annie resigned in disgrace.

Sure enough, no less than Justice Gorsuch hisself wrote the majority decision gutting environmental protection.

Sometimes I hate it when I'm right.

When T-Rump nominated beer-buster Brett Kavanaugh to join the Supreme Court kegger, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford had the temerity to publicly call him out for trying to rape her back in high school.

It was Clarence the Menace vs. Anita Hill part deux.

Spineless Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, refused to make eye contact with Dr. Ford during her testimony. You remember him, right?

Like Mitch the Ditch, he accused Trump of treason for Jan. 6 and now kisses T-Rump's tush.

The good ole boys even called in an independent killer lawyer to grill Dr. Ford because they didn't want to be caught on camera as were the retros of Clarence's day.

Dr. Ford and her family had to go into hiding and were under threat for years. Kavanaugh's defense about the incident was basically "I like beer."

The law was on his side. There's nothing in that there 1789 Constitution thing about sexual assault. (See "50 shades of rape", Barbwire 10-3-2018).

Dr. Blasey Ford just published a memoir of her traumas, "One Way Back." She received more than 100,000 letters of support from all 50 states and 47 countries. A huge number were from other survivors. Speaking of which...

TURNABOUT IS FAIR PLAY. Czar T-Rump forced his way into E. Jean Carroll's pants. (It was in a dressing room, so what's the problem. right?) Now, she's getting into his pants where it hurts him most. His wallet, for over $83 million. He actually found the P.T. Barnum Insurance Company to post his bail for $91 million so he could appeal.

Ms. Carroll's not the only one who finds the Orange Crusher's expandos so attractive. Alas, he can't find any turkey to guarantee the $464 million he owes the State of New York for fraud and other minor infractions.

But T-Rump never takes anything lying down. He's bringing back ex-con Paul Manafort to run his campaign of revenge and redemption. You know, the big fund raising promotion to sell tennis shoes and glom millions for his legal fees. Too bad Brett Kavanaugh is otherwise engaged.

MORE INSTITUTIONAL SEXUAL VIOLATION. Gambia, arguably the jumping off point of many and perhaps most of the slave ships carrying Africans to the "new" world, is going back to the future. They want to be the first to repeal their largely unenforced ban on female genital mutilation. Well, there's nothing about genital cutting in our Constitution.

PROMOTION AND DEMOTION. The Reno Gazette-Journal demoted non-partisan Marsy Kupfersmith to the Republican Party. In its Sunday, March 17 print edition listing of county commission candidates, the Sparks senior citizen advocate was listed among GOP hopefuls.

That's a correctable offense. But what is appointed incumbent Clara Andriola to do? "Andriola ousted from Washoe County GOP," the paper headlined on Feb. 1.

But the moonhowlers can't do that. They had no power to invalidate her party registration, so ousted from what? The party hierarchy recruited one of their own to "primary" Andriola in June.

Meanwhile, the non-partisan Mrs. Kupfersmith automatically advances to the November ballot. The RGJ has not printed corrections.

MYTHOLOGICAL MEDICAL COST CONTROL. The former Sparks Family Hospital, long ago renamed Northern Nevada Medical Center, just opened an emergency room in southeast Reno. It joins two others around the little Valley of the Mucky Truckee in Spanish Springs and northwest Reno. The latter will soon be joined by a "specialty care hospital."

NNMC also recently opened another full-service hospital in the shadow of Rattlesnake Mountain in the southeast.

The new ER includes all kinds of the latest electronic gadgets. Given the corporate welfare-fueled population explosion of this little town, it's probably all well and good. Except no one's watching the store.

Sparks Family Hospital was approved by state regulators thru political juice in the 1980s. (See "How Renown stole our county hospital," Barbwire 3-16-2022) So let's take...

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

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

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

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

The Nevada Legislature passed AB289 in 1987 in another attempt to reduce costs.

A report to the 2005 legislative session showed it worked. Lawmakers paid off campaign contributions by killing that, too.

Early on, Sparks Family tried to go into the profitable Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) business. State regulators said it would do nothing but increase health care costs because the population of this valley in the mid-1980s would not support another expensive diagnostic toy. The capital costs of buying a system are so high that, when combined with reduced per-location demand thanks to the Sparks newbie, it would force everyone to raise prices to cover their fixed capital costs. It's like a mortgage or rent or car loan. Monthly payments don't go down just because you happen to be working fewer hours.

So the hospital formed a group of doctors to invest in an MRI center connected to the hospital next door.

I'm not arguing the need for such new facilities today.

I just remember the words of consumer advocate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA: "Capitalism without regulation is tyranny."

Breaking News —> Masks work!

Be careful what you wish for
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 3-13-2024 / Expansions in blue

"The world is in an uproar. The danger zone is everywhere."— Ray Charles 1961

With McConnell and Czar T-Rump's madcap judges afflicting and infecting the land, moonhowler corporate America is pulling out all the stops to take advantage while they can.

As usual, the prime target is people's paychecks. One Confederate blackrobe in Texas just stepped back from the razor wire long enough to make it a lot harder for unions to organize workers at McDonald's.

Nevada's world champion corporate welfare queen Elon Musk has joined some of his fellow predators in an attempt to destroy any federal regulation of the workplace. Musk's spaced out SpaceX, Amazon, Starbucks and Trader Joe's are trying to get the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) declared unconstitutional.

They know that T-Rump's favorite rap group, Clarence and the Supremes, feel anything that didn't exist before 1789 is automatically unconstitutional.

So much for Social Security, Medicare and the United States Air Force.

Baron Elon and his hucksters may think they're doing something innovative. Have I got news for them.

Decades ago during the reign of King Ronald the Vague, the best Nevada labor leader I ever knew noted that some union leaders thought Reagan had perverted the NLRB so grotesquely that it SHOULD be eliminated.

Later Republican presidents have followed President Pomade's lead and turned the body charged with protecting workers' rights into labor's enemy.

Following the perverted psychological projectionism of their Orange Crusher, today's corporate royals accuse Biden's NLRB appointees of (gasp!) opposing their dictates. You will probably hear the same thing if Biden's new appointments to the postal board of governors get rid of T-Rump's hitman charged with destroying the system in order to make a case for privatizing it for corporate profit. Even UPS and FedEx might object, as they are the US Postal Service's largest customers.

Assassinating voting by mail is just one byproduct of the campaign. Anything that makes it easier for citizens to vote is anathema in the house of MarALoco.

I'll talk to union leaders about the idea of eliminating the NLRB but it may be a good idea. Right now, any business that doesn't want its workers to unionize can prevent it.

All it takes is tons of money destroying the lives of workers who dare.

There's no real penalty for firing pro-union employees and the NLRB can't fine companies so much as a dollar for breaking the law.

Since Reagan fired all the members of the only union that supported him, the air traffic controllers in 1981, union-busting law firms have spouted like weeds near a sewage treatment plant. We've got some of them in these parts.

The eminent Guardian of London/UK just published a long article headlining that Musk and his fellow travelers are trying to "return labor to the law of the jungle."

The estimable journalist Steven Greenhouse never bothered to speak with any union leaders.

The NLRB was passed in 1935 on Franklin Roosevelt's watch. Unions were already running wild organizing the oppressed during the Great Depression.

The NLRB was successful for 12 whole years until Republicans in Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act over President Truman's veto in 1947.

Unions in Canada today have about the same percentage in the workforce as right after WW2, about one in three.

In the U.S., despite all the union strikes last year, union membership continued to fall to where it's now less than one in ten.

Presidents Clinton, Obama and Biden all promised to make union organizing easier rather than today's elongated, convoluted legal maze. All failed.

So let's try going back to the future of the wild wild west.

The Supremes like empowering states, and there is a current majority of blue and purple states that could finally do something against the overlords who have given us the most repressive labor laws and worst health care in the industrialized world.

The above scorched earth campaign against workers' wages may well prove the old axiom: Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

CESAR CHAVEZ CELEBRATION XVIII happens April 5 at Circus Circus Reno. See CesarChavezNevada.com/

INSIDE POLITICS: This week, non-partisan Marcy Kupfersmith will declare her candidacy for Clara Andriola's District 4 seat on the Washoe County Commission. ,Mrs. Kupfersmith will take leave from chairing the Sparks Senior Citizens Advisory Committee which she helped form in 2018.

The district covers Sparks from downtown east to the county line and northward to Spanish Springs, Lemmon, Sun and Palomino valleys, Warm Springs and Pyramid Lake.

Voter registration is basically split three ways between the two major parties and non-partisans, which makes it anybody's game.

Republican Andriola was appointed to serve after Commissioner Vaughn Hartung resigned to take a post with state government.

I've known Marsy for many years and I know one thing: She will very probably be outspent but she will never be out-worked.

4TH ANNIVERSARY. I began my Covid quarantine on Friday the 13th of March, 2020. I've had all my vaxxes and I'm still here, unlike many good souls who thought that the Terminator had been vanquished.

FACEBOOK REVERSE CHAUVINISM. I recently posted that the last best hope organic life has on this tiny orb is for women to at long last finally take the reins of power.

Males have proven genetically incapable of not starting shooting wars.

So I guess I've endorsed democratic discrimination against men, even if we continue our manic servitude to tribalism — as long as women run the tribes.

And yes, "democratic discrimination" is a new oxymoron.

GOVS. ABBOTT AND DESATANIST, CALL YOUR CENSORS. Top gun Reno lawyer Mark Mausert recently posted his Facebook page with this bit of wisdom from the great ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus: "Day by day, what you choose, what you think, and what you do is who you become."

To which I rudely responded: "Heraclitus has been banned in Texas and Florida because they think it's the title of a dirty movie."

Breaking News —> Masks work!

Jinxed Jacobs Juice Job Joylessly Junked
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 3-6-2024

BLACKLASH in Trumpsylvania West
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 2-28-2024

Just win, baby
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 2-21-2024
"The only crime is getting caught."

Taylor triumphs, T-Rump teed off
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 2-14-2024 / Updated 2-15-2024 GMT

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

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

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

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

* 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 three faces 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.

Control freaks and crackerjacks
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 1-3-2024

Hope you and yours enjoyed Happy High Holly Days
Christmas/Kwanzaa/Solstice/Festivus/Chanukah/Thanksgibleting
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Frohe Weihnachten und beste Wuensche fuer 2024\

Betty J. Barbano
2-7-1941 / 12-27-2005
Remember her laughter

Larry Barbano, Frater Mei
1947-2023

T-Rump raps America
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Donald Trump's campaign goes hip-hop

An eye for an eye
A tooth for a tooth
Vote for me
and I'll set you free.
Rap on, brother, rap on
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The greatest movie never made
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 12-20-2023

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Why the science is clear that masks work
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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

Wasting workers where everybody knows your name
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 10-18-2023

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Andrew Barbano is a 55-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and SenJoeNeal.org; and former chair of the City of Reno's Citizens Cable Compliance Committee. He was the longtime executive producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration and has been a quarter-century member and 10-year officer 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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