 |
 Barbwire Archives |
Postmortems, creepy factotems & revolting developments
Expanded from the 11-7-2010 Daily Sparks Tribune
Updated 11-16-2010 and 3-1-2016
HAT TRICK: Barbwire wins third straight Nevada Press Association first-place award
COMING SOON: The new season of Barbwire TV. The first show will be about (what else?) jobs. The lack of them is well documented. How we've blown them and where they can be regenerated, that's something else. I guarantee you'll get mad enough to want to get even. Watch NevadaLabor.com for show times. Help us get the word out.
Support the project at http://resurge.tv#donate
SUING FOR SCHOOLS: Click here to view the show on your desktop
If Reform Fails: Health Care, Jobs and Unions — new power to the people on the public airwaves
The program premiers were available to every television set in the region because of a high-mileage media hybrid.
The shows appeared on both commercial and community stations. The non-corporate entity produced the events, commercial TV greatly expanded distribution.
Thus began an ongoing series of sane public interest programs which generate both entertaining heat and more than a little light.
Please spread the word and consider contributing to the cause online at ReSurge.TV.
You may also take the public option known as the U.S. Postal Service and send a check or money order to ReSurge.TV, P.O. Box 10034, Reno NV 89510.
Your contribution will help fund the distribution of the Dec. 6 and Feb. 21 programs as well as ongoing efforts at developing new media, including a regional, non-corporate community radio station.
You are present at the creation of what I hope can become a new media model where the programming accurately reflects what's happening on the ground and the media impact is powerful enough to forcefully pass the message upward.
Thanks.
Be well. Raise hell.
Andrew
Click here for on-demand re-runs
from the 2009 legislative sessionBarbwire.TV:
15-year overnight success
Daily Sparks Tribune 2-10-2008The Barbwire's Greatest Hits
Highlights from radio days
mp3 file
HAT TRICK: Barbwire wins 3rd straight Nevada Press Association First-Place Award
Country music legend Eddy Arnold was once cornered by adoring fans at the Sahara Las Vegas.
He patiently signed autographs for quite awhile, but finally had to excuse himself.
A woman chastised him for daring to walk away from his fans. He leaned over and whispered in her ear.
"Lady, I'm old, I'm rich and I don't have to give a damn."
Which was pretty much what Bill Raggio told his fellow Republicans who defrocked him as state senate minority leader.As I noted months ago, the election of Republican Brian Sandoval would make Raggio de facto governor of Nevada. The governor-elect is an employee of Raggio's law firm and perception is power.
Raggio even turned down an offer from his successor, Sen. Mike McGinness, R-Fallon, to maintain a seat on the powerful finance committee.
Raggio effectively controls two branches of state government, even as a backbencher. He ran circles around freshman majority leader Steven Horsford, D-N. Las Vegas, last session. Now, he doesn't have to deal with tedious budget hearings or anything more complicated than telling his handsome surrogate in the governor's mansion what to veto.
Raggio probably could have marshalled four votes: his own and those of Sens. Barbara Cegavske, R-Gomorrah South, Dean Rhoads, R-Tuscarora and freshman Ben Kieckhefer, R-Reno. That Cegavske got the assistant leader spot speaks volumes.
DIRTY COMMIE LIBERAL MEDIA BIAS DEPT. The pathologically Sharron Angle-boosting Las Vegas Review-Journal peppered cyberspace with news flash headlines every few minutes on election night. They only ignored one: Sen. Harry Reid's victory. At 12:57 a.m., almost four hours after the result was known, came "Angle focuses on positive in loss." She, fellow moonhowler Christine O'Donnell, defeated for the senate in Delaware, and the RJ remain in serious denial.ZOWIE ZINGERS DEPT. Best political insults of the season: Sharron Angle is a "batshit crazy church lady" according to Digger, a contributor to the estimable Hugh Jackson's Las Vegas Gleaner blog. A guy named Rich one-upped Digger by insulting her whole cult, terming her a "batshit crazy teatard."
CLINGING TO THE LEDGE. The freshman class of 2011 includes a Nevada version of defeated Delaware Teatard Christine O'Donnell, an overt racist and a guy who is probably going to be busted on criminal charges in the not too distant future.God, I love Nevada follytix.
REID REDUX. Much has been made of minorities and women heavily supporting the re-election of U.S. Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. I haven't been able to find any postmortems paying attention to Mormons.Former Tribune reporter and columnist Dennis Myers has produced by far the best commentary on this year's senate race. His Reno News & Review editorial Defeat Angle provided superb insight into the GOP challenger's lack of qualification for high office.
His cover article First Amendment vs. First Commandment was so good that the reportage was picked up nationwide and went viral on the web. I was reliably informed that it galvanized the southern Nevada Mormon community for Reid, a Mormon who has received criticism for not being conservative enough by his fellow congregants.
LDS adherents make up about seven percent of Nevada's population according to the church and did not take kindly to being called a cult, and that was among the milder insults which Angle's Reno pastor hurled.
It also didn't help when she told Dennis she had not been a member of the church for six years, which proved false.
WOULDA COULDA SHOULDA DEPT. Dems that coulda been saved: Jessica Sferrazza vs. Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki, Roger Whomes vs. D.A. Dick Gammick, Allison Edwards v. Sen. Don Gustavson.And the luckless guy who ran against the winner who's going to get busted.
REVOLUTION, PART DEUX. I got serious heat from local PBS types for seeking unstated motives in the cancellation of Bill Moyers' Journal and for stating he was cancelled rather than left voluntarily.I apologize for using the term, but the fact remains that Moyers is gone. At the same time, PBS also cancelled David Brancaccio's half-hour version of Moyers' previous program, Now. Which means that the network is doing 30 minutes less investigative journalism with much lower profile anchors. Perhaps they know which side of the bread their butter is on. [UPDATE: TV or not TV — Oscar blackouts and PBS blacklists, BARBWIRE 3-1-2016]
Strange parallels, predictions & predilections of elections
Republican implosion forecast a decade ago / 10-24-2010
Downticket Dems worried
10-17-2010Reid in '52 or Angle in '72?
10-10-2010Calvin Coolidge and prairie dog stew / 9-26-2010
Rory, Rory quite contrary
9-19-20101982 — Chickens, Chicky Baby and My Sharrona / 9-12-2010
Gov. Raggio: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss / 4-25-2010
Warnings of worldwide depression / 5-29-2005
Las Vegas Sun writer Patrick Coolican noted that Sen. Reid was re-elected by the Nevada establishment.
Which is how you might look at the "suspension" of the face of MSNBC, Keith Olbermann, for donating $2,400 to each of three Democratic candidates. He was cancel...er, axed...er, hung out to dry (that's kind like "suspended" from suspenders, ain't it?) for not informing his bosses.
Speech delivered at Boston University on 29 Oct. 2010, part of the Howard Zinn Lecture SeriesI've been smelling this one for awhile. Cable giant Comcast (which has long lusted after the northwestern Nevada market) is buying control of NBC/Universal from GE.
What better way to make the acquisition more palatable to Wall Street and the newly energized moonhowlers of the GOP than to fire the most high profile liberal on TV?
"Don’t be surprised if Comcast arranges to sell the NBC broadcast network and its TV stations to a third party after announcing plans to buy controlling ownership of NBC Universal as early as this week," reported the CBS-online service BNET on (hmmmm...) election day.The Federal Communications Commission will have a lot of say about the deal. Currying the commodity called clout in the capitol can't hurt.
COMING SOON: The new season of Barbwire TV.
The first show will be about (what else?) jobs.The lack of them is well documented.
How we've blown them and where they can be regenerated, that's something else.
I guarantee you'll get mad enough to want to get even.
Help us get the word out and watch NevadaLabor.com for show times.
You may support the project via http://resurge.tv#donate
Remember, the 2011 Nevada legislative session is just around the corner.
I already have a working title for it: Cruel and Unusual Punishment.
Be well. Raise hell.
______
Andrew Barbano is a 41-year Nevadan, chair of the Nevada César Chávez Committee, producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration, second vice-president and political action chair of the Reno-Sparks NAACP, labor/consumer/civil rights advocate, member of Communications Workers of America Local 9413/AFL-CIO and editor of NevadaLabor.com. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. Check local listings for other Nevada cable systems. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Daily Sparks Tribune since 1988.
Nevada Press Assn. annual award winners announced on Sept. 18, 2010.
HAT TRICK: Barbwire takes first place for third year in a row.
Next year, we go for the sombrero.The winning entries:
Suing for Schools: The 20-year shuck
Expanded from the 2-21-2010 Daily Sparks Tribune
Click here to view the show on your desktopRED flags flying low over Sparks
Expanded from the 1-10-2010 Daily Sparks TribuneThe wrath of self-righteous racism
Expanded from the 11-8-2009 Daily Sparks Tribune
And they wonder why the newspaper business is dying?
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
The 2009 first-place Nevada Press Association award winners
Tony the Tiger & the flaky NFL
Barbwire / 11-30-2008
Deregulation is never having to say you're sorry
Barbwire / 8-3-2008
Nevada: A good place to visit, but do you want to live here?
Barbwire / 6-15-2008
The price of a piece / 6-17-2007
Boxing Pandora /9-23-2007
The Lady in the Red Dress
10-28-2007
Barbwire Corporate Welfare Archive
Cabellyup.com
TOLJASO LONG TIME AGO
BP/ARCO: The greasy root of our evils
Barbwire / Daily Sparks Tribune 9-10-2006
The awful truth — Read it and weep, fellow suckersLabor Day 2009: Rise of the Vampire Corpobots
Expanded from the 9-6-2009 Daily Sparks TribuneAngry Americans and Freudian fraud
Using war to market cigarettes
Expanded from the 8-23-2009 Daily Sparks TribuneBARBWIRE Nevada Corporate Welfare Archive
Propaganda fuels gasoline price fixing
Barbwire 8-14-2005Donate to the cable ratepayer legal defense fund at our PayPal-enabled ReSurge.TV Consumer War Room
Phillips, Kevin; Numbers Racket: Why the economy is worse than we know
Harper's Magazine; May 2008; page 43
Phillips has authored numerous books on history and politics over the past 40 years. His most recent, Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism, was published by Viking on April 15, 2008.NAOMI WOLF: Fascist America in 10 Easy Steps
There are some things common to every state that's made the transition to fascism. Author Naomi Wolf argues that all of them are present in America today.
Alternet 5-20-2007Johnson, Chalmers; REPUBLIC OR EMPIRE? A National Intelligence Estimate on the United States; Harper's magazine; January, 2007. I love it when heavy hitters validate what I've been saying for years in the tiny Sparks Tribune.
Barlett, Donald L. and Steele, James B.; America: What Went Wrong? (1992); America: Who Really Pays the Taxes? (1994); America: Who Stole the Dream? (1996) ; Andrews & McMeel/Universal Press Syndicate.
Review of Alex Carey's Taking the Risk Out of Democracy:
Propaganda in the US and AustraliaThe Orwell Diversion by Alex Carey
Excerpted from the book available below
ORDER Taking the Risk Out of Democracy
Corporate Propaganda versus Freedom and Liberty
By Alex Carey
Edited by Andrew Lohrey
Foreword by Noam Chomsky
University of Illinois Press
SEE ALSO: Lapham, Lewis H.; Tentacles of Rage: The Republican Propaganda Mill, A Brief History; Harper's Magazine cover article; September, 2004, page 32.
By one conservative estimate, the corporate right has spent about $3 billion over the past three decades manufacturing public opinion to suit big business goals. Lapham's number covered the early 1970's to the present day. Alex Carey noted that by 1948, anti- New Deal corporate propaganda expenditures had already reached $100 million per year, not adjusted for inflation, for advertising alone. (Carey, ibid; page 79)
Adjusted for inflation, that 1948 $100 million becomes $801,659,751.04 in 2005 dollars.
Conservatives Help Wal-Mart, and Vice Versa
As Wal-Mart struggles to rebut growing criticism, it has discovered a reliable ally: conservative research groups.
New York Times 9-8-2006; Free registration may be required.BARBWIRE: Labor Day '94: People vs. corporate con job, 9-4-94
Chilling forecasts from Alex CareyBARBWIRE: The Nevada Republican Party Becomes Communist, 3-30-97
A prescient Plato on the dangers of oligarchyThe sands of time do not cloud the long memories of the sheiks of Araby
Barbwire 9-10-2006
Rinfret, Pierre A.; Peace is Bullish; Look magazine, 5-31-1966
Copyright © 1982-2010
Andrew Barbano
Andrew Barbano is a 41-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and JoeNeal.org; and former chair of the City of Reno's Citizens Cable Compliance Committee, He is producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration and serves as second vice-president, political action chair and webmaster of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us.
Barbwire by Barbano premiered in the Daily Sparks (Nev.) Tribune on Aug. 12, 1988, and has originated in those parts ever since. Tempus fugit.
Site composed and maintained by Deciding Factors, CWA 9413 signatory
Comments and suggestions appreciated. Sign up for news and bulletins