BARBWIRE
by
ANDREW BARBANO
Pirate Laureate of the High Desert Outback of the American Dream


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SITE NAVIGATION TIPS: When all else fails, read the instructions (A favorite John Hanks aphorism I've been using for decades)

Je Suis Charlie
"Our republic and its press will rise or fall together." — Joseph Pulitzer

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"Media is the plural of mediocre."
— Jimmy Breslin (1928-2017)

¡Viva Chávez!
César Chávez Celebration XVI / Celebración de César Chávez XVI
Saturday 31 March 2018
/ Sabado 31 de Marzo 2018

Circus Circus Reno / Doors open 5:30, Dinner 7:00 p.m.
Sponsorship, table and ticket information

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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.


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


From the den of iniquity to the holy of holies
Barbwire by Andres Luis Barbáno / Expanded from the 3-28-2018 Sparks Tribune / 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

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8 the hard way!
Barbwire wins 8th Nevada Press Association award

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

We Don't Need No Education—> Neverending Barbwire Series

1997 Pulitzer Prize entries

Barbwire.TV
Watch NevadaLabor.com for show times.
Help us get the word out.

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SUING FOR SCHOOLS
Reruns on Carson-Dayton 226

Additional programs
on Boulder City cable. Go to bcnv.org and then
go to the BCTV link.

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 as well as ongoing efforts at developing new media, including a regional, non-corporate community radio station and the return of community television to Reno-Sparks-Washoe.

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 selected on-demand re-runs from the Barbwire.TV archives

Barbwire.TV:
15-year overnight success

Daily Sparks Tribune 2-10-2008

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CHARLIE SHEEN FOR PRESIDENT. Now that we've got a real-life libertine in the White House, it's time for CBS to bring back "Two-and-a-Half Men."

Hey, if "Dallas" and "Roseanne" can revive killed-off characters, anything goes.

Donald Trump is nothing if not a mush of father fixations trying to prove worthiness to an abusive dad. Charlie Sheen's actual dad, played a righteous president in "The West Wing," so why not have Martin's son play a promiscuous president? The symmetry is perfect and the babes will look great.

In the sequel, Charlie could play a wealthy Budweiser distributor who became famous on TV for surrounding himself with comely Bud girls while riding a beer wagon pulled by huge Clydesdale horses and shooting his AK-47 into the air.

Clompers and prancers, hooves and hooters in the Charlie Harper White House — What's not to like? Harvey Weinstein is looking for work. Call him. Speaking of phone numbers...

WARMONGER/PIECEMONGER — The vaunted Tribune/Barbwire investigative team has spared every expense, as usual, to determine why John Bolton hustled himself as national security advisor to Czar Donaldov. The awful truth: He of the albino mustachio figured that the only way he could get Stormy Daniels' phone number would be to make her a threat to national security.

BACK TO DIS-REALITY. During the neo-Red Scare days of Ronald Reagan's administration, Hollywood spewed a lotta trash to cash public fears. "Red Dawn" and "Amerika" were both set in the not-too-distant future with the Soviet Union running a defeated, dystopian United States. Campfire coffeepots and no computers.

As George Orwell never really revealed how the interactive telescreen got everywhere to spy on everyone in "1984," Hollywood did not explain how the U.S. got whupped.

We appear close to answering that question. Could you live a year or seven without electricity? Or running water? Or heat or air conditioning? (Like Yemen, Syria and Iraq.)

Russian hackers apparently can disable the entire U.S. power grid at will. Tsar Putin already owns much of the U.S. government. How much of a stretch is it to see Czar Donaldov running up the white flag? He couldn't live without his daily ego fix from the Fox Noise Network, could he? Addiction is such a terrible thing.


RENOWN REDUX: My column last week about Renown hospital followup care has been validated.

I consulted with a physician and Renown's stonewalling of its own internal referral system not only violated longstanding protocols but appears to be borderline malpractice in denying prompt, self-admittedly necessary treatment. (Nevada doctors made themselves lawsuit-proof years ago.)

The mandate for a generalist to refer you to a specialist has little or nothing to do with health care. It was instituted to cut costs and reduce service back when corporate medicine began to expand more than four decades ago. Trying to get the big fat dinosaur to change is next to impossible. So little people who can't master the vagaries of a Kafkaesque system can just go die.

PREDESTINED DEPRESSION. Congratulations to the entire University of Nevada-Reno basketball apparat for fine seasons. Both teams overachieved but, alas, the outcome of the men's quest was pre-ordained. Nevada vs. St. Ignatius Loyola and his high-jumping Jesuits? No contest. The Holy of Holies rarely loses to the Den of Iniquity, especially on national TV.

CELEBRATE CESAR CHAVEZ SATURDAY. César Chávez Celebration XVI (XVI Celebración del día de César Chávez) happens at Circus Circus-Reno this Saturday, March 31, the great labor leader's 91st birthday.

It's a fact, not a hype, that this year's will be bigger and better than ever, starting with real Mexican food served by union members in a union hotel.

Ballet Folklorico de Nevada comes back by popular demand and noted Reno artist Erik Holland returns to unveil a new César Chávez painting.

We will feature a world premiere preview of a new locally produced Broadway-style musical — César Chávez Resistencia! (Resistance!).

César Chávez NevadaLabor.com Hall of Famer Maria Zamora will induct Tony Mayorga (Laborers' Local 169) into that exclusive club. The only previous posthumous HOF honoree was Fred Ross, Sr., the legendary "organizer's organizer" who taught César Chávez how to rally workers to the cause. Maria was on the front lines with Chávez in the 1960s and has never stopped laboring for the rights of workers.

The Reno-Sparks NAACP will register voters and the Northern Nevada Literacy Council will distribute FREE Spanish-language books courtesy of our friends at Grassroots Books.

Doors open at 5:30, dinner at 7;00 p.m. in the Circus Circus Mandalay Ballroom. Make your reservations at CesarChavezNevada.com, call (775) 786-1455 or e-mail me. Hurry!

¡ se puede!

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish)

Andres Luis Barbáno

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)

Web Extras —> March 21 (Barbwire/César Chávez XVI Update) — On this date in 1806, Benito Juárez was born. ¡Viva Juárez!

IMPORTANT DATES: April TBA: Washoe County sheriff candidates forum sponsored by the Reno-Sparks NAACP, ACTIONN and other community organizations. Watch this space.

ANTE INTO THE GAME: Support the new season of Barbwire.TV by putting your money where my mouth is.


Metastatical Statisticals

Trump FCC chair investigated for Sinclair ties
TheVerge.com / 2-15-2018

Ready for Trump TV? Inside Sinclair Broadcasting’s Plot to Take Over Your Local News
Its mix of terrorism alerts, right-wing commentary and “classic propaganda” could soon reach 3/4 of the US.
By Andy Kroll/Mother Jones Oct.-Nov. 2017

How Sinclair Broadcasting puts a partisan tilt on trusted local news
By William Brangham/ PBS NewsHour 10-10-2017

Top-down Democrats haven't learned
By Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 8-10-2017

More Faux than Fox? Corporate octopus Sinclair moves to dominate Nevada and U.S. television
By Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 8-3-2017


  A thousand thanks to those who keep sending show suggestions.

  Stay tuned.

  I encourage you to donate to the cause at Barbwire.TV/ The medium that shapes public opinion needs at least one refuge where it is not filtered through the distorted green eye shades of prissy corporate accountants for whom profit is the only priority; where self-censorship is the journalist's normal work environment and where all sins of omission are tacitly encouraged and forgiven with the wave of a balance sheet.

  This is important. We've got a lot of work to do.

 

END OF TIMES SURVIVAL KIT. Defend yourself with humorous or humorless but always-peerless pontification by subscribing to the Barbwire Confidential News Service. Scandalous bonuses for new subscribers.

Hush Hush!

 

 

"Media is the plural of mediocre."
— Jimmy Breslin (1928-2017)

Last year's dark foreshadowings unfortunately became reality. I thus suggest inoculation by signing onto the HushHush! list at BallotBoxing.US/ It's cheap as well as enlightening entertainment. I suggest coming aboard now. Subscription prices go up soon. Thank you kindly for your support.

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)

 

Andrew Barbano is a 49-year Nevadan, executive producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration, first 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 and BallotBoxing.US and SenJoeNeal.org and DoctorLawyerWatch.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 Sparks Tribune since 1988 and received its 8th Nevada Press Association award and 5th first-place at the 30 Sept. 2017 NPA annual convention in Carson City. (That trophy and about six bucks will get you a Latte Mocha Cotsafracas Chingade at just about any Starbux worldwide, guaranteed.)

 

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All the news you never knew you needed to know 'til now: Tell your friends and friendly enemies to subscribe to Barbwire Confidential for warm laughter, cheap thrills, hot scoops and occasional cold logic at BallotBoxing.US/ Cheap at twice the price. (Hush Hush!)


Smoking Guns—>

What's harder: Finding a doctor or Stormy Daniels?
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 3-21-2018 Sparks Tribune

A world in fear: It's always 9/11 somewhere
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 3-14-2018 Sparks Tribune

West Virginia teachers: Strike one, strike won
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 3-7-2018 Sparks Tribune /

$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

SITE NAVIGATION TIPS: When all else fails, read the instructions (A favorite John Hanks aphorism I've been using for decades)

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Casinos Out of Politics (COP) | Sen. Joe Neal
Guinn Watch | Deciding Factors
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DoctorLawyerWatch.com | Barbwire Oilogopoly Archive
Barbwire Nevada Corporate Welfare Archive
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Copyright © 1982-2018 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 49-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and SenJoeNeal.org; and former chair of the City of Reno's Citizens Cable Compliance Committee. He is the executive producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration and serves as first vice-president and political action chair 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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