Pity the poor ink-stained wretch who wishes he could be writing this 'round midnight on Tuesday. Alas, the Silver State election gods do not so ordain.

So we gotta do the best we can with what we got.

Predictions are too chancy and nobody's leaking any credible polls, so the Barbwire, as usual, has spared every expense in researching the following cheap shots and low blows.

As late-great talk radio legend and fellow Sparks Tribune columniator Travus. T. Hipp oft-opined, sometimes cheap shots are the only shots you get.

So herewith, a bucketful of below-the-belt buffoonery.

FOOLISH, PART ONE. I always quote the source when I steal something.

Last week, New York Times columniator Timothy Egan wrote of President Donaldov's manic desire to place a lump of coal in everyone's Christmas stocking. Forever.

"The president is a fossil fool," Egan stated.

Damn, that's good, and an example of what's been missing in all of Nevada's follytix this year.

Either nobody's got a good sense of humor or our major candidates are just too freakin' cheap to hire good comedy writers.

Where did I see the line that this country is much more interested in butt control rather than gun control?

Oh, yeah. Here, a couple of months ago. (Self-congratulatory narcissism is in high fashion these days.)

FOOLISH, PART DEUX: FAMILY FRIENDLY FIRE. Has anyone noticed that Republican National Rifle Association lovebirds Adam Laxalt and Darin Balaam have both been running TV spots promising to protect your family from everything up to and including fire, flood and falling airplanes?

Washoe County Sheriff hopeful Balaam has been one-upped by the attorney general in the pie-in-the sky department.

Maybe somebody will produce the ultimate rejoinder to gubernatorial contender Laxalt's puffery: He is indeed willing to protect your family from everything. Except guns.

This pre-adolescent nation has never outgrown playing cowboys and Indians.

I chuckle every time I see a dude in a "cowboy hat," headgear which you never see in grainy old photos of what the wild west actually was.

Flat-brimmed Zorro-style hats are very useful. They protect the wearer's eyes from harsh sunlight and can be wrapped with a kerchief over a horseman's ears in wind, rain and cold.

So who spawned the foppish upturned brim of the drugstore cowboy? Hollywood movie directors who needed to see an actor's eyes in a closeup. (The cliché of "Italians talk with their hands" emigrated from the U.S. to Italy and back again, also via Hollywood.)

Photography has done a lot to change the world. Historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., once wrote that the camera only showed "what was there" in describing Richard Nixon in his fabled 1960 TV debate with Sen. John F. Kennedy.

Those who listened on radio thought Nixon "won," while viewers went with Kennedy.

Which is why Nixon used makeup and hired future Fox News founder Roger Ailes to make him look as pretty as possible in 1968.

Which brings me to the SaveMart checkout line last Friday. (I always try to patronize union shops.)

I plopped my New York Times on the conveyor and the check-out lady noticed the front page photo of President Trumpsky and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The camera was closest to Trump but focused on an exasperated-looking Abe a few feet away. Trump thus appeared in soft focus.

"He's blurry," said the clerk.

"Whaddya expect?" said I. "The camera does not lie."

Schlesinger was proven right once again.

ADIOS, MOTHER DOLORES. About 1,500 mourners attended civil rights and community service icon Dolores Feemster's memorial service last Saturday at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center.

Projections proved correct that no church in these parts would have been big enough to hold all of her farewell-wishing friends.

I will post a summary of notables and quotables. Send your memories and I'll upload them at RenoSparksNAACP.org/

The lightest moment came when ex-Procter Hug High and former NFL star JoJo Townsell asked anyone present having any affiliation with the school to please stand. (Mrs. Feemster served as a counselor there for 34 years.)

Several hundred rose.

Townsell then led the Hug alumni in the Hug Fight Song, "When the Hawks Come Flying In" (to the tune of "When the Saints Go Marching In").

Former Hug and UNR football stalwart and later Hug coach Rollins Stallworth told me "I actually hummed most of the verse."

That's OK, big guy.

President Trump doesn't know the words to "God Bless America" and apparently can't even hum convincingly.

So I guess we should pardon him for being a bit blurry.

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