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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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)

An Alternative National Anthem

   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 that the boat is leaking.
Everybody knows that the captain lied.
   Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died.
   Everybody talking to their pockets.
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
   And a long red rose.
Everybody knows.

   Everybody knows that you love me, baby.
Everybody knows you really do.
   Everybody knows that you've been faithful,
Give or take a time or two.
   Everybody knows you've been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
   Without your clothes.
Everybody knows.

   Everybody knows that it's now or never.
Everybody knows that it's me or you.
   And everybody knows that you live forever
When you've done a line or two.
   Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton
   For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows.

   Everybody knows that the plague is coming.
Everybody knows that it's moving fast.
   Everybody knows that the naked man and woman —
Just a shining artifact of the past.
   Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
   That will disclose
What everybody knows.

   And everybody knows that you're in trouble.
Everybody knows what you've been through
   From the bloody cross on top of Calvary
To the beach at Malibu.
   Everybody knows it's coming apart.
Take one last look at this Sacred Heart
   Before it blows.
And everybody knows.

Everybody knows. Everybody knows.
   That's how it goes. Everybody knows.


By Leonard Cohen and Sharon Robinson.
© 1988 CBS Records, Inc.

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



Carson City, Transylvania County, Nevada USA
Barbwire
by Andrew Barbáno
/ Expanded from the Wednesday 6-12-2019 Sparks Tribune / Expansions in blue

No more turning away
From the weak and the weary
No more turning away
From the coldness inside
Just a world that we all must share
It's not enough just to stand and stare
Is it only a dream that there'll be
No more turning away.
Pink Floyd (David Gilmour & Anthony Moore, 1987)


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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and Jake Highton next.

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The 9th Muse
Barbwire wins 9th 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/9-29-201
8

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

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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
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!

 

“Agitate, agitate, AGITATE” — Frederick Douglass

The vampires have been set upon the peasants for another two years. I should’a known when I heard two radio commercials on the last day of the 2019 legislative session.


I was mildly disturbed by the accidental irony of a local rock station which followed a spot for a payday loanshark with an ad for a blood bank. The portent proved emblematic of what had been billed as lawmaking Valhalla for the Donkeykongs.

It came as no surprise to a superannuated political dinosaur like me, but it still rankled. I was disappointed as usual, but not surprised, also as usual.

Once again, if your political interest was represented in Carson City by a big-money lobbying campaign, you did real good. Alas and alack, the peons had only their elected officials to work for them. As always, they were disappointed.

Many probably never knew and will not know because they are too busy working three jobs trying to survive.

As Lily Tomlin once immortally opined, “no matter how cynical you become, it’s hard to keep up.”

The lowest of the low were allowed no surcease from sorrow. The loansharks will feast unabated and unregulated as pillaging landlords run amok. Even controlling two of the three branches of government, Democratic burritos could not even get the state minimum wage raised to 1968 levels, adjusted for inflation. (It goes to $8.00 an hour later this year. Whoopee.)

’Twas ever thus in the High Desert Outback of the American Dream.

Sen. Julia Ratti, D-Sparks, introduced Senate Bill 398 which purportedly would have given local governments more purview over affordable housing. Know-nothings like me reviewed existing law and wondered why it was necessary. (The words “rent” and “control” were nowhere to be found in the bill.)

KILL BILL, VOLUME 3. As the old saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Cowardly local officials will now be able to say “our hands our tied” to aggrieved renters because SB398 failed. Sen. Ratti’s cure has thus worsened the disease. She stated to the legit media that she had no idea who killed the bill.

Colonel Mustard in the smoke-filled room with 30 pieces of chainsaw, perhaps?

SMOKE ‘EM IF YOU GOT ‘EM. The wildwood flower made out real good. Nevada is starting its own version of bitcoin to help the marijuana industry. As long as Mary Jane is a scarlet woman in the opinion of federal law, banks will not allow traffickers in illegal substances to use the system.

Awhile back, I wrote about a cancer-stricken Teamster friend of mine who was denied marijuana by the Renown octopus because they fear losing federal funds. My now-dead friend was wasting away, unable to hold down food and government sanctioned pot capsules did not help. So to get strong enough to leave the hospital he would have to leave the hospital in order to smoke up in order to eat and get strong enough to leave the hospital. Damn them. (Barbwire 10-4-2016)

The people who really need banking services remain out in the cold with the vampire loansharks circling. As I noted months ago, I went to a local banker about developing reasonably-priced loans for renters. He said his outfit wanted no part of that action. They make way too much money hitting people for overdraft charges.

All this is nothing new. Years ago, I put together a Tribune team to tell the tale of a local African-American woman referred to me by the late Reno-Sparks NAACP president and matriarch Dolores Feemster. Her friend's 50-cent overdraft had turned into $1,000 in charges from US Bank. Reporter Janine Kearney and photo editor Debra Reid splashed the story on the front page of the erstwhile Daily Sparks Tribune. (Linked to the web edition of this column at NevadaLabor.com)

Garden variety banks make a huge portion of their profits on overdraft hits. In that conversation, my banker informed me that I could overdraw my checking account by $1,000 anytime even without applying for overdraft protection.

Count Dracula, call your office.

The long-term remedy for all this usury lies with a return to postal banking, a service once offered at every US Post Office but killed a half-century ago.

Locally, Nevada municipal governments must be pushed to control rental abuse. It’s already legal, dammit.

St. Louis activists started a credit union to help aggrieved renters. It only took 14 years.

The answer, as always, lies with the greatest lesson from Aesop’s Fables: If you want something done, do it yourself.

Agitate, agitate, agitate.

Organize. Organize. ORGANIZE!

Stay tuned.

Be well. Raise hell. Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)
être bien, élever l'enfer (And my French.)
Stammi bene. Scatenare l'inferno. (And Italian.)

¡Sí se puede!
___________________

Andrew Barbano is a 50-year Nevadan, executive producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration, first vice-president and political action chair of the Reno-Sparks NAACP, superannuated 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 and Protect Our Washoe.org/ As always, his opinions are strictly his own. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us. He has lived in both northern and southern Nevada during his half-century+ in the Silver State. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988 and received its ninth Nevada Press Association award (6th first-place) at the 29 Sept. 2018 NPA annual convention in Las Vegas. His multi-media road construction zone safety campaign for Laborers' Union Local 169 won a first-place award from the National Safety Council in a nationwide

competition. (Such ephemera and about six bucks will get you a Latte Mocha Cotsafracas Chingade at just about any Starbux worldwide, guaranteed.) His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian of London/UK and more important publications.

WEB XTRAS & SMOKING GUNS —> GAS CON. The corporate Oilogopoly raises pump prices on any publicity. The latest goosing has nothing to do with Iran or Venezuela. The US is now a net energy exporter. I've written on the con for decades but BigOil has more clout. See theOilogopoly Archive at NevadaLabor.com/

REAL NEWS DEPT. In January, Culinary Union Local 226 defeated an attempt by Circus Circus-Reno to decertify (terminate) the union's representation of its workers. No word on whether management plans to appeal the result to the National Labor Relations Board which was recently put out of business for 35 days. Thank you, Czar Donaldov.

[UPDATE 4-20-2019] — About 100 demonstrators from almost all the region's unions, local community service organizations and political activists joined Culinary Union members picketing Circus Circus in the late afternoon of April 18. A couple of CC suits came out to see what all the fuss was about, as if they didn't already know. In addition to the familiar union "contract now!" chants came calls for a strike against the Carano jocks. ¡Viva Huelga! ¡Sí se puede!

CONSUMER CONUNDRUMS: PINK SLIPS, PURGES AND PRUNING. I need to hear from recently purged Eldorado Hotel-Casino, Circus Circus-Reno and Silver Legacy employees. Barbwire spies report perhaps 100 workers got the ax just in time for the holidays. In the Tribune, at Barbwire.US and in the London Guardian, I have lamented the deepening desperation of renters here in Tesla boomtown. I'm now getting complaints about medical and dental practices purportedly pruning their patient loads, cutting loose the less-lucrative. That's de facto malpractice but medical professionals are lawsuit-proof under Nevada law — unless you're rich enough to personally pay a few hundred grand in legal fees. That's why TV lawyers only advertise for arrest or accident cases these days. If you've been cast adrift by patient pruning, call me at (775) 882-TALK or e-mail me.

Sore-oppressed Soul-Sister Cities: Menlo Park and Reno-Sparks-Fernley share similarly sad high-tech stretch marks.
"All humanity has left the area": paying for Tesla's Gigafactory
Barbano and Nevada conservatives decry corporate welfare depredations

By Rory Carroll / The Guardian 7-3-2018
Editor's Note: The Guardian publishes 180,000 newspapers daily in London and environs and generates ONE BILLION monthly web page views.
(I should live so long.)
[MUCH MORE TESLACIDE]
"Facebook is taking everything": rising rents drive out Silicon Valley families
Property companies advertising their proximity to Facebook’s campus are giving low-income residents a choice: pay a huge rent increase or move out
By Sam Levin / The Guardian 6-20-2018


Peruse the Underbelly of the News —> Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential

For 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!)

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. Thank you kindly for your support.

Smoking Guns—>

Trumpeting tragedy as Great Depression2 descends
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the Wednesday 6-5-2019 Sparks Tribune

Nevada: Righteous results, wrongheaded reasons
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the Wednesday 5-29-2019 Sparks Tribune

Nevada Business Opportunity: Abortion Tourism
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the Wednesday 5-22-2019 Sparks Tribune

May 15: The Ides of Uncle Walter Cronkite
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the Wednesday 5-15-2019 Sparks Tribune

What if they gave a murder and nobody came?
BARBWIRE CONFIDENTIAL: Sheriff Balaam's icy hot patch
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the Wednesday 5-8-2019 Sparks Tribune

MayDay for renters, movie fans and avengers
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 5-1-2019 Sparks Tribune

Sen. Ira Hansen announces his pregnancy
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 4-24-2019 Sparks Tribune

Priorities for butt-, rent-, birth- and gun-control
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 4-17-2019 Sparks Tribune

DAY OF THE DEAD
Relieve Rent & Pillage: Save SB398 & AB399

Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno
/ Special Online Legislative Edition / 4-12-2019 / Updated 4-13 and 4-14-2019 GMT
Fairness for tenants dies 4-12 unless lawmakers throw it a lifeline

Politics does not reward the shy
Rent justification and a death penalty for corporate depredation
Barbwire
by Andres Luis Barbáno
/ Expanded from the 4-10-2019 Sparks Tribune / Updated 4-11 and 4-12-2019 GMT
Fairness for tenants dies 4-12 unless lawmakers throw it a lifeline

A liberal case for a new, brutal death penalty
Barbwire by Andres Luis Barbáno / Expanded from the 4-3-2019 Sparks Tribune

50 years in Nevada: Trying to outlive them all
Barbwire by Andres Luis Barbáno / Expanded from the 3-27-2019 Sparks Tribune

Guns, gouging and guts: once upon a time in the west
Barbwire by Andres Luis Barbáno / Expanded from the 3-20-2019 Sparks Tribune

Guv keynotes César XVII: 17-year overnight success
Barbwire by Andres Luis Barbáno / Expanded from the 3-13-2019 Sparks Tribune

Judge not lest ye be judged — or misjudged
Barbwire by Andres Luis Barbáno / Expanded from the 3-6-2019 Sparks Tribune

Even in Sparks, God works in mysterious ways
Barbwire by Andres Luis Barbáno / Expanded from the 2-27-2019 Sparks Tribune

OF CRABS AND CLANS: White bibs or white sheets tonight
Barbwire Confidential by Andres Luis Barbáno / 2-23-2019 SPECIAL ONLINE HUSHhush E-EDITION

Trump's Wall: First step toward ending Nixon's War on Drugs
Barbwire by Andres Luis Barbáno / Expanded from the 2-20-2019 Sparks Tribune

BLACK LIKE ME 2119: The problem as solution
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 2-13-2019 Sparks Tribune / Updated 2-14 and 2-16-2019
Breaking News —> Culinary Union defeats decert at Circus Circus Reno
Dear Readers: The above column served as the conclusion of remarks I submitted before the "Tahoe Talks: Racism in America" symposium at the Incline Village, Nev., Library on February 12, 2019. So you might want to read "FADE TO BLACK" before you read "Black Like Me 2119".

Andrew Barbano, former governor of Nevada
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 2-6-2019 Sparks Tribune

Downtown Sparks: New taxes, gun controls & a wall
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 1-30-2019 Sparks Tribune

Striking sex: The only thing Trump understands
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 1-23-2019 Sparks Tribune

Sands of time blast the milestones of life
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 1-16-2019 Sparks Tribune

Bob Price: Cowboy, lawmaker, union man and Elvis fan
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 1-9-2019 Sparks Tribune

Crystal Balls: Peerless Predixions 2019 & Beyond
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 12-26-2018 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

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

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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Guinn Watch | Deciding Factors
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DoctorLawyerWatch.com | Barbwire Oilogopoly Archive
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Copyright © 1982-2019 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 50-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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