Barbwire: Weird love of dos Tejanas for El Jefé Trump

An Alternative National Anthem
By Leonard Cohen (1934-2016) & Sharon Robinson
© 1988 CBS Records, Inc.

   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 stem 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 & 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.

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

"The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you'll never have." — Kierkegaard

Weird love of dos Tejanas for El Jefé Trump
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the Wednesday 6-24-2020 Sparks Tribune / Updated 6-25-2020 GMT / Expansions in blue

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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

Tomorrow's news today —> Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential
TOP SECRET— HushHush!

Forests have been felled and a billion webships launched attempting to explain conservative co-dependency on a guy who thinks nothing of sickening or killing his most — ahem — die-hard supporters.

Czar Donaldov is a throwback to a 1980s IBM ad campaign: "Simple solutions for complex problems."

So here's mine. The problem is generational. The symptoms lie in how you were raised. The solution is equal opportunity. The time has come at last.

In the heartwarming film "Glory Road" about the upset 1967 NCAA March Madness final win of Texas Western (now Texas El Paso) over the heavily favored Kentucky dynasty, there's a scene between the two head coach's spouses.

TW Coach Don Haskins' wife, Mary, attends a pre-championship game event and overhears some grossly racist comments about her husband's integrated team having no chance against the lily-white Kentucky Wildcats.

A graceful lady with a southern accent comes up to her and says "don't pay them any mind. It's just how some people were raised."

The lady in question was Esther Rupp, legendary Kentucky Coach Adolph Rupp's wife.

I don't know if that actually happened but Mary Cheney probably saw the film. The lesbian daughter of George W. Bush's shadow president was asked about her relationship with her reactionary right-wing parents.

She calmly replied that "these things are generational."

Jeez, it's only been 528 years since Christopher Columbus "discovered" America. (Leif Erikson, call your office about that trademark infringement suit.)

Several factors make this time different.

Back in the turbulent 1960s, the great cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead said that we had reached a point unique in history where the old would have to learn from the young because the young are closer to the future.

History may not repeat, but it sure rhymes and the poetry is being performed on the streets of the world.

About 1967, one of my Fresno State professors noted the impact of television on the civil rights movement. Black people in the south surely knew that life could be better in the north and west as many of their relatives had prospered by moving. But television turbocharged their temperament. They had to see for themselves to truly believe they could make their lives better.

Fast-forward half a century. Life has arguably improved over the apartheid America of the mid-20th Century, but many of the same problems persist. Mississippi still has the Confederate stars and bars in its state flag.

Fueled by myths five centuries old, the endemic racism of the United States periodically results in explosions. So what's different today and how did a spark lit in Minneapolis ignite the world?

Television is still primary, whether received on a postage-stamp-sized screen in your hand or a high-def monster in your den. But why worldwide and why now?

Globalization. Corporate America's addictive search for cheap labor has infected the world. Lowly workers suffer in unsafe sweatshops to feed our insatiable demand for stuff. Take decades of oppression, add television and you have international conflagration.

Up from the past two elections, fully half of American twenty-somethings plan to vote this November. That number would be higher had the Democratic nominee been Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders. Joseph Biden thus has to compete for the older demographics, Czar Donaldov's bedrock.

Which brings me to two women of my acquaintance. One, about 48, just became a grandmother soon after seeing her 19 year-old son depart on an aircraft carrier for the middle east.

"We are very proud of him," she told me. Had I known in advance, I would have tried to talk him out of it, which might have ended our friendship. Her family advises everyone to avoid trashing Trump in her presence. At least the kid's not on the flat-top with wholesale Coronavirus infections.

Another woman, about 60, changes the subject anytime Trump or follytix comes up. I don't know her party registration, but I've got a good hunch.

What's the common denominator? Both are from Texas and were brought up to revere three institutions: Church, the military and the Republican Party. They believe because they have to and want to.

I hope the new grandma does not have to learn the lesson of President Teddy Roosevelt. He raised his kids to adore the glory of war and he puffed with pride when he saw one off to World War One. It apparently never occurred to him that his boy could get killed. Which he was.

Already weakened by an ill-advised Amazon jungle macho adventure, his son's death devastated him. A broken man, the formerly robust Rough Rider died at age 60.

Worldwide, young people are staying — and dying — in the streets demanding justice, peace, love and understanding.

I pray that we are living in a true turning point in time when we can finally learn from the young.

Stay tuned.

¡Sí se puede!

[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

REAL NEWS DEPT. In January 2019, 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.

Barbwire 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—>

Government shuts down when it should step up
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Don't let fear and anger convert us to Germany 1933
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BREAKING NEWS—> City of Reno reimposes martial law

Presidents Trump & Harding channel Mark Twain
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Re-name former Hug High for Dolores Feemster
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Make Dolores Feemster's light shine brightly
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the Wednesday 5-6-2020 Sparks Tribune / Updated 5-7 & 5-9-2020 / Expansions in blue

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Trump wants your cat and your shorts
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A gold record message from the King
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Are you ready to die for your country?
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the Wednesday 4-8-2020 Sparks Tribune

Payback: Corona, Cocaine & Trump
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And remembering when Andy met Betty on April Fools Day 44 years ago

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Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 3-25-2020 Sparks Tribune

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Medflies, flyweights and President Pelosi
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Trump's Blackrobes: Humpty Dumpty Homotextuals
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 3-4-2020 Sparks Tribune

Bernie or bust, Dolores a must
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 2-26-2020 Sparks Tribune

Czars Donaldov & Nixon win Democratic Caucus
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Springtime for fat cats & unburied hatchets
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 2-12-2020 Sparks Tribune

Love saves a life on Reno's mean streets
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Bill Harrah's cookie cutter crumbles
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National welfare, corporate welfare and MLK
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The New Jim Crow — Nothing New
By Michelle Alexander / New York Times January 17 & 19, 2020
Printable Text Version

The only way to stop killing is to stop killing
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 1-8-2020 Sparks Tribune

Barbano sells out to white Republicans
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Typhoid Mary infects Sparks Addams Family
In the spirit of true democracy which provides that your rights don't allow you to sneeze on mine
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A fake news fable for our times
In the spirit of true democracy which provides that your rights don't allow you to sneeze on mine
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Red-flag warnings — Ignoring history at our peril
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 12-11-2019 Sparks Tribune
Major rent raunch and a big book launch
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 12-4-2019 Sparks Tribune

Billionaire Tom Steyer owes me $5
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 11-27-2019 Sparks Tribune

Back to the future down Amnesia Lane
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 11-20-2019 Sparks Tribune

People get ready, that train's a comin'
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Special Barbwire Confidential Internet Edition 11-12-2019 / Updated 11-14 & 11-15-2019
A version of this column appeared in the 11-13-2019 Sparks Tribune
An excerpt of the following was included in Andrew Barbano's address to the school board on Nov. 12.
SPECIAL REPORT FROM THE SCENE OF THE CRIME: Clever maneuvering prevents vote after 4 of 7 trustees announced support for Feemster.

DO NOT risk your kids at Golden Eagle Park
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Tale of 2 city halls: Cancer kids & brain damage
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Written in the stars: UNR football for racial justice
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Goodbye, Columbus: A mirror for America
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 10-16-2019 Sparks Tribune

Déjà vu all over again: Bernie turns 2020 into 1968
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 10-9-2019 Sparks Tribune

City of Reno turns W. Plumb Lane into horny street
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Hip-hopping mad over molesters and Mad Kings
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 9-25-2019 Sparks Tribune

Trade the Confederacy straight across for Greenland
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 9-18-2019 Sparks Tribune

Cut in twain
(Myers' favorite photo)

Dennis Myers: Enroute to the universe next door
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 9-11-2019 Sparks Tribune
Obituary, 1948-2019
[En Español — La Voz Hispana En Nevada 9-18-2019]

Philippines to Burning Man to Ireland: Adios GOAT
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 9-4-2019 Sparks Tribune

Nevadian Dennis Myers: The Greatest Of All Time
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 8-28-2019 Sparks Tribune

Veteran Nevada reporter Myers removed from life support
Obituary: Dennis C. Myers 1948-2019
[En Español — La Voz Hispana En Nevada 9-18-2019]
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Special Internet Edition 8-25-2019

Reno City Council passes rent control
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 7-17-2019 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

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 with outrageous rents and scrambling schools
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

Rentvolution.org

We Don't Need No Education

A cuckoo coup and a president, too
Barbwire exclusive: Secret 2017 meeting set the setup in motion
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Uploaded 7-23-2019 / Expanded from the 7-24-2019 Sparks Tribune

Alfred E. Neuman for Washoe school superintendent
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Witness at the execution
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss
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Gang banging on 9th Street
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