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

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Photo: Debra Reid, Sparks Tribune

 

 

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

Stealing from starving babies
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 6-8-2022 / Updated 6-13 & 6-14-2022 GMT / Expansions in blue

And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
— Matthew Arnold 1851

About 120 years later, cartoonist Walt Kelly's Pogo the Possum said pretty much the same thing, albeit with less elegance: "We have met the enemy and he is us."

Nazi General Hermann Goering, who commanded military divisions, best espoused the strategy of civil division in 1946: "The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked...It works the same way in any country."

Let's chill for a minute, dial down the sulfurous fury and, as President Lyndon Johnson liked to say, "come now, and let us reason together." (Isaiah 1:18)

I've noted countless times that the way to control the masses is to keep them fighting each other for crumbs that fall off the banquet tables of their betters. If us peons ever bother to look up, we can turn the tables. Why not now? But how?

First, look in the mirror. Do you see yourself if any of the above?

Many Americans have very legitimate gripes. The farmer who works dawn 'til dusk and beyond, struggling to save his little piece of ground. The factory worker whose livelihood has been exported to a fourth-world country. The high school grad wondering if she should go into debt for the rest of her life to earn a college degree. The urban ghetto dweller or the rural impoverished, prisoners all of a system that offers little hope.

It is thus very easy for some larcenous hammerhead to offer simple-sounding solutions, usually by foisting blame upon some nefarious manifestation of evil better known as The Other— anyone other than the audience at hand.

Where is the sword of Alexander to cut this Gordian Knot, this metastasizing tumor in the guts of civilization?

First, look to the two great systems supposedly devised to give everyone a decent shot: Capitalism and Communism.

Alas and alack, as longshoreman philosopher Eric Hofer pointed out, both lead to the same damned place. (Barbwire 7-15-2001) Taken to their logical conclusions, both result in everyone working for a single monstrous company or a monolithic political party. George Orwell's "Animal Farm" illustrated it as the cautionary fairy tale in which we live today
.
Left to their own devices, big fish devour small fish and are in turn engorged by bigger and bigger fish. Eventually only one huge monster remains.

This was satirized in the 1993 Sylvester Stallone film "Demolition Man." Set in a dystopian future, all restaurants are Taco Bell because "Taco Bell won the restaurant wars," as Sandra Bullock blithely explains.

Under Communism, everyone is supposedly equal but as Orwell put it, "some animals are more equal than others." So everybody works for the Communist Party.

Both systems end up in the same exploitive place: Dictatorship, jack-booted authoritarianism or softshoe fascism.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., last week said that it's high time for the government to start enforcing anti-trust law. A few years ago, she said "capitalism without regulation is tyranny."

Almost all Americans labor under the tyranny of big fishes eating the small ones, only to be devoured themselves.

World class economist David Schwartz told me in 1981 of corporate concentration research done by a colleague. Dr. Schwartz noted that America was entering an age of "mature capitalism" (Barbwire 9-25-2005) where innovation takes a back seat to corporate acquisition.

Rather than put money into developing a better mousetrap, corporate America simply buys out any potential competitor. Microsoft was the poster child.

Schwartz told me that his friend back in the 1970s did some simple addition. He took the Fortune 500, totaled its assets, and worked his way down the list until he found the point where the biggest companies controlled half of corporate property. The divide fell somewhere just above the middle. I did the same thing in the 1990s. By then, I recall that perhaps about 75 or 80 of the top dogs controlled half the wealth.

Schwartz's stark projection of the evils of corporate concentration proved prescient. Instance in point: baby formula. Three big companies now dominate the market with impunity. So millions of American infants today are malnourished or starving.

Even before the shortage caused by their own misfeasance, their prices were exorbitant. There is no true competition in an oligopoly.

Perhaps a dozen years ago, I found myself in a checkout line behind a young Latina trying to buy three cans of baby formula for her infant nephew. Alas, her credit card was maxed out. As she turned to walk away, I asked the checker how much each can cost. I was shocked: about $35, as I recall. I only had enough money on me to pay for one, which I did. She thanked me. I've always felt good about helping some kid I will never know in his time of need. It should never be that way in this, the richest, fattest country in the history of the world — the land of the rigged game.

Most of the products you see at your local grocery likewise perpetuate the myth of competition, manufactured and massaged by advertising and corporate propaganda. From chicken, sugar, milk and eggs to electricity, gasoline and housing — examples are endless.

All that goes a long way toward explaining the righteous anger of so many. So much of that energy is misdirected.

On the hopeful side, I've noticed recent chatter about corporate non-competition acting as the underlying cause of today's inflationary spiral.

Make common cause with other pawns in this rigged game, especially those who may be light years away from the way you think. Convince them to start looking up at the banquet table rather than down at the crumbs on the floor.

The choice is yours.

Pray for Ukraine and 53 other currently war-torn lands. Take care of each other and be careful out there.

¡ se puede!

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

__________________
_
Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 53-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com, SenJoeNeal.org, DoctorLawyerWatch.com, BallotBoxing.US, ConsumerCoalitionv.org, ChantalCoalition.org, Rentvolution.org, MIssissippiWestNV.org and CesarChavezNevada.com among others. He is a longtime member of the Reno-Sparks NAACP and Sparks-based Communications Workers of America Local 9413/AFL-CIO. As always, his comments are entirely his own. He is retained by no political campaign. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988.

Holding guns to our heads
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 6-1-2022 / Updated 6-2-2022 GMT / Expansions in blue

"Have you no sense of decency?"— Joseph Welch 1954


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

Barbwire nominee Dennis Myers elected to NPA Hall of Fame

Support Don Dondero
and Jake Highton
and David Toll next.

Send endorsements

Eee-yo-leven!
Barbwire wins 11th 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

More statewide and national award winners

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
BEATING LUSH RAMBO AT HIS OWN GAME: 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!

 

With those words, the legendary attorney began the collapse of Sen. Joe McCarthy's "commie under every rock" pogrom.

McCarthy, R-Wisconsin, died three years later at 48, a broken man. Alas and alack, his spawn succeeds like serpents at a rodent revival.

Human carnage unfolds daily on newscasts infested with commercials from Republican candidates strutting with guns while the blood of innocents runs.

The nation was afflicted with so many mass shootings last weekend that those with fewer deaths were barely mentioned, an amorally immemorial Memorial Day.

The ballistic penis panderers exhibited no sense of decency. Clark County Sheriff Joe Lumbago repeatedly cawed that he's the only candidate for Nevada governor who carries a gun every day and has thus protected us, so we should let him take Nevada back. But where?

Perhaps to the biggest shooter massacre in US history, perpetrated in the portly deporter's Las Vegas Strip jurisdiction. Sixty dead, 411 wounded and 867 total casualties including the panicked stampede.

On Memorial Day, seven motorcycle gangbangers were wounded in an LV freeway shootout. Protection petrified.

Sheriff Bull Connor's GOP primary opponent, former U.S. Senator Dean Heller, went even lower, putting guns in the hands of his wife and daughters, all threatening to shoot anyone who threatens their virginity. Including his, apparently.

None of the proliferating Elephant Cult pretenders had the grace or decency to purge their puerile penile purveying packages from public airwaves.

Alas and alack, no Democrat called for their removal, either.

As the old saying goes, Democrats don't win elections, Republicans lose them.

Campaign managers do what works and Republican primaries are decided by worshipers of Hollywood cowboy mythology. So the GOPenis media metastasize.

In his Oscar-winning film "Bowling for Columbine," Michael Moore traced the roots of our pistol paranoia to old-fashioned racism. Both the KKK and the NRA were founded right after the Civil War was lost, then won by Jim Crow southern politicians who have done a helluva job rewriting history ever since.

The basis for their base behavior? The myth that respectable white women are endangered by jungle-voracious black males like 14 year-old Emmett Till. Dean Heller and family would understand.

So what can we do to stop the bloodshed making kids too scared to go to school?

Our system appears too co-opted or corrupt to change. Like Big Tobacco, the gun lobby will support any "reform" that they know won't work.

The only solution will come long term when today's enlightened young people take political power, resulting in many more women holding office. Until then, macho America bleeds.

JOHN HOWE, 1928-2022. Former KOLO TV-8 news director John Howe died last Tuesday at his Reno home. He moved north in the mid-1970s from a similar position in Las Vegas.

He leaves his wife of almost 65 years, Liz, sons David and Bill, and daughter-in-law Heidi. A memorial service will be held at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, June 25 at Mountain View Mortuary, 425 Stoker in Reno.

John was a great journalist for whom the highest accolade is thus demanded and deserved: He always got the story right. Complete family obituary at NevadaLabor.com/

FOLLYTIX FOR PUN & PROPHET. I've been asked by some Sparks readers about local races.

STATE ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 30: Bernie's daughter Natha Anderson, 'nuff said.
STATE SENATE 13: Former Sparks Assemblymember Skip Daly. No contest. He's lived in the Rail City for all but about two years of his life. His experience — personal, professional and political — leaves him head-and-shoulders above all contenders. On day one, he will win powerful committee assignments not available to inexperienced newbies. I don't know Mark Miranda and serve with Nnedi Stevens on the Reno-Sparks NAACP. I wish she had entered a race that needed her. As one of our longtime NAACP colleagues told me, she filed in the wrong contest. Mr. Daly and I have had our disagreements over many years and I can attest that he's a solid pro-worker lawmaker who knows how to fight.
STATEWIDE: All the Donkeykong incumbents look good plus former Assemblymember Ellen Spiegel for state controller. I'm a bit torn in the light-guv race. Gov. Sisolak appointed little-known Lisa Cano Burkhead as his second in command. Her opponent Kimi Cole would be the first transgender officeholder in Nevada history. She also resides in Douglas County where they shoot Democrats on sight. That's bravery.
CONGRESS DIST. 2 has seven Donkeyite filers. The only familiar name is Tim Hanifan. If he's related to John, I'll support him. The late John Hanifan, popular former Democratic Churchill County Commissioner and a great public servant, survived in another town where Democrats remain an endangered species.
WASHOE COUNTY COMMISSION 3: Thus far, just two have responded to my make-or-break rent control queries, overtly pro Democrat Kyle Isacksen and one sorta, Hawah Ahmad. (Barbwire 5-4-22) Ms. Ahmad likes "the notion of rent control" but basically believes in the invisible hand of the free market. Mr. Isacksen has guts, as do Reno mayoral hopefuls William Mantle and Jenny Brekhus. Much more at Rentvolution.org/
Sparks Council candidate Damon Harrell believes rent control "a nuclear option...and I don't believe we are there yet." Where does he live? His website reveals him as a gunny homotextual in line with the anachronisms on our 12th Century Supreme Court. Which brings me to...
THE BOOK OF JUDGES. Avoid any candidate who subscribes to powdered wig "originalism" or "textualism", a constitutional con contrived by anti-government corporate shills and brought to bitter fruition by that disgrace to us Italian-Americans, Antonino Scalia and his best bud, Clarence Thomas, the court's Stormy Daniels expert. (Barbwire 2-9-2022)
SCHOOL BOARD: Incumbents Mayberry, Rodriguez and Smith are endorsed by organized labor. All are opposed by moonhowlers. Incumbent Ellen Minetto gets likewise distracted when the moon is full. Former TMCC Prez John Gwaltney is the experienced choice for university regent but I'd like to hear from his competitors.

FOR ALL THE NEWS YOU NEVER KNEW YOU NEEDED TO KNOW 'TIL NOW, subscribe to Barbwire Confidential (hush, hush!) at BallotBoxing.US/

Take care of each other and be careful out there. Pray for Ukraine and 53 other currently war-torn lands.

¡ se puede!

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

__________________
_
Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 53-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com, SenJoeNeal.org, DoctorLawyerWatch.com, BallotBoxing.US, ConsumerCoalitionv.org, ChantalCoalition.org, Rentvolution.org, MIssissippiWestNV.org and CesarChavezNevada.com among others. He is a longtime member of the Reno-Sparks NAACP and Sparks-based Communications Workers of America Local 9413/AFL-CIO. As always, his comments are entirely his own. He is retained by no political campaign. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988.

Web Xtras & Smoking Guns—>

The GOP War on Civil Virtue
By Paul Krugman / The New York Times / 5-26-2022

The awful truth for the rudely scrude
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 5-25-2022 /
Updated 5-25-2022 GMT / Expansions in blue

Sorry, kids. We are rudely screwed once again. This edition of the Crudely and Rudely Scrude News comes from no less than Gomorrah South.

Bottom line: When the biggest, baddest union in the state can't get something done by southern Nevada governments, MAYDAY!

That's just what's happened to mighty Culinary Union Local 226 and its 60,000+ Nevada members, some of whom even live up here in the provinces.

My union sisters and brothers will be gathering initiative petition signatures for a new ordinance mandating rent control in the City of North Las Vegas. They want a rental increase cap of five percent per year.

More than 7,300 Local 226 members and their families live in NLV, Nevada's fourth-largest incorporated city (by all of 117 fewer people than number three Reno, according to the 2020 semi-senseless Trumpian census). LV remains number one followed by Henderson with Sparks a distant fifth.

Of that 7,300, 63 percent are Latino and 18 percent black. If the NLV campaign is successful, "we will work to get similar laws passed in the cities of Las Vegas, Henderson, Clark County and other jurisdictions," stated union communications director Bethany Khan.


Does that include us, the uncultured great unwashed up here in the backwaters? Probably not. We just have not shown the cojones, at least not recently.

Evidence in point: I have asked for a position on this issue from EVERY Washoe County candidate or official running for anything this year, anyone who might have power to do something NOW. That includes city council and county commission candidates, city attorneys and others like Sparks Councilmember Kristopher Dahir, now seeking the Republican nomination for secretary of state.

One, count 'em, ONE has taken a definitive position on rent control, Democrat Kyle Isacksen. He's running for the Washoe County Commission District 3 seat (northeast Reno/western Sparks) being vacated by term-limited incumbent Kitty Jung.

I published his stance on May 4. He "told the Reno Gazette-Journal that he favors creation of a 'rental registry' database to 'find out where the money's going, who owns the houses...and then, the next step is rent stabilization.'

Breaking News

Culinary Union proposes ballot initiative to bring rent control to North Las Vegas
Michael Lyle/Nevada Current/5-19-2022

MORE: Barbwire 5-18 & 5-4-2022

Culinary Union launches North Las Vegas rent control ballot initiative
Culinary Local 226 / 5-18-2022

Estabilidad vencindaria/226

Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau Verifies Local Government Rent Control Authority
By Ben Margiott /NBC TV-4/Fox-11
5-18-2022

Does Clark County have the authority, desire to pursue rent control?
Michael Lyle/Nevada Current/3-24-2022

Clark commissioners mull short term fixes, urge state action on rising rents
Michael Lyle/Nevada Current/2-16-2022

Rentvolution.org

"Shades of the late great Reno Mayor Barbara Bennett," I noted. "Landlords would have to justify rent increases during tight times based on actual costs. Isacksen's next step would be some form of rent control."

"Are you in favor?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

Zounds. A leader has risen.

I got some sideways wiggly wafflings but only Mr. Isacksen showed the courage to mount his white horse and tilt against the windmills and werewolves of the corporate welfare development cult.

First and probably alone in all of Nevada history, the Reno City Council actually passed rent control in 1978. Intense political pressure forced them to quickly back away. (Barbwire 7-17-2019)

A few elected officials have recently tried to do something, including Reno Councilmember Jenny Brekhus and Sen. Julia Ratti, D-Sparks, both in 2019.

At the last minute, legislative Democrats, acting at the behest of realtors and developers, killed Ratti's SB 398.

A bill was introduced during last year's legislative session to reign in extortionate rental application fees. Alas and alack, Democrats killed that, too.

As I noted, the ultimate irony is that no new law needed to be passed and former Sen. Ratti agrees. The Republican-controlled 2015 Legislature passed two bills (SB 29 and AB 493) which the Legislative Counsel Bureau says gives local governments all the power they need. (Barbwire 5-4-2021)

To use a good ole boy term, it slud thru the ledge. How? Because it granted broad local authority without mentioning issues. One of the immutable commandments of modern hidebound conservatism is cutting back on big government. You know, "take Nevada back" snake oil. This time, the grease caught on fire. Almost all the Donkeykongs voted against it. Go figger.

That accidental liberal blessing hasn't given local officials any courage. Reno City Attorney Karl Hall and his deputy, Jonathan Shipman, have advised their councillors that they don't think the 2015 legislation does what it says it does.

That means the Reno or Sparks council or the Washoe County Commission must actually pass an ordinance over which some corporate interest would sue.

That's sort of what happened in 1978 under a since-repealed cockamamie law allowing governments to ask courts to rule on constitutionality without a formal case filing. Somebody apparently forgot Article 3 of the Constitution of the United States which mandates that courts must have actual cases before them.

As a result, Washoe District Judge James Guinan bounced Reno's request for a judicial opinion like a hot check on a cold day. By then, business interests had mounted a vicious counter-offensive and city hall backed down.

Apparently no Nevada local body today has the political will to even enact a trial balloon.

The Culinary Union says initiative petitions provide legal workarounds neutering such timid objections.

Rent control advocacy did one good thing in 1979: It elected the greatest Reno mayor in history. Alas, if Barbara Bennett wuz alive today, she'd be turnin' over in her grave.

BARBWIRE CONFIDENTIAL: BLOODY BUS BUSTS BURGEONING. Monitor NevadaLabor.com for impending revelations regarding hemorrhages of taxpayer money perpetrated by macho ineptitude at the elected Regional Transportation Commission of Washoe County and their overpaid, misguided, misfeasant minions.

RTC Washoe Contact Information — Utilize frequently

In case you've forgotten, the RTC's board is comprised
of Sparks Mayor Ed Lawson (R), Washoe County Commissioners Vaughn Hartung (R) and Bob Lucey (R); Reno City Councilmembers Oscar Delgado (D) and Neoma Jardon, (R), board chair. // RTC board e-mail <rtcpubliccomments@rtcwashoe.com>, bthomas@rtcwashoe.com (RTC Executive Director Bill Thomas), RTC Director of Public Transportation and Operations Mark Maloney,

Mr. Delgado is stepping down. At the June 1, 2022, Reno City Council meeting, his replacement will be named from among the following: Councillors Jenny Brekhus, Naomi Duerr & Devon Reese, all-D, and Mlle. Mayor Hillary Schieve, NP.

FOR ALL THE NEWS YOU NEVER KNEW YOU NEEDED TO KNOW 'TIL NOW, subscribe to Barbwire Confidential (hush, hush!) at BallotBoxing.US/

Take care of each other and be careful out there. Pray for Ukraine and 53 other currently war-torn lands.

¡ se puede!

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

__________________
_
Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 53-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com, SenJoeNeal.org, DoctorLawyerWatch.com, BallotBoxing.US, ConsumerCoalitionv.org, ChantalCoalition.org, Rentvolution.org, MIssissippiWestNV.org and CesarChavezNevada.com among others. He is a longtime member of the Reno-Sparks NAACP and Sparks-based Communications Workers of America Local 9413/AFL-CIO. As always, his comments are entirely his own. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988.

 

Ripoffs, rake-offs, rape & pillage
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 5-18-2022 / Updated 5-19 & 5-22-2022 GMT / 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

Barbwire nominee Dennis Myers elected to NPA Hall of Fame

Support Don Dondero
and Jake Highton
and David Toll next.

Send endorsements

Eee-yo-leven!
Barbwire wins 11th 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

More statewide and national award winners

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
BEATING LUSH RAMBO AT HIS OWN GAME: 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!

 

Surprise. The major issue at the May 5 Reno mayoral debate was not downtown beautification.

KOLO TV-8 reported that the barnburners at ThisIsReno.com's event were "price gouging and rent caps." Surprise, surprise.

I don't know if it means anything, but I've never had so many profile views on my oft-neglected LinkedIn.com page as this month.

Might rent control (May 4) and abortion (May 11) have played a role? Don't forget gasoline price-fixing, below.

People actually care about money and morality. Who knew?

So people get ready, that train's a'coming.

Today at 11:00 a.m. in Gomorrah South, Nevada's largest union, Culinary Local 226, will hold a press conference about launching "a campaign to win neighborhood stability by working with residents and communities' allies to advance a ballot initiative."

The announcement arrived just before presstime and included few details. It noted that "the top 10 apartment owners in Nevada own 26.4 percent of total available units."

The union added that "rent has gone up three times faster than inflation and local rent hikes have far outpaced cost-of-living increases." Surprise, surprise.

"Low-wage workers are also disproportionately impacted," the union stated, adding that "in March 2022, 39 percent of Nevadans had difficulty paying for housing-related expenses according to federal government survey data."

Breaking News

MORE: Barbwire 5-25 & 5-4-2022

Culinary Union proposes ballot initiative to bring rent control to North Las Vegas
Michael Lyle/Nevada Current/5-19-2022

Culinary Union launches North Las Vegas rent control ballot initiative
Culinary Local 226 / 5-18-2022

Estabilidad vencindaria/226

Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau Verifies Local Government Rent Control Authority
By Ben Margiott /NBC TV-4/Fox-11
5-18-2022

Does Clark County have the authority, desire to pursue rent control?
Michael Lyle/Nevada Current/3-24-2022

Clark commissioners mull short term fixes, urge state action on rising rents
Michael Lyle/Nevada Current/2-16-2022

Rentvolution.org

Nevada Housing Coalition Executive Director Christine Hess told KTVN TV-2's Bryan Hofmann last week that some households are forced to spend half their income on rent.

Great way to lose weight if you can't afford food.

I notified the union that a rent control ballot initiative is very probably unnecessary.

I broke the story in the May 4 Tribune that all 17 Nevada county commissions already have all the authority they need to control price gouging. [UPDATE: As do other local governments. <—See TV-4 at left.]]

I await the powerful union's proposal.

BARBWIRE CONFIDENTIAL:
Monitor KRNV TV-4/Fox-11 newscasts starting on Channel 4 today at 6:00 p.m. Anchor Joe Hart last Wednesday announced the second of a series on the local housing crisis. This week's focus: rent control. It should air as scheduled unless there's a fire, flood or a cat up a tree — especially a wet kitty stranded in a burning tree during a gullywasher.

I referred reporter Ben Margiott to some good landlords who don't rip people off.

The Reno-Sparks area now has "more than 100 homes purchased for flipping" by speculators, according to one longtimer who groused that Wall Street corporations don't make improvements, perform upkeep or maintain landscaping. They just sit on the property, put it on the market at an inflated price and screw tenants for exorbitant rent in the interim.

Fortunately, there are still a few (damn few) landlords who don't jack up rents to "market rates" on good tenants who've been with them for years.

GASEOUS GOUGING. Last week, TV-2's Hofmann also interviewed gasoline industry lobbyist Pete Krueger, an old hand at passing out industry PR. He even danced the Texas-two step, blaming green energy for high pump prices.

Lone Star State Gov. Greg Abbott, R, shamelessly lied about the real reason so many Texans died in the 2021 statewide blizzard, blaming alternative energy rather than near-total government deregulation.

I am sure that pols at all levels appreciated Mr. Krueger taking them off the hook by adding that officials "can't do anything" about petroleum prices.

Excrementally and existentially false, even if we ignore gasoline taxes.

The same day as TV-2's story, the sheikhs of Araby "warned the world" that we are going to run out of oil unless, of course, we pay their vigorish...er, "invest" in more exploration. The actual amount of carbon still in the ground has long been a matter of guesswork.

That has not stopped BigOil from taking "depletion" of supply as a tax-deductible expense. They put Nevada corporate welfare to shame.

For the past 40 years, ARCO has set the hourly posted retail price and all other retailers mark accordingly. They never have to talk to each other, just drive by outdoor signs. No talk, no provable conspiracy to fix prices.

Prices only fall slowly after a publicity-fueled spike. Any emergency will do, from a fire on a supertanker to a greasy kitten up a mast on said ship. See the 40-year Barbwire Oilogopoly Archive at NevadaLabor.com/

UNFAIR MEDIA PRACTICES. With mass shootings now happening more often than daily (202 since the start of the year), here's another shot (pardon the expression) at simple cures for what ails us.

How to reign in Internet trolls and conspiracy freaks? Change federal law to make the messengers liable for damages. This newspaper would take a major financial hit for intentionally publishing libelous lies but Facebook does not thanks to an obsolete federal law passed to stimulate growth of the web. Growth, OK. When it turns cancerous, no.

So make the biggies create algorithms that pop-up contrasting points of view for any statement. Sound like the old Federal Communications Commission radio-tv fairness doctrine? Yep. But a hands-off policy is fueling mass murder.

Let Facebook red-flag anything I say as long as I get to say it with FB as exposed as me a for falsehoods. Smoke that, Vladimir. All suggestions welcome.

GUN CONTROL? Gunned down.

ABORTION SOLUTIONS, PART DEUX: Make sex illegal unless by appointment at a government-controlled intercourse facility.

In signing a law criminalizing abortion, the abovementioned Gov. Abbott said rape or incest-caused pregnancies would not be an issue because he would stamp out rape in Texas.

Well, guv, this ultimate birth control is the only way to have your cake and eat it, too. Religious zealots will love you even more.

Hard-core fact: Since Abbott took office in 2015, sexual assault in Texas has spiked well above the national average. What a guy.

JOB OPPORTUNITIES. What did new mothers do before baby formula? Hire a wet nurse. Why the product shortage? A three-corporation oligopoly controls the market. As with gasoline and so much else.

FOR ALL THE NEWS YOU NEVER KNEW YOU NEEDED TO KNOW 'TIL NOW, subscribe to Barbwire Confidential (hush, hush!) at BallotBoxing.US/

Monitor NevadaLabor.com for updates on all this stuff as mass mayhem morphs into mediocre modernity.

Take care of each other and be careful out there. Pray for Ukraine and 53 other currently war-torn lands.

¡ se puede!

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

__________________
_
Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 53-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com, SenJoeNeal.org, DoctorLawyerWatch.com, BallotBoxing.US, ConsumerCoalitionv.org, ChantalCoalition.org, Rentvolution.org, MIssissippiWestNV.org and CesarChavezNevada.com among others. He is a longtime member of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his comments are entirely his own. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988.

The abortion solution
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Sparks Tribune 5-11-2022 / Updated 5-12, 5-23 and 5-24-2022 / Expansions in blue


"Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great. If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate." — "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life" 1983

I thought I settled all of this 33 years ago, dammit.

Here's the text of the January 27, 1989, Barbwire entitled "An Elegant Solution to Abortion."

The abortion quandary revolves around the classic question of cake: how to have it and eat it, too. Pregnant women want to become unpregnant. Anti-abortionists want pregnancies carried thru to birth and have been increasingly willing to resort to violence to make their point.

INSTANCE IN POINT: On October 23, 1998, Dr. Barnett Abba Slepian was murdered in Amherst, New York, by anti-abortion militant James Charles Kopp. Dr. Slepian was the brother of then-Reno Wooster High School Principal Serena Robb.

Back to 1989.

Before any more on either side get killed, consider this: for the price of a couple of B-2 Stealth Bombers, we might solve this once and for all. My idea is simple: a new, liberal spending program to facilitate embryo/fetus survival outside the womb at any point in pregnancy.

STUPID QUESTION FROM A DUMB TEENAGER. I once asked my Fresno State freshman psychology professor Dr. Powell about exactly that in 1963. He looked at me like I had set him up for joke.

"How are they going to do that without a placenta?" he dissed me. If only I knew then what I know now.

Back to the 1989 Tribune:

Today, not only can in-vitro fertilization take place in a laboratory, but embryos can be removed from one womb and transplanted to another. This constitutes difficult but "basically surrogate mothering," one doctor told me awhile back.

Survivability is now limited to early and late stages of pregnancy, leaving the mid-portion for research. The mid-pregnancy time frame continues to shrink. No less than U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has recognized that the law and medical technology are on a "collision course" on this issue.

Controversial British researcher Robert Edwards has had embryos growing for over a month in lab dishes. Fertilized eggs can be frozen and last for years. The collision course of law and medical technology can be utilized to end the counterproductive collisions between people of radically different views. All it will take is putting the right amount of taxpayer money into the program
.

So there you have it. Put your pro-life money where your mouth is. Support the answer to abortion: a classic liberal spending program to research and implement the perfect solution. While the research is underway, another question must be posed: How many pro-lifers, male and female, would be willing to volunteer their bodies as hosts for these saved kids? (A recent report stated that male pregnancy is now technically feasible.)

UPDATE: In 1994, supermacho actor and future conservative Republican California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in "Junior," a comedy in which he became the world's first pregnant man. What Terminator?

Back to 1989.

Pro-choicers to whom I've presented this idea have unanimously committed to support it with their tax dollars. Anti-abortionists have accused me of sanctioning murder and violating God's will. I can't seem to get thru to them that the transplanted embryo/fetus would not be trashed, just relocated to eventually become little Johnny. No sale.

Why? Because elimination of the abortion controversy would destroy a lot of hobbies. People who enjoy proselytizing, publicizing, pontificating and prevaricating to their little corner of the world would find themselves fresh out of a cause. People get mad when you threaten their favorite pastimes.

So concluded my since-ignored advice. A guy even wrote Dear Abby with the transplant idea a decade or two later.

In one of his last newscasts, the most trusted man in America, Walter Cronkite, decried the emergence of single-interest politics. Anti-abortion is (pardon the expression) its poster child.

Zealots avoid "tangential" issues like who pays the societal costs for all those new kids? The 2005 bestseller "Freakonomics" noted how sociologists accurately predicted that the national crime rate would drop starting in 1998, precisely 15 years after 1973's Roe v. Wade decision. Why? Far fewer unwanted young males age 15 to 25, the demographic responsible for most crimes. [UPDATE published by Stanford Law: "Legalized abortion reduced violent crime by 47% and property crime by 33% over the last two decades."]

We already have an embarrassingly high infant mortality rate in this country (33rd among 36 advanced nations). Mississippi is our worst state and Mississippi West Nevada last month earned the dubious distinction of fourth in the nation for syphilitic babies.

Alas and alack, narrow focus is smart follytix. Lots of "fiscally vigilant" anti-abortion pols vote against "commie-liberal" programs such as food, Head Start, child and health care — like diagnosing and stopping parental syphilis with two bucks worth of penicillin.

"If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament" read a recent protest sign. Amen.

I'm basically a Buddhist-Newtonian: Matter and energy are neither created nor destroyed, they merely change form. Thus with any inchoate individual who doesn't make it all the way.

Catholic dogma recognizes an immortal soul. I've never gotten over Father Sergio Negro telling my high school senior religion class that if it's a tossup between a mother's life or the fetus, doctors should kill the mother in order to give the kid a chance at baptism and a higher place in heaven. My all-male classmates were uniformly aghast at this unintentional but callous marketing strategy.

I will let my first and last wife Betty (1941-2005) close with this until-now unpublished commentary on my 1989 piece: "The only thing I might add is this thought: Right or wrong should not always be equivalent to legal or illegal. People grow and advance as a human race when allowed to choose. People become divided and law enforcement ineffective when all choices are ruled legal or illegal. Mankind must grow through conscience, not fear. Fear of breaking the law is not necessarily based upon fear of God or morality, nor should it be. Government is not God. (God help us for making it seem this way.)"

The mother of five, grandmother to 11 and great-grandma of three (so far) was always much wiser than me. And demonstrably a much better and certainly more concise writer.

BARBWIRE CONFIDENTIAL: Monitor KRNV TV-4/Fox-11 starting today for the latest on rent control. (Barbwire 5-4-2022)

Take care of each other and be careful out there. Pray for Ukraine and 53 other currently war-torn lands.

¡ se puede!

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

__________________
_
Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 53-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com, SenJoeNeal.org, DoctorLawyerWatch.com, BallotBoxing.US, ConsumerCoalitionv.org, ChantalCoalition.org, Rentvolution.org, MIssissippiWestNV.org and CesarChavezNevada.com among others. He is a longtime member of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his comments are entirely his own. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988.

Web Xtras & Smoking Guns—>

On Roe, Alito cites a judge who treated women as witches and property
By Jill Elaine Hasday, Univ. of Minnesota Law School / Washington Post 5-9-2022

No women in the U.S. Constitution?
Of course the Constitution has nothing to say about abortion
By Jill Lepore / The New Yorker / 5-4-2022

Rise of the Homotextuals
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 2-9-2022

Betty J. Barbano
2-7-1941 / 12-27-2005

 

Updated 5-5 & 5-10-2022 GMT

¡FELIZ CINCO DE MAYO!

Barbwire by Barbano: 4-20, 4-27 & 5-4-2022
Rent control legal under Nevada law
Expansions in blue

Dare not speak its name
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 5-4-2022 / Updated 5-5, 5-18 and 5-19-2022 GMT

Actual knocking-on-doors candidates of every stripe appear to be hearing about one thing more than any other (gasp): Rent control.


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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

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Everybody wants affordable housing in the abstract but political leaders are stuck in cement shoes when it comes to concrete solutions.

In 1978, coinciding with the rise of the Reaganauts, Sparks-Reno was as much a boomtown as today. Eight major casinos, sparked by the MGM Grand, had opened and even gambling execs were living in tents or vans down by the river.

Back when he was still a Democrat, future State Sen. Randolph Townsend, R-Reno, backed a temporary rent control law to blunt landlord profit gouging. The establishment went bananas. Adding insult to injury, Townsend narrowly lost to a self-admitted Republican slumlord.

After Townsend's high-profile loss, rent control was dead, right? Wrong.

A champion rose up from the Oddie Blvd. mobile home park. A grandmother named Barbara Bennett got into her little yellow Volkswagen Beetle and organized tenants to push for a rent justification ordinance.

Prodded by their constituents, the Reno City Council actually passed rent control and got so much heat, they quickly nuked it. (Barbwire 7-17-2019)

After Townsend's high profile loss AND the city council's collapse, rent control was dead, right? Wrong.

The late great Grandma Bennett filed for mayor in the spring 1979 city primary. She had no money and no chance, right? Wrong.

She beat two incumbent councilmembers in the primary and the incumbent mayor in the general election. In 1999, the only Reno mayor to make the Reno Gazette-Journal's list of "100 who made a difference in the 20th Century " was the little old lady in the yellow VW. A downtown Reno park today bears her name.

DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN. The housing situation in today's Tesla Town is made worse as state and local governments pass out corporate welfare like cookies and turbocharge uncontrolled growth. Without developer money to mitigate the impacts, increasing numbers of people are on the streets or down by the river. Throw in a pandemic recession, garnish with war in Europe and the little people languish.

A few months back, I wrote the story of a couple forced to pay $500 just to apply at five apartments. (A background check costs less than a buck.)

Such exploitation has brought international shame to Sparks-Reno. In 2018, I lined up desperate renters for The Guardian of London's west coast bureau. None would allow their names to be used. I tried to start a Facebook page where people could anonymously post the facts about larcenous landlords. Tenants who responded were still too intimidated to go forward in this fire-at-will/no-cause-eviction state.

It is thus no wonder that rent control weighs heavy on the minds of voters while pols remain scared to freakin' death.

Officeholders always pass the buck saying they don't have the authority without specific legislative approval which will never come.

Maybe it already has.

In 2015, the Nevada Association of Counties pushed Senate Bill 29 thru the ledge. It "gave more power to County Commissioners," according to Creative Commons via Wikipedia.

The bill reaffirmed existing draconian "home rule" law, which means Nevada municipalities have no power other than that specifically granted by the state...

EXCEPT (drum roll, please) "boards of county commissioners," who "in the absence of a constitutional or statutory provision requiring a power to be exercised in a specific manner," (shall have) "all other powers necessary or proper to address matters of local concern for the effective operation of county government, whether or not the powers are expressly granted to the board."

Zounds.

Breaking News

MORE: Barbwire 5-18 & 5-25-2022

Culinary Union proposes ballot initiative to bring rent control to North Las Vegas
Michael Lyle/Nevada Current/5-19-2022

Culinary Union launches North Las Vegas rent control ballot initiative
Culinary Local 226 / 5-18-2022

Estabilidad vencindaria/226

Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau Verifies Local Government Rent Control Authority
By Ben Margiott /NBC TV-4/Fox-11
5-18-2022

Does Clark County have the authority, desire to pursue rent control?
Michael Lyle/Nevada Current/3-24-2022

Clark commissioners mull short term fixes, urge state action on rising rents
Michael Lyle/Nevada Current/2-16-2022

Rentvolution.org

That advice came from a pack of flaming liberals. It was written on August 15, 2016, by Deputy Attorney General Dennis Belcourt to Nye County District Attorney Angela Bello on letterhead from noted socialist Attorney General Adam Laxalt (R). His first assistant AG was former Assemblymember Wes Duncan, R-Las Vegas.

You may have noticed Mr. Duncan in last week's Tribune being sworn in as city attorney by Republican Mayor Ed Lawson. (Them closet socialists are everywhere!)

[[UPDATE: Both houses of the 2015 Nevada Legislature were Republican-controlled and GOP Gov. Brian Sandoval held the state house. Assembly Speaker John Hambrick, R-Las Vegas, sponsored Assembly Bill 493, a companion bill to SB 29.]]

Which brings me to the Democratic primary for Washoe County Commission District 3 (northeast Reno/western Sparks).

Candidate Kyle Isacksen told the Reno Gazette-Journal that he favors creation of a "rental registry" database to "find out where the money's going, who owns the houses...and then, the next step is rent stabilization."

Shades of Barbara Bennett. Landlords would have to justify rent increases during tight times based on actual costs.

Isacksen's next step would be some form of rent control. "Are you in favor?" I asked. "Yes," he said.

One of his two opponents, Hawah Ahmad, was a bit more circumspect, apparently noticing that the hills of the Truckee Meadows are littered with the bones of those who uttered the shibboleth.

"I appreciate the notion of rent control, but it doesn't positively impact the demand issue we have and isn't anything we can get enacted immediately...I personally think incentivizing good landlords is important," she stated. "My most immediate potential fix is the creation of county positions to negotiate long term leases" (I assume with incentivized good landlords) "that are specific on rent increases to come over a period of time for those transitioning out of homelessness and individuals on fixed incomes (seniors and disability recipients). We need to also change what the county defines as affordable housing to be more than just a percentage of units. A rent registry would help," she added.

I heard back from candidate Mariluz Garcia's campaign management but they did not venture a position. Her statements to the RGJ's Mark Robison were long on homelessness but did not mention the word "rent."

Links and references at NevadaLabor.com/ Monitor for late-breaking developments.

LET THEM EAT MASKS
Sparks-Reno superspreadators give booby bus boss big bucks


RAZING THE BUS SYSTEM.
Local bus overlords just gave a huge raise to regional transit bus boss Bill Thomas who has presided over three Teamsters strikes and a humongous decrease in passengers. (The wusses wanted masks. Who knew?)

Thomas and his foreign contract enforcers colluded with the Washoe County School District during the strikes and even stopped Sparks transit driver Michael Lansborough from speaking to media.

The longtime RTCRide operator is sole support of his wife and son, Logan, who has no lower legs due to a genetic flaw but still took to his wheelchair and joined dad on downtown Reno picket lines during last year's Hat Trick Strikes. (Photos at the front page of NevadaLabor.com/)

Mike is now home recovering from open heart surgery. Support him and his family at <https://gofund.me/7eae2ed0> or by sending checks or money orders payable to him at Teamsters Local 533, 1190 Selmi Drive, Suite 100, Reno NV 89512. Tell your friends.

Bill Thomas will soon be making almost $300,000 a year including benefits. Maybe he'll send a small check.

Take care of each other and be careful out there. Pray for Ukraine and 53 other currently war-torn lands.

¡ se puede!

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

__________________
_
Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 53-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com, SenJoeNeal.org, DoctorLawyerWatch.com, BallotBoxing.US, ConsumerCoalitionv.org, ChantalCoalition.org, Rentvolution.org, MIssissippiWestNV.org and CesarChavezNevada.com among others. He is a longtime member of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his comments are entirely his own. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988.

Acrobatic fencers & heavily-armed doublespeakers
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 4-27-2022
Updated 5-5 & 5-10 -2022 GMT / Expansions in blue

"The distinguished member of Parliament is quite acrobatic. He can straddle the fence while keeping an ear to the ground." — The best insult ever hurled in the British House of Commons

Somebody find me a one-armed economist who can't say "but on the other hand."

The High Desert Plantation just got a double dose of two-fisted doublespeak.

Both our superspreader local bus system and the Reno Fire Department share a common malady: The left hand apparently doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

RTC UPCHUCKS: Last week, perhaps for the first time in more than 30 years of bashing the Regional Transportation System and its mismanaging minions, I actually printed something nice.

      "A Trump-appointed (of course) judge in (where else?) Florida just ruled that the Centers for Disease Control has no authority to mandate masks in public transportation. So why have a CDC anymore?
"Meanwhile, COVID-19 infections are spiking all over the country and worldwide.
      "To its credit, the Regional Transportation Commission of Washoe County announced that masking will 'continue' to be enforced on their mass transit systems.
"For more than two years, their foreign contractor, Keolis Transit, has fought the federal mask mandate fang and claw. They have lost every round at the federal level to Teamsters Local 533. (See NevadaLabor.com/)
      “ 'RTC Washoe made the right choice by not following the decision of a judge in Florida,' said union president Gary Watson.
" 'The RTC and Teamsters have rarely seen eye to eye lately, but this move is a step in the right direction, and a step to continue to protect transit operators and passengers alike,' Watson added.
      "Masks save lives. Wearing one protects others from you but if they are exhaling freely, only an N95 model gives you any serious cover."

BUS BOSSES CRASH AND BURN. On Tuesday morning, less than 12 hours after the Tribune went to press, the overlords of the Superspreader Bus System changed their minds — or lost their minds, depending on one's perspective.

      Tuesday, April 19, 2022 7:18 a.m.: "Gary, As noted below from the TSA (Transportation Security Administration), the mask requirement has been rescinded. With that in mind, we would like to remove our local requirements from the buses and buildings. Please let me know if you are in agreement, or call me when you get a chance. I expect huge amounts of the riding public who are aware of this will argue with the drivers if we don't go along with the new TSA ruling.
      Thanks, (signed) Phil Pumphrey, General Manager-Reno Operations, Keolis Transit"

Taxpayers have paid millions to that inept, for-profit corporation. Ridership immediately nosedived when they took over in July, 2019, fully eight months before COVID-19 hit. What an outfit.

GREATEST HITS, PART DEUX. Last Monday, local police and fire dispatchers got a "help I've fallen and can't get up call." They sent paramedics from the Regional Emergency Medical Services Authority (REMSA). Both first responders wore masks. Bueno.

The next day, another such call came in. This time, the Reno Fire Department sent a hook and ladder to help a senior citizen off the floor. NONE of the three firefighters wore masks. Well, they had masks, but they wore them under their chins.

The RFD crew chief defended his laxity by noting "that mandate's been removed."

Yes, but you guys may be unknowingly carrying the plague and spreading it just by breathing. Or you can contract it by huffing and puffing while lifting aging bodies.

That doofus deserves a night in a hot tub with a cold Dalmatian. I refer him to this immortal quote from Arnold Schwarzenegger's most famous film: "Listen and understand. That Terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with, it can't be reasoned with, it doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear. And it absolutely will not stop — ever — until you are dead!"

UPDATE FROM THE HORSE'S MOUTH: An emergency room insider told me that "Reno firefighters are notorious for not wearing masks." Do they still train staff on the meaning of the "protect" part of "protect and serve." (p.m. 4-27-2022)

A TRIP DOWN AMNESIA LANE. Reno actress and playwright Jeanmarie Simpson will reprise her Reno-birthed one-woman show "A Single Woman" at 6:00 p.m. this Friday, part of a political fundraiser at the Potentialist Workshop, 836 E 2nd Street.

"Everyone is welcome," stated a press release. "Non-perishable food items and monetary donations are encouraged ($100 is suggested, but $1 is gratefully accepted too!)."

Ms. Simpson's magnum opus brings to life the first woman to serve in Congress, Jeannette Rankin, R-Montana.

The media spin committed an unfortunate sin of omission.

It duly noted that Rankin, R-Montana, was "an outspoken champion of women’s rights and peace."

However, the promoters totally ignored how she got that way. Rankin voted against BOTH world wars.

In 1917, a few months after being sworn in, she was one of 50 who turned thumbs-down to involvement in World War One after racist President Woodrow Wilson broke his re-election promise to stay out of that European debacle. It directly led to the rise of Hitler. Ms. Rankin was not foolish enough to seek re-election in 1918 with America suffering fog-of-war fever.

Fast-forward a couple decades. Rankin returned to Montana and got elected again in 1940 — just in time to become the ONLY member of Congress to vote against WW2 after Pearl Harbor. She simply could not stomach the contradiction of supporting a "moral" war.

Future President John F. Kennedy and his ghost writer, Theodore Sorenson, should have included her in their Pulitzer-winning book "Profiles in Courage." But they didn't. Rankin became a pacifist icon and often demonstrated against the Vietnam carnage until her death in 1973.

Ms. Simpson's curiosity about Rankin resulted from a Reno Gazette-Journal article. She premiered her play in Reno and it became a Hollywood film with herself in the title role and Brat Pack alum Judd Nelson ("St. Elmo's Fire", "The Breakfast Club") in the cast.

Which brings me to my favorite member of Congress, Barbara Lee, D-Calif. (East Bay). She's the only congresscritter to vote against BOTH bumbling Bush the Elder's Gulf War and booby Bush the Lesser's Iraq War.

My kinda lady. Jeannette Rankin would applaud.

THANKS AGAIN
to all Barbwire readers and union members who continue to send support for Sparks RTCRide operator Mike Lansborough who is recovering from open heart surgery. Please help thru a GoFundMe page <https://gofund.me/7eae2ed0>. Should you prefer to mail a check, make it payable to Michael Lansborough and send to his attention at Teamsters Local 533, 1190 Selmi Drive, Suite 100, Reno NV 89512. Tell your friends.

Take care of each other and be careful out there.

Pray for Ukraine and 53 other currently war-torn lands.

¡ se puede!

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

__________________
_
Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 53-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com, SenJoeNeal.org, DoctorLawyerWatch.com, BallotBoxing.US, ConsumerCoalitionv.org, ChantalCoalition.org, Rentvolution.org, MIssissippiWestNV.org and CesarChavezNevada.com among others. He is a longtime member of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his comments are entirely his own. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988.

Poisoning Pigeons in the Park
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 4-20-2022 / Updated 5-5-2022 GMT / Expansions in blue

"All the world seems in tune on a spring afternoon when we're poisoning pigeons in the park." — Tom Lehrer 1959

I've warned you many times and I admonish you again: Don't let your kids play on the plastic turf at Sparks' Golden Eagle Park.

According to last week's Tribune, the Sparks City Council spent $64,000 "to purchase SMG SportChamp artificial turf maintenance equipment" for the biggest expanse of crumb rubber turf in the country.

The NFL loves that hazard. It's very photogenic for TV and it's cheaper to maintain than that new-fangled stuff called grass.

If you've ever watched replays of football players kicking up black dust on pretty green turf, you've seen ground-up used tires containing almost 100 chemicals, some cancer-causing like lead, arsenic, cadmium and benzene. I started beating the drum about this on Nov. 24, 2015. I've talked to local high school coaches who are embarrassed to admit they know of the danger but are powerless to fight the system.

Crumb rubber turf infects schools all over Nevada and the nation. Locally: McQueen, Damonte Ranch, Manogue, Carson and Douglas high schools; the Jan Evans Juvenile Detention Center, UNR's Mackey Stadium, Wolf Pack and Peccole parks. (Research and archives ConsumerCoalitionv.org/)

More than 12,000 crumb rubber fields were in use as of 2019 with 1,200 to 1,500 more expected each year.

Only limited studies have been done and have shown no ill effects. Everything seems to have stopped after 2019. Hmmm...did some big health scare suck all the air out of the research rooms starting in 2020?

Much of this is déjà vu all over again. And again. A few years ago, Fallon cancer cluster research proved inconclusive despite an inordinate number of kids getting sick and dying. Cancer cluster designation proved a hard label to come by, especially since Churchill County air is besotted with pesticides, naval air base jet fuel and heavy metal manufacturing. Most fingers pointed toward the latter.

Colonia High School in Woodbridge Township, New Jersey, has been in the news after activists documented 105 brain tumors (half cancerous) among graduates starting in 1972. I predict that years of study will show "no clear causation" meriting cancer cluster designation. As with crumb rubber turf, affected industries will tout exoneration.

Beware.

MORE KIDDIE HAZARDS. I saw a piece on KOLO TV-8 last week showing a moppet scaling the climbing wall at the 9th Street Boys & Girls Club. She had no safety harness. Zounds. I made a couple of calls to those in charge. Stay tuned.

MEDIA MELTDOWNS. KRNV TV-4 has covered 60 seconds of "Saturday Night Live" with a commercial for Charter/Spectrum cable. Last week, the spot pre-empted some of the opening skit in mid-stream. On the previous two weekends, the same ad covered part of the "Weekend Update" news satire. Computer glitch? Probably.

Corporations cut corners wherever they can, and that usually means people. A few years ago, the tornado emergency broadcast system in the Oklahoma outback failed because none of the radio stations in the area had anyone working. All were on computerized auto-pilot on a Saturday. People died.

MEMORY MELTDOWNS. For folks here in Mississippi West haven't heard, this is Confederate Heritage Month in Mississippi proper.

MASKING MELTDOWNS. A Trump-appointed (of course) judge in (where else?) Florida just ruled that the Centers for Disease Control has no authority to mandate masks in public transportation. (So why have a CDC anymore?)

Meanwhile, COVID-19 infections are spiking all over the country and worldwide.

To their credit, the Regional Transportation Commission of Washoe County announced that masking will "continue" to be enforced on their mass transit systems.

Their foreign contractor, Keolis Transit, has fought the federal mask mandate fang and claw for more than two years. They have lost every round at the federal level to Teamsters Local 533. (See NevadaLabor.com/) Maybe they've finally seen the light.

“RTC Washoe made the right choice by not following the decision of a judge in Florida," said union president Gary Watson.

"The RTC and Teamsters have rarely seen eye to eye lately, but this move is a step in the right direction, and a step to continue to protect transit operators and passengers alike."

A semblance of sanity at last in local mass transit land. Who'da thunk it?

Masks save lives. Wearing one protects others from you but if they are exhaling freely, only an N95 version gives you any cover.

After allowing thousands of far east air passengers into the country in February 2020 while telling the public not to worry, Czar Donaldov made mask wearing a partisan brand. He's been recorded by journalist Bob Woodward admitting that he knew how deadly the virus was early on, but still maintained the fiction. Almost a million Americans now lie dead while the ruler of Mar-a-Loco scores millions running the Republican Party as his profitable family business.

UPDATE: Masking enforcement lasted all of 12 hours. What a country.

IS SENSIBILITY SPREADING?
Last month, I groused about the Reno Gazette-Journal nuking its Saturday edition without giving subscribers a discount. (Barbwire 3-30-2022) The move also killed Saturday delivery for other publications in the region such as The New York Times.

Worse, their distribution contractor re-jiggered the system so that the odds of customers on my street getting their papers on any given day are 50/50 at best. You can call the Times to credit your account. The Kazoo-Journal sends you to voicemail hell followed by an e-mail form letter saying they will look into it. Then nothing.

The official excuse blames "the same labor shortage difficulties that are affecting so many businesses across the nation." I wonder what they pay in minimum-wage Nevada? Their corporate overlords scored $7 million in pure profit by selling the RGJ building to the CIty of Reno. So how about taking some of it to pay delivery drivers better?

Hope springs eternal. Six-day subscribers got a letter last Monday announcing a price DECREASE. Starting on May 10, the price goes down to $73.00 a month, a whopping $5.27 saving from the published rate.

Somebody check for snowfall in hell.

HAIL TO THE CHIEF. Reno Police Chief Jason Soto announced that he will retire at year's end. My money's on Deputy Chief Oliver Miller as his replacement. I've worked with him on community issues for years. He began his career with Sparks PD in 2000. He's paid his dues and has earned his shot at the top job. Stay tuned.

BIG MIKE'S ON THE MEND. Sparks transit operator Michael Lansborough is still home recovering from successful open heart surgery. He may be cleared to return to work late next month.

The longtime RTCRide driver is sole support of his wife and son, Logan, who has no lower legs due to a genetic flaw but still took to his wheelchair and joined dad on downtown Reno picket lines during last year's Hat Trick Strikes. (Photos at the front page of NevadaLabor.com/)

Friends set up GoFundMe page.  <https://gofund.me/7eae2ed0>

Please be generous. If you'd prefer to mail a check, make it payable to Michael Lansborough and send to his attention at Teamsters Local 533, 1190 Selmi Drive, Suite 100, Reno NV 89512.

Thanks to all the Barbwire readers and union members who continue to send support.  Tell your friends.

Pray for Ukraine. And 53 other war-torn lands.

Take care of each other and be careful out there.

¡ se puede!

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

__________________
_
Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 53-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com, SenJoeNeal.org, DoctorLawyerWatch.com, BallotBoxing.US, ConsumerCoalitionv.org, ChantalCoalition.org, Rentvolution.org, MIssissippiWestNV.org and CesarChavezNevada.com among others. He is a longtime member of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his comments are entirely his own. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988.

Oil Ain't All That's Rigged
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 3-9-2022
Updated 3-10-2022 GMT/ Expansions in blue

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.

Leonard Cohen (1934-2016) & Sharon Robinson

Blame Ukraine? Not so fast.

Would you rather read about sex, oil or oil and sex? If you chose number three, please continue.

Biden administration study finds
There's no such thing as a free labor market
With union rights reform dead again in Congress, feds try to use anti-trust laws against the malady

Hasn't worked against the BigOil oligopoly, but hope springs eternal.

The New York Times Business Section
(Labor sections have been extinct for 40 years)
By Eduardo Porter / 3-8-2022

It's not what you think, as the wife said to her husband when he walked in on her and her boyfriend.

The big news this week is neither bloody war nor truck convoys protesting non-existent mask mandates.

It's gasoline. I'd like to say I've never witnessed worse reportage in many decades of news addiction, but this one scrapes bottom.

The price of gasoline is rigged by a small number of oil companies with smart lawyers. I've been reporting on it for decades. (See the Barbwire Oilogopoly Archives at NevadaLabor.com/)

Alas and alack, as national news departments long ago realized, the public just doesn't much care. The powerful plead helplessness. Kinda like local officials saying they can't do much about homelessness. (See below.)

PASSING THE BUCKS. Just as our local bus system overlords say the collapse of the system on their watch is somebody else's fault, few government regulators decry the fixing of gas prices.

When the cost of a barrel of oil from somewhere on the sands of Araby rises at 9:00 a.m., why does the price at the pump go up by 9:15? Because the old con works. Very few media organizations (back when they could afford investigative journalism) would touch the story. Oil just isn't sexy unless applied by a big-breasted "masseuse" to the back of a powerful politician with cameras rolling. (In lobbyist terms, that's called greasing the skids.)

With the lack of media attention to this blatant price fixing, the public has been conditioned to accept and pay at the phony levels while blaming whomever they don't like. Meanwhile, the biggies laugh all the way to the bank. When open market per barrel prices start to decline, per-gallon costs recede much more slowly, of course.

Just about everything you get at a supermarket works that way, especially prescription drugs whether developed with taxpayer money or not.

BigOil long ago found the obvious hole in antitrust law. You can fix prices as long as you never talk to each other about it. For more than four decades, one "discount" chain sets the price on its road signs in the morning and area "competitors" price accordingly within minutes. Technically, no communication — just drive-bys assassinating your wallet.

Think about it. Your corner gas station has a few thousand gallons underground to start the day. At 8:00 a.m., war breaks out between the Saudis and Yemen. Or Ukraine and Russia. Oil futures spike worldwide. The gas already at local stations, acquired much cheaper, immediately skyrockets in price. The oil on the sands of Araby will not reach refineries for days or weeks. Same thing happens every time there's a refinery fire somewhere or a forest fire near a refinery.

If they thought the public would swallow a price hike because Tom Brady loses a Super Bowl, they would do so.

RENO CITY COUNCIL PASSES RENT CONTROL. They actually did, in 1978. Then big money forced city hall to renege. At least it sparked the election of Reno's greatest mayor, the late Barbara Bennett, the following year.

The legit media have ignored history but the Barbwire never forgets. (Barbwire, 7-17-2019).

I was thus bemused last week when Reno City Hall threw up its collective hands. No less than former Nevada Assembly Speaker, D-LV, and current Clark County Commission Chair Marilyn Fitzpatrick raised the issue.

It's really simple. Rent regulation should trigger when availability drops below five percent and switch off above that level.

All them conservatives crying socialism miss the point. Socialism, defined as anything that helps people, is all around us: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public education, parks, roads, police, fire and other first responders.

Capitalism without regulation is tyranny. As is Leninism as practiced by Czar Vladimir the Last. Eric Hofer, the longshoreman-philosopher, noted in the 1950s that taken to their logical conclusions of one big outfit having swallowed up all the smaller ones, Leninism and capitalism take us to the same exploitive place.

But that ain't sexy.

TWO CZARS DON'T MAKE A RIGHT. Were Trump still president, he'd invite Putin to the White House for a testimonial dinner, a presidential medal of freedom and a blow job. Not necessarily in that order.

GAZETTE BURGERS, ANYONE? I feel sorry for Reno Gazette-Journal executive editor Brian Duggan. He had to send a letter to subscribers this week notifying them that the Saturday paper would no longer be printed. Internet clients could find a Saturday edition on the newspaper's website.

What about longtime subscribers like some of my neighbors who have no web access? They will continue to pay for seven papers a week but get only six.

Not Mr. Duggan's fault. That's what happens when soulless corporations take over companies then bleed, skin, butcher and dump the carcass roadside. The current owners scored $7 million selling the former Kazoo-Journal building to the City of Reno to be converted to a new police station but still canned reporters.

The RGJ marketing department has never been one to miss sales opportunities, but they've blown this one big time. They should at least offer a Burger King coupon to all their screwed subscribers for a free 10-pack of chicken nuggets, which BK just downsized to eight for the same price.

A perfect pairing of junk food kiss-offs. An Orwellian match made in heaven: Less is more in an "eedition." (Eek.)

Yeah, sure, and war is actually a "special military operation."

THE ROLLING LOGANS. Sparks transit operator Michael Lansborough is home recovering from major heart surgery. The longtime RTCRide driver is sole support of his wife and son, Logan, who has no lower legs due to a genetic flaw but still took to his wheelchair and joined dad on downtown Reno picket lines during last year's Hat Trick Strikes. (Photos at the front page of NevadaLabor.com/)

Friends set up GoFundMe page.  <https://gofund.me/7eae2ed0>

Be generous. If you'd prefer to mail a check, make it payable to Michael Lansborough and send to his attention at Teamsters Local 533, 1190 Selmi Drive, Suite 100, Reno NV 89512.

Thanks to all the Barbwire readers and union members who have continue to send support.  Join me in donating. Please. And tell your friends.

Take care of each other and be careful out there.

¡ se puede!

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

__________________
_
Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 53-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com, SenJoeNeal.org, BallotBoxing.US, ConsumerCoalitionv.org, Rentvolution.org, MIssissippiWestNV.org and CesarChavezNevada.com among others. He is a longtime member of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his comments are entirely his own. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988. E-mail <barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us
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$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

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Copyright © 1982-2022 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 53-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 a longtime member 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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