BARBWIRE
by
ANDREW BARBANO
Pirate Laureate of the High Desert Outback of the American Dream
The Barbwire Molly Ivins Memorial Columniator Hall of Flames

Barbwire
Archives

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

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

Get ahead of corporate-influenced news—>Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential

Breaking News & then some—>

Hawk Fire burns 10,500 acres —> Evacuations remain
Reno Gazette-Journal update 06:38a.m. PDT 8-23-2026

01:58 PDT 8-23-2026—>Reno Nevada Hawk Fire Evacuation and Warning Info
Perimetermap.com is vague. Google Ai shows the current evacuation area. Google hawk fire reno nevada update evacuation/ CALL 775-882-TALK [8255] or Send updates and I will do the same / Stay safe. ANDREW QUARANTINO BARBANO

8-26-26: Going to Heaven in a Flash of Fire
Andrew Barbano Editor/Publisher
Photo: Debra Reid, Sparks Tribune

 


   Everybody knows the dice are loaded.
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed.
   Everybody knows the war is over.
Everybody knows the good guys lost.
   Everybody knows the fight was fixed.
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich.
   That's how it goes. Everybody knows...
Everybody knows the scene is dead
   But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
   What everybody knows...
   Everybody talking to their pockets.
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
   and a long red rose.
   Everybody knows. Everybody knows.
That's how it goes. Everybody knows.

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


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

 

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

On January 16, 1959, two babies were born.
They became sisters in both life and death.

Larry Barbano, Frater Mei
12-18-1947 / 10-18-2023

Going to Heaven in a Flash of Fire
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno/ Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 8-26-2026 / UPDATED 9-7-2026 / Expansions in blue


Greatest Hits Dept.

BREAKING NEWS—>

BOXCARS!
Barbwire wins 12th Nevada Press Association award

Hi yo Silver 2025
3-12-2025
4-17-2024
4-3-2024

Nevada Press Assn.
Hall of Fame
5 down, 4 to go

7-31-2025 Barbwire Winner
Congratulations to Barbwire nominee Norman Cardoza, 1977 Pulitzer Prize winner, Reno Gazette-Journal

2024 Barbwire Winners!

Jake Highton & Guy Louis Rocha 2024 honorees BUENO!

Barbwire nominee Dennis Myers elected to NPA Hall of Fame (2019)

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 (2012)

Support Don Dondero
and David Toll and
Foster Church and Ed Pearce 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/9-29-2018

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!

 

Roll me up and smoke me when I die
You won't see no sad and teary eyes
When I get my wings and it's my time to fly
Call my friends and tell them
There's a party, come on by
And just roll me up and smoke me when I die.
— Willie Nelson & Snoop Dogg

I've been singing Willie's country chestnut a lot lately.

I don't smoke and spent the weekend sending prayers/vibrations/emanations/projexions that none of us will have to bodily take up that vice in the immediate future.

At least the monster Hawk Fire turned Reno into the lead item on all forms of news worldwide. Bigger than Burning Man. Any publicity is good publicity, eh wot?

Just before 11:00 p.m. Saturday, my homeowners association forwarded a general "get outta Dodge right now!" order from local government. I went upstairs to look around. Nada.

My 'hood was actually on a fringe "pack up and get ready" area. The HOA-types sent the blanket panic and went home.

Local government said to watch PerimeterMap.com but I couldn't find my street. They found identical names everywhere from here to Serbia. Serbia, fergawdsakes! So whassup?

Finally, I punched in my zip code with no street name. Turns out I live on "Mesouite Court." Huh? They can't even spell "Mesquite"? And that's not my street.

Back in the 70s, the flaky developer of my area named my street after himself and left town before the cops found him.

Until last Sunday morning, I had never heard of "Mesquite Court." Which means that PerimeterMap.com was apparently using an old subdivision map more than half a century out of date.

Reminds me of Google Maps listing Dog Valley Road's one-lane cowpath as the alternative for Donner Pass during I-80 blizzards. Trust but verify, my fellow innocent snowflakes.

DOWN AMNESIA LANE. At this point on my old Barbwire talk-rock radio show, I would cue Hoyt Axton...

I thought you were a friend of mine
I thought you were my buddy
But I found out a short while ago
Your thoughts were dark and muddy
You scare me half to death, my friend,
With the things you say and do
So I'm goin' to heaven in a flash of fire
With or without you.

Betrayal means never having to say you're sorry.

The Renown Octopus just got swallowed up by a bigger beast. Kaiser Permanente is so named after old-time Kaiser Automobile mogul Henry J. Kaiser who branched off into construction with the pretentiously-named Permanente Cement over half a century ago. Then his minions got into healthcare, much to Nevada's detriment.

Kaiser just ate Renown and is now busy putting patients in cement shoes and dropping them into Lake Tahoe. As its first official act, a few weeks ago the beast terminated a whole bunch of doctors and wished its health plan patients lotsa luck. (PAT HICKEY Reno Gazette-Journal 8-25-2026)

UPDATE—> Reno pediatricians say Kaiser, Renown deal threatens kids' access to care (RGJ.COM 8-27-2026)

MATCH MADE IN HADES. Renown tried to monopolize heart care until they got sued and lost. In 2012, the Federal Trade Commission ruled "Renown Health agreed to settle charges that its acquisitions of two local cardiology groups reduced competition for the provision of adult cardiology services in the Reno area." (Full decision at NevadaLabor.com)

Our former public hospital, Washoe Medical Center, was stolen by clever banditos back in the 1980s. Washoe Med execs marketed a clever lie, corrupted a few pols and acquired assets worth up to $120 million for just $3 million.

The bright shining lie asserted that even though Washoe Med had never lost money, it would soon bankrupt the county due to providing care for people who could not pay. (Which today is almost everybody.)

"Let us take this white elephant off your hands, sweetie," oozed the sales pitch. A corrupt county commission got hornswoggled. The soon-to-expire Nevada Health Systems Agency signed off and folded.

The banditos promised to control ("cut") health care costs and permanently take indigent care off the backs of taxpayers: "Just give us a free hospital and trust us."

Washoe County had an honest deputy D.A. writing the giveaway contract. His boss, the late Ed Dannan (later to become a district judge) took him off the case and cut the indigent care section.

To this day, Renown regularly gets a fat check from Washoe County taxpayers to pay for indigent care. And what cost control?

It's all in the 1995 Washoe Grand Jury report available online only at the Barbwire Health Care War Room. (See NevadaLabor.com)

The day the report was published, I hand-delivered a copy to the honest lawyer, by then no longer working at the DA's office.

Here's the latest Google Ai summary: "The 1995 Washoe County Grand Jury report, highlighted by NevadaLabor.com, documented the controversial privatization of the public Washoe Medical Center. Deputy District Attorney Bill Baker was removed from the case by his supervisor, Ed Dannan, after Baker aggressively challenged the deal as unfair to taxpayers."

ATTENTION ATTORNEY GENERAL AARON FORD: I know you're busy in many places fighting the depredations of Mad King Donaldov. Many thanks, but if Mr. Baker is still practicing, hire him to bust up this slimy octopi medical marital miscarriage.

Some can dance and some can sing
And some can play the fiddle
I've been right and I've been left
And I've been down the middle.
You don't have to see my side
Or share my point of view
`Cause I'm goin' to heaven in a flash of fire
With or without you.

MELT ICE —> Mask up and vaxx up! Get the latest boosters, protect yourself and your family, mask yourself up to melt ICE, and continue praying for the oppressed, unenlightened and unvaccinated as well as Popes Leo and Francis, the Dalai Lama, Sarah Mullally (the new Archbishop of Canterbury), Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Burma/Myanmar (Rohingya genocide) and eastern China (Uyghur genocide) among the world's more than 160 currently war-torn lands, including ours. May we survive WW3, perhaps coming soon to a polling place near you. Be very afraid. And vote, dammit.

¡Sí se puede! Or, as they say in Poland, SOLIDARNOSC!

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 57-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com, SenJoeNeal.org, DoctorLawyerWatch.com, BallotBoxing.US,ConsumerCoalitionv.org,ChantalCoalition.org, Rentvolution.org and MississippiWestNV.org among others. He is a longtime member and former vice-president of the Reno-Sparks NAACP and a member of 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 August 12, 1988. His first byline in the paper came in 1973.

The Northern Nevada Central Labor Council/AFL-CIO inducted him into the Nevada Labor Hall of Fame on April 5, 2024. For all the news you never knew you needed to know, head for BallotBoxing.US.

"Roll Me Up" by Buddy Cannon, John Colgin, Michael McQuerry, Rich Alves and Willie Nelson. "Flash of Fire" by Hoyt Axton and Catherine Smith

Breaking News —> Masks work!

And the plague is rampant once again. Be very afraid.

Trump Victory Would Be a Public Health Disaster
By Whistleblower Rick Bright/New York Times/10-10-2024

Instant Replay—>Top 10 Cures for What Ails Us
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno/ Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 8-19-2026
/ UPDATED 8-23-2026 / Expansions in blue

NVEnergy tries to fry your grandma
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno/ Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 8-5-2026 / UPDATED 8-5-2026 / Expansions in blue

Billionaire Warren Buffet's NVEnergy tried to broil grannyburgers this week and something stopped them. Maybe me.

The Mid-'26 Barbwire Blue-footed Booby Prizes
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno/ Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 7-29-2026
/ UPDATED 8-5-2026 / Expansions in blue

Barbwire addicts know that I usually call out the Booby Birds at the end of December. But booby mating season comes in July and August. Timing is everything whether or not you're into rhythm methods.

UPDATE: WORLDWIDE LEADER? ACT OF GOD OR JUST A GARDEN-VARIETY IMPOSSIBLE DREAMER? ALL OF THE ABOVE? VERY POSSIBLY. Was Andrew Barbano the only advocate for an American pope? Google apparently says YES! At minimum, the Barbwire stumped and broke Google trying to find out. See for yourself. And please lemme know what you think.

Let it Be: An American Pope Francis2
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 4-23-2025, uploaded 4-22-2025

Big news. Prayers answered: Pope takes on T-Rump head-to-head.

Pinky & the Brain taking over the world
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 4-2-2025

Ain't we a pair?
Dennis Myers & Andrew Barbano inducted into Nevada Labor Hall of Fame
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 4-10-2024

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

On January 16, 1959, two babies were born.
They became sisters in both life and death.

Larry Barbano, Frater Mei
12-18-1947 / 10-18-2023
To Die For
My daughters were born 65 years ago yesterday. Alas, their youth was cut in twain.
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 1-17-2024
 

Web Xtras & Smoking Guns—>

Why the science is clear that masks work
By Zeynep Tufecki / The New York Times / 3-10-2023

Breaking News —> Masks work!

And the plague is rampant once again. Be very afraid.

Trump Victory Would Be a Public Health Disaster
By Whistleblower Rick Bright/New York Times/10-10-2024
For all the news you never knew you needed to know 'til now, subscribe to BARBWIRE CONFIDENTIAL—>Cheap. (HushHush!) Hie thee to BallotBoxing.US/


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

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

Barbwire dark foreshadowings unfortunately have a way of becoming 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.



$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

Wasting workers where everybody knows your name
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 10-18-2023

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

NevadaLabor.com | U-News | Bulletins + Almanac
Casinos Out of Politics (COP) | Sen. Joe Neal
Guinn Watch | Deciding Factors | BallotBoxing.US
DoctorLawyerWatch.com | Barbwire Oilogopoly Archive
Barbwire Nevada Corporate Welfare Archive
The Barbwire Molly Ivins Memorial Columniator Hall of Flames
Annual César Chávez Celebration
War Rooms: Banks, Cabbies, Cabela's/cabellyup, Cable TV, Cancer Kids/Mining, Energy, Food, Health Care, Resurge.TV/consumers, Starbucks, Wal-Mart
We Don't Need No Education
In Search Of...


Barbwire
Archives


Copyright © 1982-2026 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 57-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and SenJoeNeal.org; and former chair of the City of Reno's Citizens Cable Compliance Committee. He was the longtime executive producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration and has been a quarter-century member and 10- year officer of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us.

The Northern Nevada Central Labor Council/AFL-CIO inducted him into César Chávez Nevada Labor Hall of Fame on April 5, 2024.

Barbwire by Barbano moved to Nevada's Daily Sparks Tribune on Aug. 12, 1988, and has originated in them parts ever since. His first byline in the paper came in 1973.
Whom to blame: How a hall-of-famer's hunch birthed the Barbwire in August of 1987
Tempus fugit.

Get ahead of corporate-influenced news—>Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential

Site composed and maintained by Deciding Factors, CWA 9413 signatory

Comments and suggestions appreciated. Sign up for news and bulletins