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ANDREW BARBANO
Pirate Laureate of the High Desert Outback of the American Dream
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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

 


   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



Siren princesses traumatize trolls
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno
/
Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 2-7-2024 / Updated 2-8-2024 GMT / Expansions in blue

I usually avoid Hollywood award shows but made an exception for last Sunday's Grammys when I learned of Joni Mitchell's inclusion.

It was one helluva show, and not just for the American icon.

Stevie Wonder's "For Once in My Life" duet with the late great Tony Bennett was perfect. Echoing the technology that won every award in the book for Natalie Cole (who recorded "Unforgettable" in 2012 with her long-dead dad Nat King Cole), Stevie Wonder sang and played live, trading verses with the immortal Benedetto on the big screen.

Between Ms. Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" and the superstar duet, I was glad I had Kleenex handy.

Last year, Joni Mitchell was honored by the Library of Congress with the Gershwin Prize for popular song. She sang George Gershwin's "Summertime" and later closed the show with what I consider her greatest work, "The Circle Game."

Pretty good for an octogenerian who beat childhood polio only to suffer a brain aneurism 10 years ago requiring her to re-learn talking, walking, singing and playing guitar.

Olivia Rodrigo rang my chimes with the unintentionally ironic "Vampire," a song I plan to extensively use on my new show.

I used to think I was smart
You made me look so naive

The way you sold me for parts
As you sunk in your teeth

Soulsucker, dream crusher
Bleedin' me dry like a
(goddamn) vampire

Ahem...On the broadcast, Ms. Rodrigo sang "dream crusher" instead of the hit version which rhymes a bit better with "soulsucker." Get it? She also edited the blasphemy word for TV.

Mss. Mitchell and Swift and their friends propelled the Sunday show to its highest ratings since 2020, up 34 percent from last year at almost 17 million viewers.

Understandable. Unforgettable.

Women dominated the '24 Grammys. Bueno. Even former first lady Michelle Obama beat Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders for the best audio book narration.

If women can become a governing majority, the human species may yet stand a chance at avoiding self-annihilation.

Wannabe hip hop king T-Rump (Barbwire 12-27-23 and 1-31-24) probably lost sleep when he saw a show get great ratings that failed to mention him even once.

Save for, perhaps, Ms. Rodrigo.

GRANDPA BERNIE STILL BURNS BRIGHTLY. The great advocate for the little people kicked serious butt on Seth Myers' Monday show, as did Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren who guested on Steven Colbert's soirée.

Sen. Warren reiterated that T-Rump doesn't want the bi-partisan border bill to pass. He thrives on chaos, presenting himself as the panacea. She also blasted companies that artificially skyrocket grocery prices, still using the pandemic as an excuse. (Barbwire 11-29-2023)

Sen. Sanders decried the huge uptick in prescription drug prices. (More than 900 have risen since December.)

He also reiterated his opposition to giving any money to the Israeli government until they stop their wholesale slaughter of Palestinian civilians.

Bernie is uniquely positioned to make such demands. He's a Jewish kid from Brooklyn.

GOING TO THE DOGS. Wall Street vulture Alden Global Capital just sold the Baltimore Sun to the boss of Sinclair Broadcast Group which owns more than 200 stations, including NBC-4 and FOX-11, among a dozen northwestern Nevada signals. (Barbwire 1-31-2024)

Alden bought a bunch of newspapers, eviscerated them, sold off their real estate and dumped the skeletons on main street. (After its merger, Gannett did the same thing with the Reno Gazette-Journal, selling off the RGJ building to the City of Reno for remodeling as a police station. Net profit: $7 million.)

Alden recently acquired 200 Greyhound depots and is closing many terminals in city centers, leaving low income riders to hitchhike.

Greyhound was started by the nation's railroads who decided they weren't making enough money on passengers.

So they made the service awful and started an alternative across their parking lots: Greyhound.

They thus kept passenger revenue and eliminated dining and sleeping cars, engineers, conductors and baggage porters — remaining jobs now handled by one beleaguered driver.

I haven't been able to verify if Reno is slated for closure. Stay tuned.

SPEAKING OF SHUTDOWNS. T-Rump's postmaster general is still doing his best to ruin the mail service and thus screw up voting. For the second time in less than 20 years, the Reno main post office on Vassar Street is facing evisceration.

The postal service will hold a public meeting in Reno next Tuesday, Feb. 13 about its new plan to ship all mail from eastern California and central and northern Nevada to Sacramento for sorting.

Mail from Sparks to Reno used to take a day. T-Rump's boy has already turned that into two days or more. Hey, who needs prescriptions anyway?

The forum is scheduled for the convenient hour of 3:00 p.m. next Tuesday (why no Zoom or streaming?) at the former Airport Plaza Hotel on Plumb Lane across from the Reno airport. It's now known as the SureStay Plus, not exactly a memorable rebranding.

I will link the URL of an online survey to this column at NevadaLabor.com/ Deadline: Feb. 28.

This is one serious debacle in the making, just in time to ensure that a lot of November mail-in ballots are creatively delayed and in jeopardy of not counting.

The first thing T-Rump's shill did in 2020 was to junk multiple millions of dollars' worth of mail sorting equipment.

A union letter carrier mused how ironic it would be if USPS execs from Sacramento could not attend their own meeting because Donner Pass is closed.

Coming soon: T-Rump, the man who raps America, announces his hip hop back-up band. All naming suggestions welcome.

ON THIS DATE: Betty Joyce Luffman, who would become my wife, was born. We had 30 great years together. Remember her with laughter. Barbano.net/

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

Larry Barbano, Frater Mei
1947-2023

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

MEMENTO AMORE: ANDY & BETTY CODA FROM MANY DECADES AGO

Vaxx up, stay safe, pray for Ukraine and almost 100 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 55-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 August 12, 1988.

Breaking News —> Masks work!


 

Commissar T-Rump Serves Czar RasPutin
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno
/
Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 1-31-2024 / Expansions in blue


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The Dean's List

   The Dean of Reno Bloggers could very well be Andrew Barbano, self-described "fighter of public demons," who started putting his "Barbwire" columns online in 1996 and now runs 10 sites.

RENO NEWS & REVIEW, 11-9-2006

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TOP SECRET— HushHush!

 

Today's mish-mashed media morass of news and entertainment (there's a difference?) favors the defrocked president.

Throw so much out there many times a day that it's hard for the pros, let alone the proles, to focus on any one thing.

So T-Rump can focus all at will.

Detectives look for motive when they investigate crimes. Commissar T-Rump is currently destroying any legislation to address the chaos at the southern border — and simultaneously kill funding for Ukraine. Who does that serve?

His boss, Czar RasPutin the Impatient Impaler.

When the wannabe Soviet Union Part Deux massed tanks and troops at the Ukrainian border in 2022, Commissar T-Rump rejoiced, calling RasPutin "a genius" who was about to get "all that land."

Life is just one big real estate scam to the abused son of Old Man Fred. (More on that later.)

Sure, fearful western democracies have spent and will expend lots of money supporting the Ukrainian people against Russia's invasion. But no matter who buys the weapons, most of the western arsenal is manufactured in gun happy USA.

So tearing out a major chunk of US Ukraine funding allows Czar RasPutin to do what he's already starting to do: take back the real estate Ukraine has reclaimed from the 2014 Russian invasion and push opposing forces westward toward NATO.

All thanks to that groupie of dictators who considers himself president in absentia.

MAGA moonhowlers have co-opted racist Patrick Buchanan's schtick from his two very lucrative presidential campaigns of bygone years.

Buchanan trashed immigrants as "those people invading my country!" He didn't get far against the Bush dynasty, but he made a ton of money, even hiring his sister to run his organization for a hugely inflated salary. (Bay Buchanan is currently pimping gold coins on late night TV infomercials.)

No less than the pope of American conservatism, National Review Magazine founder and longtime PBS "Firing Line" host William F. Buckley, Jr., concluded after exhaustive research that he could "no longer defend" Patrick Buchanan against charges of racism.

No less than legendary German Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck once made an envious remark about the fortunate geography of the United States "surrounded on three sides by fish."

Alas and alack, trashing "the other" always works for crypto fascists.

Just a few years ago, Republicans would jump all over anyone, especially a dirty pinko redistributionist Democrat, for doing anything (real or imagined) to help them there godless Commie Russkies. No more.

To steal a Yogi-ism, if Tailgunner Joe McCarthy, R-Wisc., was alive, he'd be turning over in his grave.

FROM THE DEN OF INIQUITY, MORE INEQUITY: Thanks to Gov. Ron DeSatanist appointees, Florida's state university system has wiped out sociology classes.

Apparently students can sign up, but the courses won't count toward graduation.

Sociology classes will be replaced by a "factual history course."

Fake news, institutionalized, eh wot?

CAN JON STEWART SUE FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT? Commissar Donaldov is a master at stealing other people's potshots and taking them for his own.

In his first incarnation on "The Daily Show" which he ended after 16 years in 2015, Jon Stewart proudly called the program an exercise in "fake news."

T-Rump apparently liked the term so much he scammed it to tar any media coverage he didn't like. Which is always a lot. Every hour of every day.

Stewart will shortly return to his erstwhile Comedy Central home one night a week thru the end of this year. He will soon find he needs more than 22 minutes every seven days.

WHICH IS ONE REASON WHY the Barbwire llve call-in news/talk/rock show will return soon. Stay tuned.

FAKE NEWS, PART DEUX. The media mogul who owns the Reno NBC and FOX TV affiliates just bought the legendary Baltimore Sun newspaper, once home to the greatest columnist of them all, H.L. Mencken. The Barbwire has long been the sole local critic of Channels 4 and 11 interlarding moonhowler propaganda with their news programming.

It's not the fault of their very worthy journalists. But when Sinclair Broadcast Group sends out an order that all news departments use a certain piece of spin, all must comply.

Many Baltimore Sun reporters have already left for a startup publication. Nevada Press Assn. Hall of Fame columnist John L. Smith quit the Las Vegas Review-Journal after owner Sheldon Adelson pushed him to print biased info. The late Gomorrah South casino mogul was T-Rump's largest campaign donor. His widow just bought the Dallas Mavericks NBA team.

Sinclair boss David T. Smith's partner in the Maryland deal is Armstrong Williams, who lost most of his personal media empire (TV and print) after it was revealed that he was on the take under the table from the George W. Bush White House to use their propaganda.

POETIC JUSTICE DEPT. Writer E. Jean Carroll has beaten her sexual abuser T-Rump in court twice. He will, of course, appeal in aeternam.

Ms. Carroll now has court judgments of $88.3 million against the Commissar. I don't know New York law, but to appeal a civil judgment in Nevada, the losing side has to post a bond to guarantee payment if the appeal fails.

Bonds are obtained from insurance companies, usually for a 10 percent fee. So Trump may have to come with almost $9 million cash — IF he can find any insurance company dumb enough to do business with him.

Ms. Carroll can also file liens against all T-Rump properties in New York.

The Commissar has made a fat living for decades flipping real estate to avoid paying income tax on his profits. The liens could stop all his company transactions unless he pays up.

His trial on civil fraud is due to get underway soon. It could cause his outfit to lose all its New York business licenses.

Couldn't happen to a nicer more honorable guy.

But that's just fake news, right?

Vaxx up, stay safe, pray for Ukraine and almost 100 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.)

If you can stand it, read on —>

T-Rump raps America
Donald Trump's campaign goes hip-hop
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 12-27-2023

___________________
Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 55-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 August 12, 1988.

Breaking News —> Masks work!



 

Ben Franklin's bleary bifocals
Guest-starring Peter Sellers & The Muppets
And a true story: Song from the streets of San Francisco

Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno
/
Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 1-24-2024 / Updated 1-26 & 1-27-2024 GMT / Expansions in blue

Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women
They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane —
Sons of the Pioneers*
MEMENTO AMORE: ANDY & BETTY CODA FROM MANY DECADES AGO

Once upon a time, Americans looked back wistfully on our formative days.

Such a time was 1976, the 200th anniversary of the founding of our great experiment in government by the people — more specifically, property-owning white guys, but that was then and this is now. Sorta.

We live in a time when black-robed ammotextuals act as unelected governments, viewing all laws and regulations as if it were still 1776.

The Bicentennial Celebration of 48 years ago was certainly a more innocent time. Nobody even objected to recognizing it as "bi."

The most trusted man in America, legendary CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite, closed each of his dominant evening newscasts with a historical note, concluding with "that's the way it was 200 years ago today."

Which reminds me of a plane ride I took to Denver 48 years ago this month, a business trip. As fate would have it, I got seated with a bunch of comedians, Fats Johnson and his band which had just concluded a gig at Tahoe.

Before I knew it, they were trying out their act on me.

Fats and his guys had a running gag lampooning the hallowed Cronkite. The best of the zingers I still remember almost half a century down the road.

"Two hundred years ago today, Ben Franklin invented bifocals. He took one look at his wife and promptly invented...cosmetics!" (baddaboom baddabing)

"And that's the way it was 200 years ago today."

I was soon laughing so uncontrollably that cabin attendants finally ordered me to calm down or face arrest upon landing.

Sparks-Reno-Washoe circa 1976 was quite a different place. The city councils had already begun flailing about, spending what would become billions trying to make dying downtowns attractive. The result is visible today: cheaply built rabbit warren apartments on "B" Street...er, sorry, "Victorian Square."

The latter was so anointed when Sparks City Hall decided to turn the main drag in front of the Nugget Casino into auld London of Sherlock Holmes' day.

At least they didn't make Rail City beat cops wear foot-tall helmets like the British bobbies of London. (I'm not making that up. It was part of the original plan.)

Downtown Reno hasn't fared any better. The city has yet to pay off the 1990s Union Pacific railroad trench construction millions, the magic solution that never happened.

Ga-ga city officials will never admit it, but both downtowns remain quite ugly. Alas and alack, the rest of the community reflects that DNA.

Much has been said recently about the mutual inability of the Washoe County School District and Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority to hold onto chief executives.

Maybe the answer lies all around us. They come here for a big salary and with high hopes, perhaps from communities that are not re-jiggered mining camps. Places that left you feeling good when you drove around.

That ain't us. Not no more, at least.

We once kept the blight downtown. Now, it has spread. Casinos spawned an underclass of the exploited, underpaid and disconnected, the classic transitory boomtown mining camp.

When various mining booms petered out, Nevada was destitute. So in 1931, our forefathers made a second deal with the devil. (The first was the federal Mining Law of 1872 which still plagues us today.)

At the dawn of the Great Depression, it took some serious backroom backslapping of prudish lawmakers to legalize what everybody already knew: there was (gasp!) gambling going on here.

It's now accepted political science that the best way to legalize a vice is to cut government a piece of the action.

There's even an old Sons of the Pioneers song about it: "Cigareetes and Whuskey and Wild Wild Women." (Fats Johnson and his crew probably sang it in their act.)

When the Comstock Lode federal freebies went bust, remaining people moved from Virginia City to Lake's Crossing on the Truckee River, which became Reno. Southern Pacific moved its railyards west toward people and Sparks, the Rail City, was born.

It became a pretty place save for racial apartheid. Nevada stumblingly came into the 20th Century about 60 years late. Sparks and Reno were fairly pleasant backwaters by the Bicentennial Year.

Then came the boom spawned by the MGM Grand (now the Grand Sierra). A half-dozen casinos opened up within a few months in 1978. And, as Bill Harrah hisself noted, a half-dozen others soon closed.

New casino executives were living in tents on the Truckee. (I filmed and interviewed them.)

It took several decades to digest the MGM boom and the little towns on the mucky Truckee were getting along until Nevada's greatest corporate welfare queen came to town.

His name was Elon Musk and Nevada public officials could not resist turning on the red light for him.

That political venereal disease abides today. Otherwise honest and well-intentioned people seek public office and soon succumb to the Silver State version of Stockholm Syndrome.

I remember from psych 101 in college that if you place sane and rational people into an insane asylum, within a couple of weeks, they begin to show signs of mental instability. Thus it is with many Nevada officials.

They get wined, dined and seduced with all the attention their wonderfulness deserves. They go thru serious withdrawal pains after they leave office and their rich and powerful former friends stop returning their phone calls.

So drive around our sprawling, ugly modern day boomtowns. Downtown Sparks is infected with cheaply built rabbit warren apartments worthy of Cold War Communist East Berlin. Drive down just about any busy street in this little valley and you can see their spawn.

Downtown Reno at the arch remains butt-ugly. The hearts of our communities reflect the reality which blithe residents have been bribed, schmoozed or propagandized into allowing.

And it ain't pretty.

Which may go a long way toward explaining why newcomers who take six-figure salaries to come here start updating their résumés right quickly.

Mining camp boomtowns soon get depressing.

Those of us who remain do the best we can with what we're left as bonanzas always devolve into busted borrascas.

Vaxx up, stay safe, pray for Ukraine and almost 100 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.)

Breaking News —> Masks work!

 

* Lyrics by Tim Spencer. The 1947 song has been recorded by not only Roy Rogers' favorite backups, The Sons, but also Jim Croce and Buck Owens. My all-time favorite came with a killer production number between Peter Sellers and The Muppets. (I'm not making this up) from the "The Muppet Show," largely produced in the UK in the early 1980s. The late great Sellers (aka Dr. Strangelove and so many other characters) is at his best as a tipsy preacher. Enjoyjoy!

Cigareetes, Whisky & Wild, Wild Women
Song by Sons of the Pioneers

Ben Franklin would like this jingle. He lived it.

SELLERS: Old John Barleycorn and the threefaces of Eve...

Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women
They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane
Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women
They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane

Once, I was happy and had a good wife
I had enough money to last me for life
I met with the gal and we went on a spree
She started me smokin' and drinkin' whusky

Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women
They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane
Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women
They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane

Cigarettes are a blight on the whole human race
A man is a monkey with one in his face
Take warning dear friend, take warning dear brother
A fire's on one end, a fool's on the t'other

Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women
They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane
Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women
They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane

Now, I am feeble and broken with age
The lines on my face make a well-written page
I'm leavin' this message, how sad but how true
On women and whusky and what they can do

Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women
They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane
Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women
They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane

Write on the cross at the head of my grave
For women and whusky, here lies a poor slave
Take warning, dear stranger, take warning, dear friend
Then write in big letters, these words at my end

Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women
They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane
Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women
They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane


From The Muppet Show Season 2, Episode 18 with Peter Sellers; initially aired 2-25-1978.
Sellers and Muppets did not sing all verses. Ad libs are hilarious.
Lyrics sources: Musixmatch and Genius.com
Songwriter: Tim Spencer
Modified slightly in Buck Owens version on Genius.com
Cigareetes, Whisky and Wild, Wild Women lyrics © Unichappell Music Inc.


ANDY & BETTY CODA FROM MANY DECADES AGO

One evening long ago, my wife and I were walking thru downtown San Francisco when something caught my eye, perhaps a marquee or a sign in a bar window.

I started singing "Cigareetes and whisky and wild wild women..."

"Two outta three ain't bad!" responded one of two guys walking together across the narrow street.

Ah, summer in The City.

 

___________________
Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 55-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 August 12, 1988.

To Die For
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno
/
Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 1-17-2024 / Expansions in blue

My daughters were born 65 years ago yesterday.

Debra Joyce Donlevy and Donna Leslie Cline shared the same birthday and were fated to have their lives changed forever on the same night.

Debbie and Donna met in Phoenix in 1978. They became instant bff's (best friends forever). Debbie was visiting relatives and Donna came with her to drive home to Carson City.

Neither made it. It was the typical Nevada rollover: A dark, two-lane highway with a soft shoulder; auto drifted right; driver over-corrected; wheel planted in the earth; car rolled.

Both girls, then 19, were ejected. Debra, a victim of the usual rural Nevada health care, died enroute to Reno. (Barbwire 4-2-2006 and many updates thereafter.)

Donna was paralyzed for life.

She went on to become Miss Wheelchair Nevada, Miss Wheelchair America and a TV news anchor in Arizona, southern Nevada and Texas where she finally died of her old injuries at 40.

Debra (Carson High '77) was my wife Betty's firstborn and strikingly beautiful. I have made it one of my lifelong missions to tell the story of my erstwhile daughters at every opportunity. Another came last Sunday.

First responders were called to a rollover crash in northwest Reno on Leadership Parkway, north of McCarran Blvd.: "1 killed, 2 injured in rollover accident."

Three of five occupants were ejected.

"Police say speed was a factor. Alcohol impairment was not suspected," the Reno Gazette-Journal reported.

For me, it was déjà vu all over again.


The New York Times Magazine might well have used the Reno flipout as an example.

Last Sunday's Matthew Shaer magnum opus "The Road to Ruin" might was quite appropriately focused on Nevada, especially Gomorrah South.

Over the decades, I've had many former Las Vegans like me remark how much slower northern Nevadans drive. Alas and alack, perhaps not anymore after this region turned on the red light and became another Teslatute.

"After decades of declining fatality rates, why has dangerous driving surged again in America?" Shaer asked.

One of his principal sources is Dr. Debra Kuhls at the UNLV School of Medicine.

Before I even moved there more than five decades ago, friends told me how easy it was to navigate Las Vegas.

"All the streets are wide and run at right angles," a frycook buddy advised.

Indeed. To get a taste of that, look no further than E. Moana Lane in Reno, a two-way highway seven lanes wide. The zooming hardware quickly gets just plain scary. I cringed after seeing some hearty souls cross the shooting gallery on foot. One guy even stood in the middle of the road after navigating halfway, waiting for the other lanes to clear. I got out my phone ready to call 911 if he guessed wrong.

In LV, "many roads are flat and fast and conducive to speeding, which remains a reliable predictor of the severity of injury," Shaer reported.

Back in my talk show days (returning soon), I did a schtik about visitors from other worlds coming here and never to return: "The dominant life form is possessed of suicidal rituals. Millions of them are addicted to boarding explosive metallic mobile canisters and propelling them toward each other at higher and higher speeds, resulting in mass death and destruction. Recommendation: avoid that primitive planet."

Tell me I'm wrong.

The pandemic just made things worse. I've noticed and so have experts. Seatbelt use is down, drivers are increasingly plowing thru intersections.

"To Dr. Kuhls, it felt as if all the deadly habits that were on such flagrant display during the early months of the pandemic had become normalized," Shaer noted.

"New cars are stronger and less prone to spontaneously explode," he wrote. Alas, today's vehicles are "also taller and heavier. "
Pickup trucks have added an average of 1,300 pounds since 1990, while the average full-size SUV now weighs around 5,000 pounds, at least a thousand more than mid-century sedans."

Transportation planner Angie Schmidt called this "the truckification of the family car."

Think heavier means safer? Think again.

"The bigger the vehicle, the less visibility it affords and the more destruction in can wreak," Shaer wrote.

SUVs or vans with a hood height greater than 40 inches, a dominant manufacturing specification, "are 45 percent more likely to kill pedestrians than smaller cars."

Which explains the curious increase in pedestrian and cyclist deaths in these parts.

Combine that with neglected roads, a few beers and pissed off people and you have the recipe for an epidemic.

"If I was to set out to create a situation that would make most people act badly and angrily, I couldn't come up with anything better than driving," said University of Wisconsin psychologist Ryan Martin.

Wise man George Carlin stated it better years ago when he re-defined two words: "A maniac is somebody driving faster than you. An asshole is somebody driving slower than you."

Add cell-phones and other distracted driving and you've got a worldwide recipe for carnage. Guns and cars kill at about the same numbers in today's America. Occasionally, both are involved.

Roundabouts, speed bumps, rumble strips, pedestrian bridges and narrower streets have all been effective at reducing death and dismemberment.

Traffic cameras to bust speeding drivers have also proven effective.

But not in Nevada where drunk or stoned driving is considered a constitutional right. The Silver State Legislature banned enforcement traffic cams years ago.

"A lot of people, a lot of politicians, consider us to be a frontier state with all the liberty that implies," Dr. Kuhls stated.

Critics of a piece like this often rebut these issues as insensitive to the needs of rural Nevada with its long lonely highways where speed limits are basically non-existent.

Nonsense.

The AAA Foundation recently noted that "a motorist's need for speed consistently fails to deliver shorter travel times. It would take driving 100 miles at 80 mph instead of 75 mph to shave just five minutes off the trip."

Tell that to the suicide jockeys on E. Moana Lane.

Drive — and walk — at your own risk.

Be careful out there.

Vaxx up, stay safe, pray for Ukraine and almost 100 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 55-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 August 12, 1988.

Breaking News —> Masks work!

 

 

 

Portents from the Terminator
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno
/
Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 1-10-2024 / Updated 1-11 & 1-13-2024 GMT/ Expansions in blue

"You know the world is going to hell when the best golfer is black and the best rapper is white." — Charles Barkley, 2003

Last Tuesday's Reno Gazette-Journal front page made me think of that bit of wit from Sir Charles. His pop culture portent has proven all too accurate.

"Pandemic Not Done" the RGJ reported with an article from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

"People who have dodged COVID entirely are in the minority," they noted.

I resemble that remark. Since Friday the 13th of March 2020, I have pretty much limited my life to medical appointments.

Those who must get out and about in the MAGA-infested world are not so lucky. Mask-wearing has become the MAGA equivalent of the scarlet letter "D."

"Repeat infections are common," KFF Health News noted. That's no small thing. Websearch the horror stories of people who have contracted long COVID. If you get it, your life as you have known it may well be over.

I even have a senior friend and regular reader who is needlessly fatalistic and cavalier about the Terminator.

"I have had all my shots and recently, a booster. I am now 80, an age where I might well end up a burden on my kids. Though I think I am fine, to lessen that possibility, I take just about every risk out there. I would like to leave my kids something and I certainly don't want to live on as a vegetable," he noted.

He is still a dynamically productive member of society who continues to do valuable work, employing others and helping the less fortunate, as he has all his life.

He's also a conservative but reasonable Republican (there are a few left). This troubled world needs more like him, not fewer.

Then there's a young relative of mine who has refused to vaccinate his children, both Washoe County School District students. I just don't understand.

I likewise can't fathom how the richest, fattest, most badass country in the world can let its children sicken and starve out in the cold.

The other Tuesday front page headline noted that Las Vegas Democratic Congressmember "Susie Lee and nonprofits discuss growing housing crisis."

They have their work cut out for them, given the competition.

To steal from Sir Charles, you know the world is going to hell when children are sick and hungry and taxpayers are subsidizing BigOil's predations (Google Koch Brothers and "Dark Money" by Naomi Klein).

Oil baron Charles Koch set the template for establishing tax-deductible non-profits as money laundries to funnel freebie money to MAGA Moonhowler causes.

As I noted last week, the cancer is spreading. Non-profits are now channeling tax-deductible money to pay for college level pro-sports athletes, some to the tune $500,000 a year.

Meanwhile outside of the jockocracy, real students go into debt for life to pay for college.


YOU'VE BEEN WARNED. AGAIN.

The U.S. is facing the biggest COVID wave since Omicron. Why are we still playing make-believe?
By Dr. Eric J. Topol / Los Angeles Times 1-4-2024
Dr. Topol expanded upon the above remarks on the Jan. 12 PBS NewsHour

 

Enough, dammit!

Get vaccinated so you may live to vote for liberals who have a heart like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.

TIME AND SPACE. There's just never enough, a principal reason the Barbwire live call-in news/talk/rock show will soon return.

I defeated Lush Rambo in this region back in the day and the great issues need a forum wherein no one goes unchallenged.

So, here are short shots which demand attention and will be expanded in the web edition of this column at the flagship of Nevada union activism, NevadaLabor.com/

DARRYL ROBERTS, CALL YOUR OFFICE. My friend Darryl is the award winning producer-director of "America the Beautiful," a film critical of the country's obsession with skinniness and phony beauty standards.

He interviewed former Miss Nevada and future Assembly Majority Leader Teresa Benitez Thompson, D-Reno, and César Chávez NevadaLabor.com Hall of Famer Darlene Jespersen for the film.

He also interviewed me and I vaguely recall ending up on the cutting room floor. He showed the film twice at UNR.

Darryl sounded the alarm on cancer-causing (cue Sylvester the Cat) Phthalates in cosmetics. They replaced lead to make lipstick shiny.

The Killer P's are endocrine disruptors, a class of potent chemicals which interfere with human hormone systems.

They also infest just about every plastic and synthetic from your refrigerator to your eyeglasses and plastic coffee cup.

These gremlins decrease testosterone, which is slumping in human males worldwide.

So get used to less sex.

Word just came out that with bee populations dying off, pansies are learning how to fertilize themselves. Bachelors and batchelorettes beware.

Consumer Reports just issued a blistering indictment of phthalates, finding them all over the food we eat every day.

CESAR CHAVEZ XVIII returns in March. I have made the case to make the late Tribunite and Barbwire and Nevada Press Association Hall of Famer Dennis Myers the first journalist inducted to the NevadaLabor.com César Chávez Hall of Fame, an honor delayed by plague still upon us. Stay tuned.

UNION MUSCLE IN THE TRENCHES. At presstime came news that both the Nevada State AFL-CIO and Railroad Workers United are looking to hire organizers. The rail folks are looking regionally while the AFL-CIO needs someone to work northern Nevada. Full details at NevadaLabor.com/

Contacts: Ron Kaminow at RWU (Call 608-358-5771; deadline is Friday, Jan. 26, 2024). E-mail your résumé to Susie Martinez, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Nevada State AFL-CIO. (AFL-CIO job requirements .pdf)

When labor gears up early, progressives win. When union attention gets diverted, as the late great Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., did awhile back trying to save his senate majority, disaster ensues.

The game's afoot.

EBENEZER SCROOGE LIVES.
An initiative petition was just filed by a beneficial non-profit to cap interest rates on payday loan predators. All this got started when the late Gov. William Janklow, R-S. Dakota, got his state's usury (interest rate) law repealed.

That led to Citibank relocating its credit card business to his backwater.

The cancer soon spread to Nevada, where pols always have the red light on. A special legislative session was called, interest rates were allowed to skyrocket, and Citibank located a credit card center in Gomorrah South.

They were so ashamed of having bills and payments addressed in LV that they got a special zip code for "The Lakes, Nevada".

ADDING INSULT TO INJURY DEPT. According to Wikipedia, "Super Bowl LVIII is the upcoming American football championship game of the National Football League for the 2023 season and is scheduled to be played on February 11, 2024, at Allegiant Stadium in Paradise, Nevada."

Paradise Township is another convenient euphemism for bluenoses. The Lakes is also an old township name in Clark County south of the Las Vegas city limits, the area now known more widely by its nickname, the Las Vegas Strip.

BREAKING NEWS UPDATE: Powerful Culinary Union sets Las Vegas hotel strike deadline 1 week before Super Bowl

Vaxx up, stay safe, pray for Ukraine and almost 100 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 55-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 August 12, 1988.

Breaking News —> Masks work!

 


Control freaks and crackerjacks
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno
/
Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 1-3-2024 / Expansions in blue

The Orange Crusher's presidential denial of COVID-19 danger caused somewhere between 200,000 and half a million needless American deaths.

Now, Dr. T-Rump is favored to re-take the presidency.

Politics is just a big tailgate party for the Red Team. Covid, RSV and Influenza are just liberal hoaxes. The Washoe County School District no longer requires vaccinations.

Just sign a paper, then avoid breathing.

Pause for a reality jab from the fake news New York Times. First, "1,380 Days with Long Covid" by victim Giorgia Lupi.

Then, the story of mourning father George Watts, Sr., of Elmira, NY.

His 24 year-old son died in 2021. The local coroner listed Covid vaccine as a main cause, Watts posted the report online and the anti-vaxxers went ballistic, nuking science.

The CDC is analyzing tissue samples but George Jr. was cremated, stifling inquiry.

He apparently had undetected heart disease among other serious health issues, but some Americans loathe details.

That has not stopped Internet experts who get their health advice from Dr. Donald "Drink Bleach" Trump.

SUICIDAL R US. Despite being in the red zone (and not in the good football way) for cascading viral infections and hospitalizations, Nevada is not among six states which recently required masks at all hospitals.

ThisIsReno.com's story of the year was the case of a Gomorrah South doc who prescribed hydroxychloroquine to cure COVID, killing a Sparks man.

That fish tank cleaner was second only to bleach in Dr. T-Rump's pharmacy.

HELP THE LIBRARY. Moonhowlers are trying to take over and ban books. Apply for a board position before January 17. ThisIsReno. com named this the most under-reported story of the year.

T-Rump's PLAZA SUITE. The nation's newest hip-hop rapper (Barbwire 12-27-23) recently denied bullying his way into a movie cameo.

"Home Alone 2" director Chris Columbus said Trump insisted on his own scene in the 1992 film or he would not allow filming at the hotel.

Trump said the producers begged him to appear.

Columbus called him a liar.

I believe Columbus.

"The Associate," a delightful 1996 Whoopi Goldberg/Diane Wiest Wall Street satire, was also partially filmed at the Plaza.

And Trump scored another cameo.

Coincidence? I don't think so.

SINGING THE BLUES. Blue State footballers beat two red state teams on Monday after Georgia started the hat trick last Saturday against Florida State.

The Bulldogs whomped the formerly undefeated avatars of DeSatanistLand 63-3.

In the Orange Bowl.

In Republican "we still hate Fidel" Miami.

To be fair, Florida State had lost many star athletes seeking greener pastures.

Can't blame any of the helmet-wearing cannon fodder.

They sacrifice their health and often their sanity for a humanity devouring sport.

The national championship playoffs are again on paid cable, not public airwaves.

Which is obscene, because not only are some top players making half a million a year, but many have been paid by tax-exempt non-profits.

Translation: You.

HOW TO BET?
Fair warning from an oft-disappointed 49er fan: Michigan Coach Jim Harbaugh's madcap playcalling might suggest a bet on Washington.

I've neither forgotten nor forgiven Harbaugh for ordering UNR legend Colin Kaepernick to thrice throw from the five-yard line against the Baltimore Ravens, thus losing the 2013 Super Bowl.

Meanwhile, the best running back in NFL history, Frank Gore, was left to twiddle his thumbs.

Bet against Harbaugh's suicidal ego.

54 YEARS AGO THIS MONTH. A kid was transferred to Reno from Gomorrah South to expand the northern operation of what would become Nevada's largest ad agency.

In January 1971, I arrived at the Reno quonset hut airport. (Yes, WW2 quonset huts!)

I had breakfast at Sambo's Coffee Shop at the southwest corner of Plumb Lane and S. Virginia and was then transported to my first Reno twilight zone.

In KOLO TV-8's studio at 5th and Wells under the overpass, I beheld two tables of bloody meat dripping on the floor under hot lights.

Our clients, Nevada Chrysler-Plymouth's good old boys, Jim Hayes and Odis Bass, pitched a free side of beef with every purchase and two free New York steaks just for taking a demo ride.

I was aghast.

It sold a helluva lotta cars. I didn't want to take the job but I'm glad I did.

When the firm wanted to transfer me back to Vegas, I resigned to start my own shop.

ADIOS BILL PAGANETTI.
My first office was an unused closing booth at the new Chrysler store. The dealership had relocated from mid-town to S. Virginia & Carano. (The Peppermill eventually bought the Chrysler property for its north parking lot.)

I beat several local ad agencies to represent the new European Health Spa which still stands today on the Peppermill block. Their execs told me about this crackerjack manager running the Sizzler Family Steak House up the street. His name was Bill Paganetti. I first saw him working the charbroiler.

Bill and Nat Carasali apparently persuaded the Hill Family, which owned property on both sides of Virginia Street, to let them start the Peppermill Coffee Shop in front of their motel. The place featured double the usual portions for three times the price, perfect for American tastes.

Despite a forthcoming media image fostered by former general manager Phil Bryan, the Peppermill was always anti-organized labor. Bryan once told a TV station that however employees wanted to be represented, individually or thru a union, it was fine with management.

Not necessarily.

Every time housekeeping staff wanted a raise, they'd start openly meeting with Culinary Union organizers. They always got a raise and the organizing drive fizzled. Offering perks to your staff to avoid unionization is a wee bit illegal, but hey, this is Reno.

In 2006, after his staff refused, I was able to persuade Bill to buy a congratulatory program ad for the Sparks Plumbers & Pipefitters union's centennial dinner held at his towering achievement.

He was a helluva manager and apparently a very persuasive salesman.

Requiescat in pace.

Hope you and yours enjoyed Happy High Holly Days
Christmas/Kwanzaa/Solstice/Festivus/
Chanukah
/Thanksgibleting
Feliz Navidad, próspero año y felicidad
HAPPY NEW YEAR / Feliz Año Nuevo
/ Felice Anno Nuovo
Frohe Weihnachten und beste Wuensche fuer 2024

Vaxx up, stay safe, pray for Ukraine and almost 100 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 55-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 August 12, 1988.

Breaking News —> Masks work!

 

 


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

Larry Barbano, Frater Mei
1947-2023


T-Rump raps America
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno
/
Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 12-27-2023 / Expansions in blue

An eye for an eye
A tooth for a tooth
Vote for me
and I'll set you free.
Rap on, brother, rap on
                                        The Temptations 1970

Donald Trump's campaign is going hip-hop.

The legendary Barbwire investigative team, as always, has spared every expense bringing you this exclusive.

Trump advisors view the Orange Crusher's increasing poll numbers among black and Latino voters as the potential stake (or McDonald's burger) thru the heart of President Biden's campaign.

For months, Czar Donaldov's brain trust has mulled strategies to make an overt racist and bigot palatable to minority voters, according to Barbwire interviews with key insiders.

They took clues from 2020. The New York Times interviewed a young Latino man in west Texas where Trump showed surprising strength.

The man said he voted for Trump because he looked strong "and my friends and me, we couldn't wait to see what crazy shit he was going to say next."

That echoed NBC reporter Katy Tur's 2022 comment to Steven Colbert as to why Trump won: "He entertained them and he looked strong."


As I've written many times, Americans insist on daddy in three key positions: governor, not senator; network news anchor (check Norah O'Donnell's ratings) and president. We still desire grandfatherly CBS News legend Walter Cronkite tucking us in every night making us feel everything will be better in the morning.

Hillary Clinton learned that lesson the hard way, as did now-Congressperson Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, when she ran for Nevada governor in 2006. Nikki Haley and Kamala Harris, take note.

So what will be Trump's magic bullet with minorities that will wash away all sins, including putting Latino refugees in concentration camps?

He will start doing hip hop music and videos under the name of T-Rump. Here is an exclusive transcript of the first recording session:

UNIDENTIFIED PRODUCER: OK, Mr. President. Let's try a run-thru.

TRUMP: This is really good stuff. It will get the spics and ni..., oh, I forgot, I shouldn't say that anymore. OK, I'm ready now.

PRO: Cue the beats and...action —

TRUMP:

          I'm a lawnmower baby,
gonna mow 'em all down
          Only I can fix it
for the black and the brown.


          Charizzma galore, money and more
Vote big cha-rizz,

          Plop plop, fizz fizz
The cure for what ails you
          Plop plop, fizz fizz

          Cover your rump
Vote Big T-Rump
          Got the rizz and the class
Up to the task
          Vote Big T-Rump
Or your ass is grass.

PRO: OK, cut.

TRUMP: I think that was great. Who knew I was such a natural performer? Now let's try another take, but get a camera on me so I can watch myself.

PRO: Will do. As soon as we lay down the audio, we'll bring in the dancers.

TRUMP: Do all of them have to be black? Make sure they've all got big hooters. I want to review them before recording.

IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE, RIGHT? It already has and you know it.

FOX News impresario Rupert Murdoch proved correct when he blurted decades ago that "Americans are retarded."

Comedian Bill Maher once wryly noted that "Americans don't do nuance."

If you can't fit it on bumper stickers (aka memes) it won't work.

As H.L. Mencken is oft paraphrased, nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

Yes, Mr. Barnum, there is a Santa Claus.

Impartial — as if anyone can be impartial about mass death — expert analyses have found that Trump's presidential inaction and denialism caused between 200,000 and half a million needless COVID deaths.

No more serious than a cold? Drink bleach? This is the guy who bragged of himself as a world class epidemiologist — in front of real experts who just bit their learned PhD lips.

And the charlatan who let COVID run wild is now the frontrunner less than a year out of the 2024 general election.

As his supporters tell pollsters, "he got things done." Indeed.

President Biden last week told reporters they are reading "the wrong polls."

That was not flip. I remember what Sen. Harry Reid's northern boss Mary Conelly of Sparks told depressed Democrats in 2010. All publicly released polls showed Reid losing to madcap church lady Sharron Angle.

Mary's comments were almost verbatim Biden. Reid's internal polls showed him trending well.

Turned out Reid had the money to pay for "deep polling," where interviewers could spend an hour or more speaking with likely voters. Deep polls cost a million a pop in 2010 dollars.

They showed Reid moving toward a relatively easy victory. He won by about 40,000 votes.

The media were reading the wrong polls.

Trump's opening with minorities is no fluke. All the benefits of Biden programs have not reached many minority communities.

Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has been deftly taking credit for all the new federal money showering his state.

Savannah Mayor Van Johnson told the Times that Biden's accomplishments have yet to resonate among southeast Georgians.

Breaking News —> Masks work!

PLAGUE ALERT. In addition to orange political poxes, COVID, RSV and influenza are running wild and killing Americans, especially the un-vaxxed and maskless.

Alas and alack, many will die due to attending holiday dinners with family and friends.

Americans just don't do nuance.

ROCK JOCK JOKE: Why are pop diva Taylor Swift and NFL player Travis Kelce a perfect match? Both are world class tight ends.

ON DECEMBER 27, 2005 Betty Joyce Luffman Donlevy Barbano died in Reno at 64. Remember her laughter.

Hope you and yours enjoy Happy High Holly Days
Christmas/Kwanzaa/Solstice/Festivus/
Chanukah
/Thanksgibleting
Feliz Navidad, próspero año y felicidad
HAPPY NEW YEAR / Feliz Año Nuevo
/ Felice Anno Nuovo
Frohe Weihnachten und beste Wuensche fuer 2024

Vaxx up, stay safe, pray for Ukraine and almost 100 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 55-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 August 12, 1988. Opening lyrics are from "Ball of Confusion —> That's what the world is today" by Barrett Strong and Norman Whitfield, 1970.

Breaking News —> Masks work!




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

Larry Barbano, Frater Mei
1947-2023


The greatest movie never made
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno
/
Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 12-20-2023 / Expansions in blue

It was the summer of 1947 and starving young Hollywood screenwriter Hymie Schwartz was pitching a film idea to rapacious MGM movie mogul Louis B. Mayer.

This report is based on recently unearthed notes discovered by the vaunted Barbwire investigative team. As always, we have spared every expense to bring you the news you never knew you needed to know till now.

"Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Mogul, er...Mayer."

"Skip the niceties, kid. Show me how your movie is going to make me big money."

"Well, sir, uh, you see, I know that motion pictures are big financial risks so studios want to reduce the downside. My idea is timely and includes elements of already successful films: Classic horror like 'Dracula,' the desire to live forever like 'The Mummy,' and 'Lost Horizon,' and a glimpse of the future like 'It's a Wonderful Life.' "

"Hold it right there kid," Mayer interjected. "Frank Capra and the studio lost their asses on 'Wonderful Life' and he went way over budget on 'Lost Horizon.' Came close to losing a million or more."

Schwartz's foot began tapping uncontrollably.

"Yes, Mr. Mayer, I know. But this film adds timeliness like none other."

"OK, pitch me in one sentence."

"Hitler comes back from the dead in the 21st Century and does it all over again."

Mayer was speechless.

"Gotta hand it to you kid, you got balls to pitch a movie about Hitler to an old Jewish guy."

Schwartz got enthusiastic.

"This American fuehrer creates national fear of anyone not of 'pure blood' heritage. Instead of starting concentration camps, he labels his as 'detention centers.' He viciously and violently suppresses any criticism. The resurgent Confederacy supports him because he looks strong. Underestimated like Hitler, he becomes president for life.

"It's a cautionary tale, Mr. Mayer. I got the idea from Madame Rue, the psychic at 34th and Vine. She said that suicides always come back quickly. The universe gives them another chance to get it right. Hitler killed himself in 1945, so he may have returned as soon as last year.

"Reincarnation is a staple of many religions. Sherlock Holmes' creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a spiritualist. There's a lot we can't explain. Look at all the stories about that UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico this month."

Mayer's face betrayed a thin smile. "Alright, kid. How does a lowlife like Hitler make a comeback?"

"Well, America loves money and forceful businessmen. No offense. Hitler endlessly pursued bragging rights, had to have the biggest tanks, battleships, buildings — you name it. The blonde guy in my film will even lie about building the tallest skyscraper in New York City and get away with it.

"Hitler returns as a totally ruthless, laws-be-damned, rich businessman. Again, no offense."

"Don't worry kid. I've been called worse."

Schwartz was gaining confidence and speaking more enthusiastically, according to notes taken by Mayer's secretary.


"Mr. Mayer, America is booming with enthusiasm now that World War Two is over. Some feel another depression will follow the war, as depressions often do. The country is placing a premium on predicting the future. This film, 'Hitler Returns,' will capitalize on that."

"I don't know kid, most would just like to forget the son of a bitch."

"With the scare of totalitarian communism burgeoning worldwide, they can't, sir. People get reminded and warned about dictatorship every day. This idea can be a drama, a comedy, a satire or all of the above. Maybe several films. Remember, no less than American hero Gen. George Patton believed himself a reincarnated Roman soldier."

"I'll think it over kid but I just don't think the world wants that kind of stuff right now. Let it cool a few years till people start to forget."

"That's exactly what worries me, sir. Thanks for your time."

REALITY BREAK: Donald Trump was born in 1946, 13.5 months after Adolf Hitler's suicide. Trump has recently been criticized for increasingly blurting Hitler Nazi phrases during his campaign speeches.

EPILOGUE: Hymie Schwartz never made it big. He consulted on director Ed Wood's 1959 sci-fi debacle "Plan 9 from Outer Space," which critics have called the worst movie of all time. In 1965, Hymie worked on "My Mother, the Car," about a schlub whose domineering mother is reincarnated as a 1927 Tin Lizzie. It often tops lists of goofiest-ever television concepts.

Metro Goldwyn Mayer (aka "Money Grabbing Moguls) missed a huge opportunity. In 1951, 20th Century Fox's "The Day the Earth Stood Still" shook the nation. And made big money. Paramount's 1956 reincarnation classic "The Search for Bridey Murphy" came from a blockbuster book.

Mel Brooks' 1967 "The Producers," about "Springtime for Hitler and Germany," was a comedy sensation. It was reissued in 1973 and its 2005 remake also hit big, as did a Broadway musical version.

In 1974, Hymie Schwartz's nephew Hermie worked at the studio which owned the rights to "It's a Wonderful Life." He forgot to renew its copyright. Television executives took advantage of the freebie and it became a revered Christmas classic, successful at long last.

PAVING PARADISE, ROUND OR RECTANGULAR. Yeah, I know, I know — It's not a roundhouse but a gigantic, historic railroad maintenance building that Sparks needs to save before Union Pacific bulldozes it for semi truck parking. (Last week, I only caught part of a TV story at deadline. Mea culpa.)

Union Pacific executive suites must be suffused with closet Joni Mitchell fans: "To pave paradise, put up a parking lot."

But hey, Gomorrah South implodes its history on a regular basis.

Perhaps this is an opportunity to show that the Rail City is becoming competitive at forgetting the past.

Kinda like Trump supporters.

Maybe U.P. will hire Joni Mitchell to sing at the execution.

Hope you and yours enjoy Happy High Holly Days
Christmas/Kwanzaa/Solstice/Festivus/
Chanukah
/Thanksgibleting
Feliz Navidad, próspero año y felicidad
HAPPY NEW YEAR / Feliz Año Nuevo
/ Felice Anno Nuovo
Frohe Weihnachten und beste Wuensche fuer 2024

Vaxx up, stay safe, pray for Ukraine and almost 100 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 55-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 August 12, 1988.

Breaking News —> Masks work!

 





I Love Lucy: Open the Golden Door
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno
/
Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 12-13-2023 / Expansions in blue

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me / I lift my lamp beside the golden door — Emma Lazarus

Given the current state of current affairs, isn't it sobering to note the poet's last name? We can use a bit of resurrection. Of my America. And yours.

I am the son and grandson of immigrants. My family's name and those of my ancestors are all over the Ellis Island American Immigrant Wall of Honor, standing with Lady Liberty for more than a century. A cousin of mine visited there awhile back. She was moved to tears seeing our ancestors' names listed in perpetuity.

As Norwegians gravitated to the frozen wildes of Minnesota, Italians headed for temperate farmland, including northern Nevada.

My family followed the pattern of countless others. Work wherever you could find it, any honest labor. Move up to public service: cops, firefighters, trash collectors, postal workers, bus drivers, construction laborers. Save your money. Start small businesses. Above all, send your children to school.

My grandparents, my mother, my father and all my relatives worked in the blistering heat of Fresno, California, to provide for their families. My grandfather died long before I was born, driving a big truck home from the fields. My father was a passenger on that ill-fated flatbed, along with many of his siblings, children and teens.

Alas and alack, the richest, most powerful nation in history remains so disappointingly tribal despite having one of the most educated populations on earth.

The myth is that America is a product of fortunate geography: "Surrounded on three sides by fish," carped legendary German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.

All we had to do to "settle" this rich wilderness was steal it from "Indians" who had been here just 20 or so millennia before Leif Erikson and Columbus "discoveries."

Our natural resources are indeed tremendous. But luck is only one dimension. At the time of the American Revolution, we had a surprisingly educated populace. That's the underlying reason why this fragile representative democracy worked.

"Democracy without education becomes tyranny without mitigation" an old professor of mine (Dr. Jose C. Canales) regularly quoted.

America's investment in public education, combined with our accident of location, constitute the major reasons for our success as a nation — still the shining city on the hill.

"Capitalism without regulation is tyranny," as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., often puts it.

Last week, sad new statistics showed that the top one percent, the richest of wealthy Americans, own more than the entire middle class.

Four decades ago, an obscure Democratic Nevada congressional candidate ran to help the shrinking middle class. By 1983, it had already dwindled by nine percent.

A fair and equal society was always a goal, the American Dream. We never got there, but it's now further away than perhaps it's ever been.

Over the years, I've occasionally published a list of the top 10 things necessary to fix the republic. Every time I revisit the chart, nothing much has changed. (Barbwire 12-8-2021)

The 2020 election wasn't rigged, but the economic system is damn sure stacked against us little people — all the way down to the prices of prescriptions, gasoline and groceries. (Barbwire 11-29-2023)

Even a frog jumps out of a pot of water when the heat's on. Americans spring toward saviors, charlatans and poltroons.

All those thousands of unkempt travelers on our southern border are not our problem, they are our solution. Screen them. House them. Feed them. Educate their children.

They will make us prosperous and proud.

Sealing the Golden Door shut resulted in depredations like shiploads of Jews being sent back to Germany and Hitler's ovens.

We are all cousins, descendants of the fabled Lucy and her ancient African ancestors. The differences between us are slight, almost cosmetic.

As the late Stanford University Prof. Luigi Cavalli-Sforza often said, genetically you can make a case for four, five or 15,000 "races." The term is meaningless, just a bumper sticker way of pigeonholing "the other."

Wise man George Carlin repeatedly admonished, "take care of each other."

We fail to do so at our peril.

PAYBACK'S A BITCH. Trumpista Congressperson Elise Stefanik, R-NY, made worldwide press last week trashing three university presidents (Harvard, Penn, MIT) with a "when did you stop beating your wife?" kind of question. Marjorie Taylor had to been green with envy.

"Ms. Stefanik is both a graduate and critic of Harvard," The New York Times reported Monday.

"Several years ago, after student complaints, Harvard removed Ms. Stefanik from the board of its Institute for Politics over her repeated false statements about the 2020 election results. She charged her alma mater with 'caving in to the woke left.' And last week, she exacted a measure of revenge," the Times concluded.

She has aced her audition for a second Trump term cabinet appointment.

THIS EXPLAINS IT. I've been tipped about local disappointment that Macy's is no longer a purveyor of mid-priced stylish merchandise but has regressed toward blah Chinese imports. I think I know why.

A school of Wall Street sharks is willing to pay more than $1 billion above the chain's market value to take the venerable brand private. Rape and pillage, one more time. Buy the horse, run it into the ground, sell the barn, then cut up the carcass for parts. (Kinda like what happened to the Reno Gazette-Journal and Harrah's Auto Collection, among many others.) The nation's largest department store chain has buzzards circling.

SAVE THE HISTORIC SPARKS RAILROAD ROUNDHOUSE from Union Pacific's vultures, dammit. Reno incurred still-owed decades of expensive debt paying for UP's $60 million money pit, the downtown railroad trench. Isn't that enough?
(Actually, it's a big long warehouse/repair shop. Roundhouses were used to turn trains around.)

Union Pacific executive suites must be suffused with closet Joni Mitchell fans: "To pave paradise, put up a parking lot."

Hope you and yours enjoy Happy High Holly Days
Christmas/Kwanzaa/Solstice/Festivus/
Chanukah
/Thanksgibleting
Feliz Navidad, próspero año y felicidad
HAPPY NEW YEAR / Feliz Año Nuevo
/ Felice Anno Nuovo
Frohe Weihnachten und beste Wuensche fuer 2024
Vaxx up, stay safe, pray for Ukraine and almost 100 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 55-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 August 12, 1988.


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By Zeynep Tufecki / The New York Times / 3-10-2023

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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

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

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Copyright © 1982-2024 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 55-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 a quarter-century 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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