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BARBWIRE
by
ANDREW BARBANO

"If you can't say anything nice about someone, sit right here by me."

Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth


Unless otherwise noted, columns originate in the Daily Sparks, Nev., Tribune.

There was no 12-25-2005 column.

High Slimes and Misdemeanors
12-18-2005

Paying Proper Respect
Speaking for the Grateful Dead
12-11-2005

The Old Rattlesnake Apple Blues
12-4-2005

Fire at Will and Whack the Messenger
Dec. 1 Reno City Council agenda drips with irony

11-27-2005

Power to the People
Sparks Citizens Committee hearing on Charter cable franchise
11-20-2005

Blaming the Victim: Dubya dances while consumers cringe
11-13-2005

Off with their heads!
And if that doesn't work, cut off their thumbs.
11-6-2005

A Nevada Day Tea Party for DC
10-30-2005

Brave New Crystal Ball
10-23-2005

The Lost Doctor: Victim of Medieval America
10-16-2005

Sub-minimum wage work widespread in Nevada
Special to Johnny Gunn's NevadaObserver.com
10-15-2005

Good Friday: Wherein the Barbwire foments a fox paw of international diplomacy
A sincere apology to my old friend Condoleeza
10-9-2005

Early Rushes and Timely Reviews
10-2-2005

Profitable PR Painfully Pumped: Energetic gas from BigOil
Plus: Perkins perks up for potential congressional step up — Barbwire exclusive
WEB EDITION BONUS: A liberal-conservative nonsensical consensus

9-25-2005

Amoral moralists pontificate as parishes perish
9-18-2005

Sunday of many sorrows
9-11-2005

Deadly Spin in the oil slicks of New Orleans
9-4-2005

Media Howlers
A short attention span means never having to say you're sorry
8-28-2005

Patriot Games
Sparks City Council considers rebellion against U.S. Patriot Act

8-21-2005

UPDATE 8-22-2005: Anti-Patriot Act resolution passes unanimously. Full report hereinabove.

Getting Focused
The latest on the rigged consumer games of gasoline and cable TV price fixing
Plus: an old colleague reports from his home in a Gaza Strip refugee camp

8-14-2005

Payback Time: America gets the bill for her sins
8-7-2005

White Party rules
Las Vegas CityLife 8-4-2005

DIVORCED BEDMATES: AFL-CIO Going Bananas in Splitsville
National trauma could have been avoided right here in Nevada

7-31-2005

Ballot Boxing 2005
7-24-2005

BOHICA Time
Corporate welfare runs amuck
Carson City government turns city hall into a gambling hall, potentially sharing tax revenue with auto dealer
7-17-2005

Wholly Noise
Will the Sparks City Council make a sound decision?
7-10-2005

Happy Co-Dependence Day
Hurts so good!
7-3-2005

Tom Cruise's Earful
6-26-2005

Vicente Fox Vindicated
6-19-2005

The Ragpicker God
6-12-2005

Lemming Cliff Notes
6-5-2005

The Enemy Within
5-29-2005

Go Trust Yourself
5-22-2005 Tribune, 5-27-05 Comstock Chronicle

Conservative Welfare Reform — Working Welfare Queens may lose 53-year free ride
Harrah's loses a round to fired bartender, plus your chance to be in pictures
5-15-2005 Tribune, 5-20-05 Comstock Chronicle

Softshoes of the Fisherman
5-8-2005 Tribune, 5-13-05 Comstock Chronicle

Eulogy for UNR — A fatal future fable for Mayday 2005
5-1-2005 Tribune, 5-6 Comstock Chronicle

The Finger of God — Pope Jokes and Popes as Jokes
4-24-2005 Tribune

You got trouble, folks, right here in Virginia City — Apologies to Meredith Willson and Prof. Harold Hill

    CENSORED ON THE COMSTOCK: The April 24 column, linked above, was exorcised from the 4-29-2005 Comstock Chronicle because of religious prejudice in the Virginia City community and on the part of the newspaper's editor. I suppose the three previous installments questioning church policy and theology were one thing, but pope jokes were something else again. In almost two decades of writing for the various owners of the Sparks Tribune and more recently the Comstock Chronicle, this is the first time an entire piece has been purged because of its content. (I have had a dirty word or two changed to #@*&!% on rare occasion, depending on the personal hangups of the higherups, but this is something completely different.) The wordburning waxes exceedingly ironic given that the Tribune has since 1988 published the widest range of opinion of any newspaper in the state, large or small. To this day, we ink the weekly opinions of an avowed socialist and an overt racist. I like having them around — they make me look reasonable. Nonetheless, given the voodoo vagaries of codified superstition, I'm the one who got banned in the Sausalito of Nevada. Go figger.

    So if you are overly sensitive to pope jokes, read no further. You have been warned. Alleluia.

UPDATE: READ THE LETTER FROM THE CHURCH WHICH RAN INSTEAD.

UPDATE 9-11-2005: In addition to the Barbwire, the writings of legendary Comstock resident Travus T. Hipp and the world class cartoons of Dan O'Neil and his "Odd Bodkins" are no longer available to Comstock Chronicle readers.

"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh" — Voltaire (1694-1778)

37 cents away from God
4-17-2005

Committee Carpet-Bombs Ballardini
Special Internet Extra Edition
4-16-2005

Crunch time for bears, birds and bunnies
Special Internet Extra Edition

4-12-2005

Selling God
4-10-2005

Care vs. Bears, Cable vs. Consumers
Special Internet Extra Edition

4-7-2005

Shoes of the Fisherman
4-3-2005

Guns and Butter at School
3-27-2005

Harvest of Tears
3-20-2005

Beer: Satan's Brew
3-13-2005

Human Majesty and Misery
3-6-2005

The Last Picture Show: Adios, Tom Stoneburner
2-27-2005

The Zen Buddhist Carwash
2-20-2005

Send in the clowns
2-13-2005
An edited, slightly-Vegasized version from Las Vegas CityLife, 2-17-2005

Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll TV
2-6-2005

Red meat for conspiracy theories
1-30-2005

Cynicism is never having to say you're sorry
1-23-2005

The West Wing of the Mind
1-16-2005

The cold nature of fire
1-9-2005

God's Slow-Motion Reel
1-2-2005

Guest Columns
Jake Highton
Travus T. Hipp
Dennis Myers
Orland T. Outland

Labor Leaders


BLASTS FROM THE PAST
Some of the Barbwire's Greatest Hits

Ronald Reagan, 1911-2004
A memoir from Nevada's undercover Reagan-Bush PR man

Slightly updated 6-6-2004 from the 8-2-1992 Daily Sparks Tribune original

History
Labor Day '94: People vs. Corporate Con-Job
A brief history of neo-con PR and the roots of corporate propaganda

Tragedy

Come, follow me: A walk with the grateful dead
A visit to Nevada's first AIDS leper colony
From the 8-19-1988 AND 7-10-1994 Daily Sparks Tribune

Did Naval Air Station Fallon bury live animals after a huge fuel spill?
From the 1-19-1990 AND 1-22-1990 Daily Sparks Tribune

Comedy

Theme casinos, Spuds MacKenzie & Brigitte Bardot
The first Barbwire

Originally published in Reno, LV and Sunworld Airlines magazines, August, 1987

 

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11-year investigative series

PUMPING PROFITS — Why does gasoline cost so much?
Read the awful truth in the Barbwire Oilogopoly Archive

Gov. Dudley Do-Right's Greatest Hits


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© 1982-2005 Andrew Barbano, all rights reserved

Andrew Barbano is a Reno-based member of Communications Workers of America Local 9413, the union of Mark Twain. A 37-year Nevadan, he is a writer, media maven and editor/producer of websites and radio and television programs. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Daily Sparks (Nev.) Tribune since 1988.

 

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