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

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The Barbwire's Silver Anniversary
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.

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.

— Leonard Cohen

They don't do anything until somebody dies
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 12-12-2013 Sparks Tribune
Updated 12-31-2013, 2-2-2018, 2-7-2018 / Expansions in blue

SMOKING SECTION — This photo appears on the UNR website. It is taken from the top of the second level of seats. There are no exits at the top. The narrow hallway mentioned below may be seen through the open door at the right of the landing separating the two tiers of seating. At the bottom of the curving hallway is an entrance to the stage. The other hallway also has a door opening on the second level landing, at left, not visible between the banisters. The left hallway also ends with a doorway to the stage. The lighter-veneer openings to the right and left of the stairs at the base of the stage are not doors. The UNR website says the room seats 220, but building officials call it 224 after allowing for wheelchairs ("...approximately 224 fixed theater seats and/or ADA reserved wheelchair floor spaces.")

From longtime Nevada journalist Dennis Myers' Poor Denny's Almanac of 12-3-2013: On this date in 1979, eleven fans holding general admission tickets for a Who concert (holders of such tickets find unassigned seats on a first come/first served basis) died in the crush of stampeding fans when only two of the doors of Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium were thrown open, creating a lethal crush (members of the band were unaware of the melee; the city later outlawed the general admission tickets known as “festival” seating).

The downtown Reno multiplex and University of Nevada student union theaters pose extreme fire hazards.

"They don't do anything until somebody dies," darkly murmured a longtime local fire expert who didn't want to be quoted.

There's an epidemic of that going around.

When Reno City Hall bent over to build the downtown theaters, they narrowed W. First Street despite firefighter objections, the expert told me.

Lusting for positive redevelopment PR, local government allowed the theaters to open without proper fire protection.

Later, they installed planter-dividers to make adjacent West Street prettier.

Result: neither First nor West can adequately accommodate fire trucks.

Hundreds reside in high-rises right there.

Corporate welfare has a sorry history of getting Nevadans killed.

Websearch the 1980-81 MGM Grand and Las Vegas Hilton fires that cost more than 100 lives.

Have we learned?

Not so's ya'd notice, which brings me to the firetrap third-floor theater at the modern Joe Crowley Student Union.

All access to the 224-seat facility comes via two long, narrow (minimum 44.8 inches), unevenly downsloping wheelchair chutes, only one of which was in use on the occasions I've attended.

Put another way, 100 people, conservatively 150 pounds each, weigh about 15,000 pounds.

That's 7.5 tons of panicky meat on the hoof trying to avoid barbecue in a few smoky seconds via a single-file bottleneck dumping into a postage-stamp-sized foyer.

Does anyone analyze actual logistics or is everything formulaic?

It took a couple of weeks for the UNR administration to develop a lawyerly, bureaucratic defense that "the theatre was originally constructed (and remains) fully code compliant."

So were the MGM and Hilton.

I have been informed by another fire expert that theater hallways in Reno are built to the same specifications (two-tenths of an inch per occupant) as the Crowley cave, which you may view for yourself in the web edition of this column at NevadaLabor.com/

The state fire marshal's office, which has primary authority over the facility, has not returned repeated phone calls.

If you must attend the facilities in question, increase your life and accident insurance coverage.

CORRECTION. Unlike some, when I make a mistake I own it and eat it.

Last week, I published an incorrect annual sales estimate for KRNV TV-4, which was just acquired by megaraptor Sinclair Broadcast Group.

The actual number falls around $5 million. Mea culpa.

You may access the full story at the expanded web edition of last week's Barbwire at NevadaLabor.com/

KETCHUP ON THE CROW. I further noted how Sinclair-owned KRXI Fox-11 apparently resisted local nutso pressure to emulate the Fox Skewed News channel.

Now, less than a week after the TV-4 ingestion, Fox-11 News seems to be morphing toward Murdochian moonhowling.

Makes me wonder how Sinclair might try to manipulate its two news departments, especially after they drop KTVU-Oakland's popular 10 O'Clock News.

COLD WEATHER ADVICE: If you freeze your buns you might break your arse.

Be careful out there.

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)

WEB EXTRAS...

SUPPORT THE RETURN OF COMMUNITY TV. Support the cause at Barbwire.TV by putting your money where my mouth is.

Keep sending show suggestions.

Current frontrunners include (pardon the pun) wild mustangs as canned goods, education,  i-Guns and gay Olympics.

  Please forward additional ideas or vote on the above.

  I encourage you to donate to the cause at Barbwire.TV/

The medium that shapes public opinion needs at least one refuge where it is not filtered through the distorted green eye shades of prissy corporate accountants for whom profit is the only priority; where self-censorship is the journalist's normal work environment and where all sins of omission are tacitly encouraged and forgiven with the wave of a balance sheet.

This is important.

HONOR YOUR DON. Keep sending comments supporting legendary Nevada photographer Don Dondero (1920-2003) for the Nevada Press Association Hall of Fame.

His life's work appeared worldwide, including the Tribune and most probably every newspaper in Nevada.

Enlist in the campaign to install Big Don.

Please send me your memories and endorsements via e-mail or to P.O. Box 10034, Reno NV 89510.

The Barbwire got the late Reno Gazette-Journal columnist Guy Richardson elected last year.

Let's go for a repeat.

Happy High Holly Days!

MerryChristmas/Kwanzaa/Solstice/Festivus/Chanukah/Thanksgibleting

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)

____________
Andrew Barbano is a 45-year Nevadan, chair of the Nevada César Chávez Committee, producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration, first vice-president and political action chair of the Reno-Sparks NAACP, labor/consumer/civil rights advocate, member of Communications Workers of America Local 9413/AFL-CIO and editor of NevadaLabor.com and JoeNeal.org. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. Check local listings for other Nevada cable systems. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Daily Sparks Tribune since 1988.

Smoking Guns... "Sinclair Broadcast Group announced that it closed on the acquisition of the non-license assets of NBC affiliate KRNV Reno, Nev. (DMA 107), from Intermountain West for $26 million, giving it a triopoly in the market." (TVNewsCheck.com 11-25-2013) "...Because the license was not included, the deal does not require FCC approval. Sinclair has already closed on the deal. However, according to one station valuation expert, in deals in which assets are split from the license, the FCC likes to see 20% of the total valuation allocated to the license. That suggests the station is worth around $32 million. In Reno, Sinclair also owns KRXI, the Fox affiliate, and operates KAME, an MNT outlet, under a local marketing agreement. The price represents a 5.2x multiple of the average 2012-2013 cash flow including synergies, Sinclair said...." (ibid) EDITOR'S NOTE: $26 million divided by 5.2 = $5 million. As to what such "synergies" might be, it may mean eliminating duplication between the three stations and is often a euphemism for firing people. "Last year was a political year which greatly increases income. I would guess on the high side at $20 million for the year. Honestly, I'm pretty sure it's less," stated a longtime local broadcast executive. "I am convinced that local television stations would cease to exist without the regular infusion of millions in political advertising," the old pro added. ...and more ammo.. Nevada Day Required Reading The Lady in the Red Dress The Barbwire's classic Nevada Day column written in 1983 The compleat history of the Silver State in 500 words SO WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? Sparks Tribune 10-31-2013 and previously Barbano on the Barbwire plots new TV season Barbwire Special Web Edition / 10-21-2013 Barbwire: Nevada not really a state No, we were not Battle Born in Kenya Top 10 reasons Nevada lives in the 19th Century Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 10-17-2013 Sparks Tribune Low-income penalty: Nevada socks it to the working poor BARBANO: Nevada is one big company town Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 10-10-2013 State of Health National health care comes up against a very sick state. WHAT'S IN IT FOR US? Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 10-10-2013 USA at crossroads: New Deal or new Confederacy? Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 10-10-2013 Sparks Tribune UPDATE—>Bill Moyers: Shutdown is simply secession by other means We Don't Need No Education The continuing Barbwire series ...and more ammo yet The Post-Dated Recession: Pay me now or pay me later Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 9-6-2012 Daily Sparks Tribune The Post-dated Recession By Joshua H. Silavent / Daily Sparks Tribune / 5-3-2011 Union decline and rising inequality in two charts by Colin Gordon Economic Policy Institute / 6-5-2012 Used in journalist Mark Robison's extensive Hard Labor: Nevada unions tout role in helping workers, firms, economy (Sunday 2 Sept. 2012 Reno Gazette-Journal, page one, Reno Rebirth section of the print edition). Union men Jim Burrell, Paul McKenzie and Guy Louis Rocha did the movement proud. Not included in the RGJ online edition. WOMEN AND UNIONS — ORPHAN MAJORITIES The Barbwire Labor Day column Reno Gazette-Journal / 9-3-2012 Nevada Press Assn. Better Newspaper Contest HAT TRICK: Barbwire takes first place three years in a row. The winning entries Suing for Schools: The 20-year shuck Expanded from the 2-21-2010 Daily Sparks Tribune Click here to view the show on your desktop RED flags flying low over Sparks Expanded from the 1-10-2010 Daily Sparks Tribune The wrath of self-righteous racism Expanded from the 11-8-2009 Daily Sparks Tribune Government contacts Nev. congressional delegation Nevada Legislature State of Nevada Secretary of State Carson City Clark County City of Las Vegas Douglas County Reno City Council Sparks City Council Washoe County Commission Washoe Registrar of Voters The campaign against forcibly-paid newspaper obituaries And they wonder why the newspaper business is dying?   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 The 2009 first-place Nevada Press Association award winners Tony the Tiger & the flaky NFL Barbwire / 11-30-2008 Deregulation is never having to say you're sorry Barbwire / 8-3-2008 Nevada: A good place to visit, but do you want to live here? Barbwire / 6-15-2008 The 2008 first-place Nevada Press Association award winners The price of a piece / 6-17-2007 Boxing Pandora /9-23-2007 The Lady in the Red Dress 10-28-2007 1997 Pulitzer Prize entries The life and times of Travus T. Hipp The best who ever was

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Copyright © 1982-2013, 2018 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 45-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and JoeNeal.org; and former chair of the City of Reno's Citizens Cable Compliance Committee, He is producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration and serves as first vice-president, political action chair and webmaster 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.

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