BARBWIRE
by
ANDREW BARBANO
Pirate Laureate of the High Desert Outback of the American Dream
Cancer-causing Brain-damaging Artificial Turf / Barbwire 11-24-2015

Barbwire
Archives

Je Suis Charlie
ConsumerCoalitionv.org

Updated on 5-3-2026 GMT

Breaking News & then some—>

Grandma files action vs. Amex horsethieves
Barbwire by Andrew Barbano / Expanded from the 4-29-2026 Sparks Tribune

X-Rated Amex flips the bird to customers
Barbwire by Andrew Barbano / Expanded from the 4-22-2026 Sparks Tribune

Plastic turf spreading like cancer nationwide; opposition organizing—>but not in Sparks
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 7-30-2025 / Updated 8-2 & 8-3-2025 GMT

On artificial turf, don't breathe unless necessary
Toxic turf all over town
2016 Nevada Press Association Award Winner

Revenge of Trump's postmaster general:
Proposed northern Nevada/eastern California mail shunt to Sacramento slows down mail, endangers voting
Washoe voter registrar warns of destruction of voting by mail
By Mark Robison / Reno Gazette-Journal 2-25-2024

Black History Month Blacklash
Reno City Council endangers historic Nevada black church for developer
Bethel A.M.E. Pastor marshals support at City Hall on Feb. 28

Portents from the Terminator
MASK UP: COVID, RSV and Influenza are swamping emergency rooms
BUYER BEWARE: Cancer-causing chemicals in makeup and everything plastic (Consumer Reports)
SIGN AND VOTE: Initiative petition filed to regulate payday loan predators
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 1-10-2024

Series of measures protected renters from NV’s harsh eviction laws. Not anymore.
By Michael Lyle / Nevada Current 12-11-2023 / Also appeared in Reno Gazette-Journal 12-17-2023

In the cocoon of our unhealthy cartoon
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 12-6-2023

Bonfire of the Vampires
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 11-29-2023

Upsy daisy Nevada crazy
New renters' rights organization tries again
Judge bounces teachers union petition to put Oakland A's tax-paid corporate welfare stadium before voters
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 11-8-2023

Death by a thousand cuts
The incredible shrinking phony phone book
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 9-13-2023

RENTVOLUTION.ORG
Republican Nevada Gov. Giuseppe Lumbago vetoes pro-tenant bills despite warnings of impending homeless crisis

TURF WAR: Sparks City Hall wants to kill your kids
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 3-15-2023
BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH

Toxic Turf Archives:
Aaron Rodgers, call your office

Help wanted: athletes wounded on toxic turf
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 11-9-2022

NLV council rules against putting rent cap proposal on ballot
Next step for Culinary Union Local 226 initiative: Court
Sen. Joe Neal sorely missed on his home turf
Much more at Rentvolution.org
By Jessica Hill / Las Vegas Sun / 8-5-2022

North Las Vegas rejects Culinary rent-control petition
By Ricardo Torres -Cortez / Las Vegas Review-Journal 8-3-3022

DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE?
Be careful what you Make-A-Wish for
Hot August Nights auctioning a death trap for charity
By Faith Evans / Reno Gazette-Journal front page / 8-4-2022

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

The abortion solution
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Sparks Tribune 5-11-2022

¡FELIZ CINCO DE MAYO!

Barbwire by Barbano: 4-20, 4-27 & 5-4-2022
Rent control legal under Nevada law
LET THEM EAT MASKS
Sparks-Reno superspreadators give booby bus boss big bucks
+FIREFIGHTERS ENDANGER E.R. PATIENTS
+ Nevada poisoning pigeons (and kids) in parks

Sexy ways to commit societal suicide
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 3-23-2022

How Renown stole our county hospital
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 3-16-2022

Oil Ain't All That's Rigged
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 3-9-2022

¡Viva Chávez!
César Chávez Celebration XIII / Celebración de César Chávez XIII
Tuesday 31 March 2015 / Martes 31 de Marzo 2015
Highlights of the event at Circus Circus Reno

Site map
SITE NAVIGATION TIPS: When all else fails, read the instructions

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


   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. That's how it goes.
   Everybody knows.
— Leonard Cohen

On artificial turf, don't breathe unless necessary
Toxic turf all over town
2016 Nevada Press Association Award Winner
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 11-24-2015 Sparks Tribune / Updated 12-2-2015 & 12-8-2015 & 6-7-2016 & 1-9-2018 & 1-24-2018 & 11-9-2022
& THE IDES OF MARCH 2023

Recurring revolutions 3-22-2023

MUCH MORE —> SMOKING GUNS


WE WON: BIG NEWS FROM THE NEVADA PRESS ASSOCIATION CONFAB IN GOMORRAH SOUTH —> BARBWIRE NOMINEE GUY RICHARDSON INDUCTED INTO HALL OF FAME ON FIRST BALLOT

Support Don Dondero next
Note: Alas and alack, Dondero did not make it in 2015.
Wait 'til next year!

8 the hard way!
Barbwire wins 8th Nevada Press Association award

GOLD 2017
Don't ask Renown Med for marijuana to help your chemo
10-4-2016
We Don't Need No Education
Toxic Turf Tops Trashy News
12-13-2016
Kate Smith & Lady Gaga
2-14-2017

Bronze 6-pack
In the Uber-Nevada legislature, words can kill
4-28-2015
On artificial turf, don't breathe unless absolutely necessary (See left.)
11-24-2015
Leading questions, lead-headed leaders
1-19-2016

Hopelessly trying to win an earthquake
4-18-2013
2013 Loony Tunes Legislative Lexicon
5-30-2013
The politics of media ga-ga boosterism
3-20-2014

We Don't Need No Education—> Neverending Barbwire Series

Barbwire.TV
Watch NevadaLabor.com for show times. Help us get the word out.

Support the project at http://resurge.tv#donate

SUING FOR SCHOOLS
Reruns on Carson-Dayton 226

Additional programs on Boulder City cable. Go to bcnv.org and then
go to the BCTV link.

If Reform Fails: Health Care, Jobs and Unions — new power to the people on the public airwaves

The program premiers were available to every television set in the region because of a high-mileage media hybrid.

The shows appeared on both commercial and community stations. The non-corporate entity produced the events, commercial TV greatly expanded distribution.

Thus began an ongoing series of sane public interest programs which generate both entertaining heat and more than a little light.

Please spread the word and consider contributing to the cause online at ReSurge.TV.

You may also take the public option known as the U.S. Postal Service and send a check or money order to ReSurge.TV, P.O. Box 10034, Reno NV 89510.

Your contribution will help fund the distribution as well as ongoing efforts at developing new media, including a regional, non-corporate community radio station and the return of community television to Reno-Sparks-Washoe.

You are present at the creation of what I hope can become a new media model where the programming accurately reflects what's happening on the ground and the media impact is powerful enough to forcefully pass the message upward.

Thanks.

Be well. Raise hell.

 Andrew

Click here for selected on-demand re-runs from the Barbwire.TV archives

Barbwire.TV:
15-year overnight success
Daily Sparks Tribune 2-10-2008

The Barbwire's Greatest Hits
Highlights from radio days
mp3 file

Tomorrow's news today —> Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential

Tribune ace photographer John Byrne's action shot in this newspaper was pretty, ugly, and pretty ugly.

At first glance, it looked like a plague of dark locusts rising above an otherwise green field.

Some poor lout driving a tractor-like contraption was breathing it all in without so much as a bandana.

Company brushing artificial turf at Golden Eagle park [Photo: John Byrne]
Sparks Tribune 11-10-2015

Official: Sparks not seeking warranty replacement of artificial turf at Golden Eagle Regional Park
By Kent Lauer / Tribune 9-1-2015

Read much more about tire turf

"A FieldTurf employee steers a machine to scrape the artificial turf on one of the multi-purpose fields at Golden Eagle Regional Park," stated the caption. (See left)

The work was part of reconditioning the imitation grass "to distribute the rubber infill material evenly and remove debris and broken fibers," the Tribune reported on Nov. 10.

Artificial turf contains crumb rubber to fill space between grass blades. I inquired if any Sparks parks have turf with any content made from recycled tires or any similar material.

City spokesman Adam Mayberry confirmed "crumb rubber is used," noting "some kind of special process (is) used in the process of recycling and cleaning of the material before it goes on the fields.

" Golden Eagle Regional Park has more than 1.4 million square feet of artificial turf."

Sparks bought it in 2007. A web search for "artificial turf tires carcinogens asthma" brought 11,200 returns.

The legal website ClassAction.org noted: "According to the EPA, tires contain lead and a number of other potentially hazardous substances, leading many to believe that artificial turf products may also contain the same dangerous compounds and materials found in automobile and truck tires."

Last September, Yale University researchers "released a report revealing chemicals used in synthetic turf fields and rubber tire mulch used as surfacing material in toddler playgrounds.

According to the report, the study revealed nearly 100 chemicals were found in the 14 samples they analyzed.

The study also revealed 11 carcinogens in the turf samples, as well as 20 known skin irritants." (Connecticut WTNH TV-8, 9-3-2015)

“'I knew there were heavy metals in them but I never expected 96 chemicals,” Nancy Alderman, president of Environment and Human Health, Inc., a nonprofit organization that commissioned the Yale study, told WTNH.

"Alderman says half of those chemicals have not been tested by the government, so it’s not clear if they’re safe," WTNH reported.

“When you’re exposed to more than one low level carcinogen, then it becomes very toxic,” she said.

We've seen this movie. Industry develops a product and denies any health effects as unproven. Until they are.


Trash Turf Updates
Recurring revolutions 3-22-2023
The Ides of March 2023
11-9-2022
11-6-2019
10-30-2019
1-24-2018
10-25-2017 & 11-15-2017
6-28-2017 & 12-13-2016

Hundreds play on toxic turf
Barbwire by Barbano/Tribune 6-7-2016

Dirty deeds done dirt cheap—again
Barbwire by Barbano/Tribune 12-8-2015

Dirty deeds done dirt cheap
Barbwire by Barbano/Tribune 12-1-2015

MORE

Any level of lead can be harmful to kids, so now parents have more than concussions to worry about.

Golden Eagle's warranty expires next year.

I strongly recommend this new-fangled invention called grass.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: Barbed wire was patented 24 November 1874, a quarter-century before the first Barbanos immigrated from Italy.

GREAT SCOTT. Former Nevada Alliance for Retired Americans President Scott Watts survived heart surgery but remains in Carson-Tahoe Hospital.

His condition is improving.

Please continue e-mailing greetings, which I'll forward.

All prayers/emanations/vibrations/meditations most welcome and encouraged.

Thanks and Happy Thanksgibleting.

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




We Don't Need No Education
— The ongoing Barbwire investigative series

The Underbelly of the News—>Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential

BARBWIRE WEB EXTRAS... TOMORROW'S NEWS TODAY: FEEL UP YOUR FIRE METER. The Reno Gazette-Journal did big spreads on three consecutive Sundays (Sept. 14, Sept. 21 and Sept. 28, 2014) on NV Energy smart meter fires. Welcome aboard.

Barbwire readers were two years ahead on the fire meter issue. (Touch a Smart Meter, Go to Jail — 11 October 2012)

FIRE METER UPDATES: THE NEVADA FIRE MARSHALL'S INVESTIGATION concluded "don't worry, be happy." I'm still worried and will continue fondling NVE's precious equipment —> If your smart meter feels very hot, not just from sunshine, call 911.

In its Sunday 21 Dec. 2014 front page headline major story, the Reno Gazette-Journal published results of the NVEnergy-commissioned "don't worry, be happy" echo study.

On 1-27-2015, the RGJ published an analysis based on veteran reporter Anjeanette Damon's review of more than 1,000 pages of documents.

Barbwire bottom line: NVE handles this like auto manufacturers handle defects —> It's cheaper to pay legal settlements after people are injured or killed than to fix the problem.

Don'tcha worry 'bout a thing! If you can't trust your power company, who can you trust?

DIDN'T THEY MAKE A MOVIE CALLED "THE INCREDIBLES"? On 2-6-2015, the RGJ reported that the Public Utilities Commission has ordered NVE to hire an independent laboratory to review the material.

UPDATE: The report said all is well. I still recommend feeling up your fire meter on a regular basis.

ANTE INTO THE GAME: Support the new season of Barbwire.TV by putting your money where my mouth is. A thousand thanks to those who keep sending show suggestions.

"Media is the plural of mediocre."
                              — Jimmy Breslin

  Stay tuned.

  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. We've got a lot of work to do.

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

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










Andrew Barbano is a 47-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 SenJoeNeal.org and DoctorLawyerWatch.com/ 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 Sparks Tribune since 1988.

 

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

 

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


 

TURF WAR: Sparks City Hall wants to kill your kids
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 3-15-2023
BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH

Visiting athletes, local teams and kids continue to suck in the toxic stuff
Barbwire by Barbano/Tribune 6-7-2016

Toxic turf is epidemic in northern Nevada
Barbwire by Barbano/Tribune 12-8-2015

Turf and training: Dirty deeds done dirt cheap
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 12-1-2015 Sparks Tribune / Updated 12-2-2015

Turf Wars: Playing Sports On Ground-Up Rubber
The Hartford Courant / 10-1-2015

Synthetic turf in historic landmark Yale Bowl?
Guest editorial /Excerpted from The Hartford Courant / 9-29-2015

...A recent study conducted at Yale University looked at what chemicals are in synthetic turf. The preliminary data found 96 chemicals in synthetic turf, and many of them are carcinogenic.

The nonprofit Environment and Human Health Inc., (EHHI) made up of 10 physicians and public health professionals, (many of whom are on the Yale Medical School faculty), studied the harmful effects of synthetic turf for over nine years — and their conclusion is that these fields are toxic.

EHHI recommended a moratorium on installing synthetic turf fields in 2007 because of the carcinogens in the fields, but the recommendation was not adopted. EHHI said at that time that we would start to see cancers among our student athletes who have played on synthetic fields in about 10 years. It has now been about 10 years and we are indeed seeing cancers develop — especially among soccer players. In fact, the soccer playing goalkeepers are the most heavily impacted with lymphomas and leukemias. With 127 lymphomas and leukemias reported among soccer players — 85 of these are goalkeepers. Both those cancers are environmentally influenced....

Sorcerer's apprentices work cheap in Nevada
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 11-17-2015 Sparks Tribune / Updated 11-20 and 11-24-2015

Weekend at Bernie's with Eugene McCarthy's grandchildren
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 11-10-2015 Sparks Tribune / Updated 11-12-2015

Last of the dinosaurs: Grease for corporate gears
Reno Gazette-Journal "retires" most experienced journalists
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 11-3-2015 Sparks Tribune

The Donald and The Church Lady run among us
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 10-27-2015 Sparks Tribune / Updated with a merry 'toon 10-27-2015

From holy of holies to lair of the moneychangers
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 10-20-2015 Sparks Tribune

Parsing the paranoia of powerful penny-pinchers
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 10-13-2015 Sparks Tribune

Good news, bad news and Machine Gun Michele
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 10-6-2015 Sparks Tribune/ Updated 10-7 & 10-12-2015

Strange bedfellows and nubile wenches
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 9-29-2015 Sparks Tribune

Pondering the bright side of warmongering
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 9-22-2015 Sparks Tribune

Cheering for cheating when jockocracy rules
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 9-15-2015 Sparks Tribune

We don't need no education, biblical or not
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 9-8-2015 Sparks Tribune

Labor Day 2016: Nevada workers' last stand
Barbwire Exclusives: Gansert will run to replace Brower in Nevada Senate
Complaint filed against welfare-bashing illegal GOP front petition
Barbwire by Barbano / Uploaded 8-30-2015/ Expanded from the Tuesday 9-1-2015 Sparks Tribune

Hope one of your detractors attends your funeral
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 8-25-2015 Sparks Tribune

Don't call a lawyer to sue a doctor
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 8-18-2015 Sparks Tribune
DMV lines, voting lines and lines in the sand
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 8-11-2015 Sparks Tribune

The light side of prison escape
The Lost Column: Composed 6-9-2015 and refused by major corporate media / Uploaded Wednesday 8-5-2015
Alas and alack, otherwise good journalists get conditioned out of any sense of irony or humor on the way to morphing into weak corporate weasels

Heroic lions, pampered elephants & sweating RINOS
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 8-4-2015 Sparks Tribune

Ironic colonics, shameless strumpetry & repo men
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 7-28-2015 Sparks Tribune

Moving the needle and needling the weasels
Education funding hike non-existent / Confederate flags fly in Sparks
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 7-21-2015 Sparks Tribune

School, life, death, taxes and other high ironies
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 7-14-2015 Sparks Tribune

All the news you never knew you needed to know
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 7-7-2015 Sparks Tribune / Updated 7-9-2015

Applying Christian forgiveness to a fault
Barbwire by Barbano / From the Tuesday 6-30-2015 Sparks Tribune

Life & death tickle the underbelly of the news
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 6-23-2015 Sparks Tribune

Al Capone takes stock of Nevada education
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 6-16-2015 Sparks Tribune / Updated 6-17-2015

The 2015 Nevada Legislature's greatest hits
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Tuesday 6-9-2015 Sparks Tribune

Chaos theory: Republicans learn to use their majority — on each other
Cover Story by Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 6-4-2015 Several related stories linked thereat

Stench of sulfur suffuses Nevada's year of the gun
Barbwire by Barbano / Uncensored full-length edition expanded from the censored Tuesday 6-2-2015 Sparks Tribune
Updated D-Day, 6-6-2015: How I handled a similar situation

Dogs and ponies, DARE traps and tokenism
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 5-26-2015 Sparks Tribune

Corporate welfare unites me with the moonhowlers
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 5-19-2015 Sparks Tribune

Hotplates, hotheads, hot rumors and hot Moose
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 5-12-2015 Sparks Tribune

MayDay! The bright side of riots in the streets
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 5-5-2015 Sparks Tribune

In the Uber-Nevada Legislature, words can kill
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 4-28-2015 Sparks Tribune

Tesla rewrites history to chisel worker paychecks
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 4-21-2015 Sparks Tribune

Radiation Nation: Gomorrah South bakes in the glow of victory
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 4-14-2015 Sparks Tribune

Revenge, redistricting and amnesia in Cartoon City
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 4-7-2015 Sparks Tribune

Harry Reid, Eddy Arnold, César Chávez and Gaga Madonna
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 3-31-2015 Sparks Tribune

High noon for the high desert outback of the American Dream
Small minds discuss people, average minds discuss events, great minds discuss ideas.
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 3-24-2015 Sparks Tribune

St. Patrick, I need a green energy beer
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 3-17-2015 Sparks Tribune

Michele Fiore: the Italian girl mama wanted for me?
Barbwire by Barbano / Excised from the 3-10-2015 Sparks Tribune as "not suitable" / Updated 3-12 and 3-13-2015

Who was that lady I saw you with last night?
That was no lady, that was...none of your damned business!


But can she cook?

Barbano to legislative committee: Let Tesla, Switch and Apple help pay for police officer video cameras

Clinging to the Ledge: guts, feathers and all
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 3-3-2015 Sparks Tribune

We don't need no stinking wages!

It became necessary to destroy the community in order to save it
Barbwire by Barbano / Special online edition 2-26-2015

The skeleton of the underbelly of the news
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 2-24-2015 Sparks Tribune

Parsing our parsimonious public pursers
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 2-17-2015 Sparks Tribune

What else is new? Southern Nevada CLC authorizes strike sanction vs. wage violator.

The flush of victory and the irony of deceit
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 2-10-2015 Sparks Tribune

Senate Republicans take a jackhammer to the bedrock of Nevada trade unionism
The last bastion of local hire comes under fire
By Sean Whaley / Las Vegas Review-Journal 2-4-2015

Follytix, Foxcatchers and corporate weasels
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 2-3-2015 Sparks Tribune

We Don't Need No Education Archive

The ever-expanding Ira Hansen Archive of an anachronism

BREAKING BAD
Walter White and some other white guy
Who's,,,
...Who?

Breaking Bad 5: Machine Gun Michele and the good ole boys
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 12-16-2014 Sparks Tribune

Breaking Bad 4: Ira and his ammosexuals flip us the finger
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 12-9-2014 Sparks Tribune / Updated 12-11-2014

Union decline and rising inequality in two charts
by Colin Gordon
Economic Policy Institute / 6-5-2012
Labor Day: State of the Unions
By Mark Robison / Reno Gazette-Journal / Sunday 9-1-2013

The above graph was 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.

WOMEN AND UNIONS — ORPHAN MAJORITIES
The Barbwire Labor Day column
Reno Gazette-Journal / 9-3-2012


...and more ammo...

We Don't Need No Education
The continuing Barbwire series

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

...and more ammo yet

IMF Head Says Inequality Threatens Democracy. Here Are 7 Charts Proving She’s Right.
By Erika Eichelberger / Mother Jones/BillMoyers.com 5-30-2014
“The behavior of the financial sector has not changed fundamentally…since the crisis.
The industry still prizes short-term profit.”

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


 Nevada Press Assn. Better Newspaper Contest

2013-14: BARBWIRE SCORES SIXTH NEVADA PRESS ASSOCIATION AWARD

BRONZE 2014
Hopelessly trying to win an earthquake / 4-18-2013

The 2013 Loony Tunes Legislative Lexicon / 5-30-2013

The politics of media ga-ga boosterism / 3-20-2014

2012: WE WON —> BIG NEWS FROM THE NEVADA PRESS ASSOCIATION GOMORRAH SOUTH CONFAB—> BARBWIRE NOMINEE GUY RICHARDSON INDUCTED INTO NPA HALL OF FAME ON FIRST BALLOT

Support legendary photographer Don Dondero next

2010 GOLD 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

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


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


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War Rooms: Banks, Cabbies, Cabela's/cabellyup, Cable TV, Cancer Kids/Mining, Energy, Food, Health Care, Resurge.TV/consumers, Starbucks, Wal-Mart
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Copyright © 1982-2018, 2022 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 47-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and SenJoeNeal.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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