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


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

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

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"Media is the plural of mediocre."
— Jimmy Breslin (1928-2017)

¡Viva Chávez!
César Chávez Celebration XVI / Celebración de César Chávez XVI
Saturday 31 March 2018
/ Sabado 31 de Marzo 2018

Highlights from the record-breaking 2017 event at Circus Circus Reno

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   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.


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


Window of opportunity: 48 hours for human rights
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 10-11-2017 Sparks Tribune / Expansions in blue


Greatest Hits Dept.

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

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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
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
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

1997 Pulitzer Prize entries

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


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"80 percent of success is showing up" — Woody Allen

The Sparks City Council voted in January 2007 to establish a diversity commission and nothing's been heard since despite ongoing prodding from its Reno-Sparks NAACP sponsors.

Sparks was recently approached to help form a regional human rights commission but told Reno City Hall that the city is broke. For once, they told the truth. All the corporate welfare given away to the likes of downtown (Barbwire 12-14-2015) and Marina/Scheels developers has put the Rail City, like Reno, in a financial straitjacket. For much more about much worse, see the Barbwire Corporate Welfare Archives at NevadaLabor.com/

Both understaffed city police departments have almost no minority officers and Reno's entrance exam even screens out minorities in the initial phase. (Barbwire Reno Gazette-Journal 7-17-2016 and Trib followups)

About two years ago, Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve appeared to be leading the way on the human rights project but that seems to have been sidetracked by black tower intrigue.

Business as usual. Reno will now have an advisory-only body which will meet only when the Good Lord's willin' and the cricks don't rise.

Whenever a local government creates a toothless advisory-only body allowed to review only narrowly-tailored issues on an ad hoc basis, it means somebody's selling some serious cosmetics.

It's time to kick ass.

And so we come to Thursday and Saturday of this week in which the Reno-Sparks NAACP shoehorns its two major annual events into 48 hours.

First up, the Branch's second Community Policing Forum takes place at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 12, at Northern Nevada HOPES' third floor Community Room, 580 W. 5th Street, Reno.

Admission is free but arrive early. Last year's event attracted an overflow standing-room audience. Local police agencies will take questions from Branch members and the public.

"At the event, we especially want updates on minority hiring practices and human rights advisory committees," stated President Patricia Gallimore.

An archive about last year's event will be linked to the web edition of this screed at Barbwire.US/

The NAACP's 72nd Annual Freedom Fund Awards Banquet happens two days later on Oct. 14 in the Mandalay Ballroom at Circus Circus Hotel-Casino. Doors open at 5:30 p.m., dinner at 6:30. Advance reservations are strongly recommended.

Individual tickets, tables of 10 and sponsorships may be reserved via RenoSparksNAACP.org or better yet, e-mail or call me at 775-882-TALK. (Time is tight.)

This year's keynote speaker will be the Rev. Dr. Barbara Reynolds, co-author with Coretta Scott-King of "My LIfe, My Love, My Legacy," the life story of Mrs. Martin Luther King, Jr. published earlier this year. Dr. Reynolds has written for many major magazines and newspapers including The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, Playboy, Ebony, Essence, and USA Today where she was a columnist and editorial board member for 13 years. She was the first African-American woman to serve on the panel.

Tickets and tables for Saturday will be available at Thursday's Community Policing Forum if any remain available.

In recent years, the Reno-Sparks NAACP made a high profile issue of Washoe and Clark County school districts artificially inflating graduation rates and glossing over embarrassing minority performance. It has been a successful plaintiff in major voting rights litigation and has registered tens of thousands of new voters statewide.

In December, 2014, this little mouse roared with a little help from The Barbwire. The New York Times and every medium from the Maui News to The Washington Post to The Guardian of London carried the story of overtly racist (and onetime Tribune columnist) Ira Hansen, R-Sparks, becoming speaker of the Nevada State Assembly. (Details at BallotBoxing.US/) He resigned. The issue was so important that it generated assistance from the late, great Julian Bond in one of the final acts of his distinguished life.

The Branch needs new members to serve a mushrooming population base. So get involved.

Show up!

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

ONLINE EXTRAS —>
Las Vegas 2017: Fire is the devil's only friend

Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno
/ Expanded from the 10-4-2017 Sparks Tribune
Rewriting the Civil War and the Mexican War
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 9-27-2017 Sparks Tribune / Updated 9-28-2017 / Expansions in blue
Freedom loving racists shoot to rewrite history
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 9-20-2017 Sparks Tribune
Rewriting History
Reno News & Review Editorial : Remove Klansman's sculpture at UNR / 9-14-2017
Virginia City Nevada celebrates Slave Labor Day
Barbwire by Andres Luis Barbáno / Special online Labor Day edition 9-2-2017

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.


How Sinclair Broadcasting puts a partisan tilt on trusted local news
By William Brangham/ PBS NewsHour 10-10-2017

Top-down Democrats haven't learned
By Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 8-10-2017

More Faux than Fox? Corporate octopus Sinclair moves to dominate Nevada and U.S. television
By Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 8-3-2017

  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.

END OF TIMES SURVIVAL KIT. Defend yourself with humorous or humorless but always-peerless predictions for 2017by subscribing to the Barbwire Confidential News Service. Hush Hush!

"Media is the plural of mediocre."
— Jimmy Breslin (1928-2017)

Last year's dark foreshadowings unfortunately became reality. I thus suggest inoculation by signing onto the HushHush! list at BallotBoxing.US/

It's cheap as well as enlightening entertainment. I suggest coming aboard now. Subscription prices go up soon. Thank you kindly for your support.

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

Andrew Barbano is a 49-year Nevadan, chair of the Nevada César Chávez Committee, executive 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 BallotBoxing.US 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 and received its 8th Nevada Press Association award and 5th first-place at the 30 Sept. 2017 NPA annual convention in Carson City. (That plaque and about six bucks can get you a Latte Mocha Cotsafracas Chingade at just about any Starbux worldwide, guaranteed.)


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


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

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Copyright © 1982-2017 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 48-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.

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

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