BARBWIRE
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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)

Happy Thanksgibleting to you and yours.

¡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


We Don't Need No Education Part LXXXII—>
Thanksgibleting 2017: Success, sorrow & sustenance
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 11-22-2017 Sparks Tribune / Updated 11-23, 11-24, 11-26, 11-29 and 12-8-2017 / 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

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SUING FOR SCHOOLS
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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
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Last Sunday brought a whipsaw of emotions. The estimable Siobahn McAndrew's front-page story in the Reno Gazette-Journal exposed endemic racism in Lyon County.

And I lost a friend.

The Barbwire as usual spared every expense in breaking the Yerington story first on Oct. 18 with three followups since. The RGJ sent Ms. McAndrew to old Pizen Switch to interview the family/victims and local officials.

The most chilling aspect echoed the Washoe County School District's "how dare you?!" reaction to racism at Shaw Middle School in 2012. Did art classes teach spray-painting "KKK" on black kids' lockers and drawing crosses in the street in front of their house? Just kids having fun.

At least Shaw got locked down after some student threatened to shoot up the place a few weeks ago. In Sparks, arrest. In Yerington, pats on the head.

Yerington Police Chief Buford T. Justice dismissed it all as just kids being kids, then wrapped himself in the First Amendment.

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel," Dr. Samuel Johnson opined a couple of centuries ago. Nothing's changed.

Disgracing Assembly Speaker Emeritus Joe Dini's memory, his son, Yerington Mayor George Dini, tossed it off as just part of his friendly little town's touristy ambience. Just kids having fun.

Maybe the Klan will book a convention.

The children of present and former Lyon/Yerington law enforcement officers have made overt threats to shoot blacks. Attorney General Adam Laxalt sent investigators last week because Yerington PD illegally shredded police reports about racist incidents. They have to protect their kids, fergawdsakes.

Like the worldwide cascade of sexual harassment and rape revelations, perhaps this will finally start cleansing Nevada of its Mississippi West hangover.

One Sparks resident with a biracial grand-daughter told me of her anger at what the kid daily endures. Grandma especially bristles when people assert that we live in a "post-racial" era. Nothing could be further from the truth. Black people see the world differently because they are treated differently.

Unnoticed in public comment before the Washoe County School District Trustees last month were complaints from the daughter of a Reno cop decrying racial bias at Sparks' Reed High.

The morally obtuse principal of Yerington High sarcastically defended his school's lily-white wall of notable graduates by telling McAndrew "last year, we nominated someone of Italian descent. Does that count?"

Hell no. My family went through persecution like any other immigrant group (see Kate Smith and Lady Gaga, Tribune Feb. 14) but are no longer on the bottom of the barrel.

Future President Theodore Roosevelt once stated that he thought an 1891 mass-lynching of Italians in New Orleans was "a rather good thing."

A wise man once opined that "the Lord created the world, mankind built the cities and the devil thunk up the small town."

What kind of community does Nevada want to become?

DARRYL FEEMSTER, 1962-2017. Senior citizen and youth advocate Darryl Feemster, 55, died Sunday, Nov. 19, at St. Mary's Regional Medical Center. He never regained consciousness after a stroke. He was admitted to the hospital's intensive care unit on Nov. 7 after being found unresponsive in his bedroom.

Reach out your hand
If your cup is empty
If your cup is full, may it be again
Let it be known
There is a fountain
That was not made
By the hands of men

— Robert Hunter & Jerry Garcia*

A Reno native, he was a longtime member of the Reno-Sparks NAACP and currently served on its executive committee.

Patricia Gallimore, President of NAACP Reno-Sparks Branch No. 1112, said "the Feemster family has been the branch's bedrock for decades.

"We will honor Darryl Feemster by building on his impressive achievements and using his legacy as a blueprint to guide us moving forward.

"The year 2017 will be remembered as a time when we lost a gathering of giants," Gallimore added.

Finding a location large enough for a memorial service is currently just one of the Feemster family's tasks as they plod through the numb slog of mourning my friend Darryl.

Godspeed.

UPDATE: A memorial service will be conducted at 11:00 a.m. on Friday, December 1, at Sparks Christian Fellowship, 510 Greenbrae Drive, Sparks NV 89431. SCF is located at the northeast corner of Pyramid Way at Greenbrae Drive on the east side of historic Greenbrae Center. A reception will follow at the Boys and Girls Club, 2680 E. Ninth Street, Reno. A private family burial will be conducted at Reno's Mountain View Cemetery. Please watch this website for additional news and his official family obituary. Personal remembrances may be posted at RenoSparksNAACP.org/

Happy Thanksgibleting to you and yours.

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

_____________________
* "Ripple" lyrics from The Grateful Dead's greatest album, "American Beauty." Photo shows Darryl with his grandson, Marcus, Jr.

Online Extras & Smoking Guns—>
Brain damage means never having to say you're sorry
Nevada's Most-Censored News Stories of 2017

Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno
/ Expanded from the 11-15-2017 Sparks Tribune
Throwing the book at big guns and little cowboys
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 11-8-2017 Sparks Tribune
We Don't Need No Education Part LXXX—>
The poisoning of old Pizen Switch proliferates
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 11-1-2017 Sparks Tribune

We Don't Need No Education Part LXXIX—>
Mississippi West don't need no education
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno
/ Expanded from the 10-25-2017 Sparks Tribune / Updated 10-29, 10-30 and 10-31-2017 GMT
We Don't Need No Education Part LXXVIII—>
You've got to be taught to learn to hate
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 10-18-2017 Sparks Tribune / Updated 10-19 and 10-29-2017 GMT
Window of opportunity: 48 hours for human rights
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 10-11-2017 Sparks Tribune
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
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.

Ready for Trump TV? Inside Sinclair Broadcasting’s Plot to Take Over Your Local News
Its mix of terrorism alerts, right-wing commentary and “classic propaganda” could soon reach 3/4 of the US.
By Andy Kroll/Mother Jones Oct.-Nov. 2017

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 2017 by 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, 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 trophy and about six bucks will 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 49-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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