WHAT ELSE IS NEW DEPT. Alas and alack, recent revelations about state facility abuse of the mentally disabled is just instant replay.

I started fighting that fight in 1974 and have never stopped. Unfortunately, the greatest champions of Nevada's mentally afflicted are now all dead.

I don't know how many times I've written that whenever a budget crunch hits, Nevada balances the books on the backs of the physically and mentally disabled. Immediately thereafter, this stingiest of states targets school kids.

Caring for injured workers and the mentally afflicted constituted the two crowning achievements of Democratic Gov. Mike O'Callaghan's tenure (1971-79). Mike lived to see both trashed by his successors. His rural mental health clinics program never recovered. There's bi-partisan blame. For example, Democratic Gov. Bob Miller called in future Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn to consult on budget cuts in the early 1990s. Guess what they did?

DOWN IN THE LYON LASSITUDES. The Reno Gazette-Journal just printed an editorial about overt racism at Yerington High School fostered by the town's establishment.

Taylissa Marriott, left, and Jayla Tolliver

Jan 4, 2018 Federal Court Complaint Jan. 4, 2018 Request for Preliminary Injunction Both above are .pdf files Barbwire Yerington Racism Archives

They qualified their vitriol with "no member of the RGJ editorial board believes that Yerington as a whole is a racist town."

The same can be said about Selma, Alabama, or anywhere else.

There are always good people around, but societal sickness infects the righteous as well as the lax, the laconic and the lowlife.

I've received horror stories about Yerington racism that go back decades. It's systemic, endemic and execrable.

I broke the story more than a month ahead of the Reno paper which has since produced pretty good journalism.

But its vaguely critical editorial did not call for serious action like firings and resignations of racist administrators, teachers, law enforcement or elected officials.

Alas and alack, I guess racial abuse and death threats aren't in vogue like sexism. Nonethless, you may read recent federal filings (see left) in the case via the expanded edition of this column at Barbwire.US/

Stay tuned.

LYON COUNTY SMELLS BAD, TOO. As I reported a couple of years ago, residents of Silver Springs continue to protest the overwhleming fumes emanating from a plant that preserves logs for use as power poles. Typical Nevada. Something that would never be allowed in a state that gives a dam about its residents can get approved here. Our politicians will do anything to cut a ribbon and pat themselves on the back for visionary economic development. (Hack. Wheeze.)

MR. WYNNDERFUL WANES. So Gomorrah South casino mogul Steve Wynn rivals his pal Tsar Trumpsky for assuming royal privileges on youthful bodies? Business as usual in these parts. Sparks voters don't care if city hall wastes big taxpayer bucks settling sexual harassment claims. Perps remain on the payroll.

In case you haven't heard, the Wynn story was broken by Wall Street Journal LV bureau chief Alexandra Berzon. She won the most prestigious Pulitzer Prize, the public service medal, for the Las Vegas Sun in 2009. She led the team that exposed deadly working conditions on high-rise hotel construction. Vegas media have learned to stay away from Wynn. Like El Presidente Narcissio Grande, he has the financial might to sue anyone into bankruptcy if they irritate him. Hometown juries and Nevada judges favor gambling overlords. Wynn even got the Nevada Supreme Court to allow him to pay pit bosses out of dealers' tips and intimidated legislators into subsidizing his expensive art collection.

TARNISHED PULITZER. The Reno Gazette-Journal won Nevada's first-ever Pulitzer Prize in 1977 for editorial writing. The sexy series "let's get whoremaster Joe Conforte out of our community" achieved attention and accolades. Not long thereafter, RGJ management discovered that one of its Pulitzer-winning editorialists was gay. And fired him. The tawdry post-script was ignored. Until today.

BRIGHT NEWS. Reno-Sparks NAACP matriarch and former president Dolores Feemster is making a miraculous recovery and has been moved for rehab to Advanced Healthcare, 961 Kuenzli (89502), next door to the Reno Gazette-Journal. The neighborhood just got upgraded. Send cards.

Web Extras —> U-NEWS. Culinary Union Local 226 beat back a decertification attempt by the Reno Grand Sierra and remains in negotiation. Another decert has been filed. Time perhaps for another Hot August Strike during Hot August Nights? (Every union that ever used that headline — my all-time number one — won.) The only other union hotel in northern Nevada is Circus Circus, which hosted last October's Reno-Sparks NAACP Freedom Fund Awards and has two majors coming up.

The Building and Construction Trades Council of Northern Nevada/AFL-CIO will roast Sparks labor leader Todd Koch into retirement at ToddBQ '18 on February 24. I'm editing the commemorative program and need choice insults about the man I first met many years ago when he was young, handsome and promising. Alas, Todd today stands 0-for-3. Send entries to the e-mail below.

César Chávez XVI happens on the great man's 91st birthday on March 31. Ticket/table/sponsor info for César XVI may be accessed via the Barbwire expanded web edition at Barbwire.US/ —> Hurry. Prices increase Feb. 1.

Smoking Guns—>
Awards season: bad bids, bad hits and bad attitudes
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 1-24-2018 Sparks Tribune and affiliated publications
Terrorism in the Nevada outback
Bizarro R Us: Win bar bets predicting the 51st state
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 1-17-2018 Sparks Tribune and affiliated publications
The spirits of MLK and Bull Connor live right here
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 1-10-2018 Sparks Tribune
Lyon/Yerington Racism Archive. Unjoy.

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.

  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 pontification by subscribing to the Barbwire Confidential News Service. Scandalous bonuses for new subscribers.

Hush Hush!

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