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


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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)

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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


Grandma, gold standards, forearms and tin ears
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 5-23-2018 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!
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Don't ask Renown Med for marijuana to help your chemo
10-4-2016
We Don't Need No Education
Toxic turf threat ignored

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 (above)
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:
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Daily Sparks Tribune 2-10-2008

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Grandma's Great Depression advice was right back then and it remains right for right now.

Take your money out of the bank, put it in a sealed coffee can and bury same in your backyard.

Back in the 1930's, the Roosevelt administration called in all gold coins. Law-abiding Americans turned them in for face value. Few originals remain at large. One double eagle could be worth millions today.

My family had 75 or so and like the good Italian-American immigrant citizens they were, obeyed the president. My grandfather objected to no avail. Wish he'd won the argument. I'd own this newspaper.

Alas, love's labours lost.

As I've so oft-stated, I accurately predicted the 2007-08 crash more than two years before it happened. (Barbwire 5-29-2005 et seq.)

I'm no great guru. I just read a lot. The red flags have been out for a year.

My prediction stands that we will start to go down in the third quarter of 2018. I said so in last year's final column (Barbwire 12-27-2017) and the stock market obligingly crashed a couple of weeks later.

Wall Street is supposed to be six months ahead of the general economy, so forewarned is forearmed.

Now, new intel from those far wealthier than me:
Swiss gurus who handle billions have bailed from stocks and are investing in gold, silver and other commodities, the clearest warning of recession you can get.

Miserly Warren Buffet, owner of NVEnergy, is nobody's fool. He started buying up public utilities several years ago.

He knows that necessities like electricity and food make money even in a crisis.

May not matter in his case. The US electrical grid is so wide open to Russian hackers that we may not have electricity in the near future.

Try going two years cold and dark, then tell me we are doing the right thing in places like Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and Iraq; 'twould be harsh but poetic justice, cruel but just karma.

BARBWIRE POLITICAL STUMBLEBUM OF THE YEAR. The frontrunner is the guy who Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak is going to fire after the well-monied Democratic gubernatorial frontrunner reads this column.

Sisolak is running a TV spot statewide featuring southern Nevada congresscritter Dina Titus endorsing him. Nowhere are viewers informed that she's a Nevada congressmember.

All the new resident-voters will assume she's from some southern state, given her Georgia twang. Non-Nevadans telling Nevadans how to vote has always been a negative.

Worse, Reno City Councilmember Jenny Brekhus appears in the foreground of the crowd shot in the Titus spot. But Ms. Brekhus is supporting Sisolak's primary opponent. Here's her response:

"Imagine my surprise when someone said they saw me in a Steve Sisolak TV ad this weekend. Huh? And then tonight this ad came on and sure enough, there is a photo bomb picture with myself, Sisolak and others. If you scroll to the top of my Facebook banner, you see a photo of me with Chris Giunchigliani who I am proud to support for governor," Brekhus informs me.

"Coincidentally, I submitted a piece to the Reno Gazette-Journal before I learned about this ad, urging Democrats to join me in voting for Chris G for Governor in this June's primary. I hope it will be printed so that I can set the record straight," Brekhus continues.

"Irony Alert: The photo used in the Sisolak ad was taken at the Women's March. The Women's March was about many things, but I am pretty sure that part of it is about women in control of their bodies (and that includes likeness). So think about this Democrats: Do we want someone for governor who is not into consent? I don't think so."

In an earlier e-mail, she said "He should have gotten consent!  We need a governor who gets consent. "

I hope that staffer has good unemployment insurance.

FIGHT NIGHT. Sisolak and Giunchigliani squared off in a statewide televised live debate last Monday night. It aired on Reno and Las Vegas TV stations.

Too bad neither campaign nor the Washoe Democratic Party sent out notices. I did so to targeted Dems and the Barbwire Confidential HushHush subscriber list. Didn't have time to go deep.

What's the old saw? Oh, yeah: Democrats don't win campaigns, Republicans lose them.

Forewarned is forearmed.

Both candidates are experienced pols and did fairly well on the issues. But on TV, image is everything.

Sisolak scowled at the camera throughout. Bad form. Bad coaching.

Amateurish advisors plague both campaigns but Chris G looked more personable.

Advantage to the lady teacher.

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)WEB XTRAS & SMOKING GUNS —>

ANTE INTO THE GAME: Support the new season of Barbwire.TV by putting your money where my mouth is.


Metastasizical Statisticals

Trump FCC chair investigated for Sinclair ties
TheVerge.com / 2-15-2018

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


  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!






"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. 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!)


Smoking Guns—>
Beer & music and rent & pillage
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 5-16-2018 Sparks Tribune
Stormy weather: Poll dancing for fun & prophet
Barbwire by Andres Luis Barbáno / Expanded from the 5-9-2018 Sparks Tribune
Flint, Nevada: Dirty deeds done dirt cheap
Barbwire by Andres Luis Barbáno / Expanded from the 5-2-2018 Sparks Tribune

$75 dead or alive: Still crazy after all these years
A mass murderer becomes famous on TV a century later

How come nobody noticed 'til now?
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno
/ Expanded from the 2-21-2018 Sparks Tribune

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory owners Max Blank and Isaac Harris. Is not Mr. Harris eerily familiar to television junkies?

From the Emmy-winning opening slate of the blockbuster "Cheers" television series. Combined with its "Frasier" spinoff, it lasted 20 years.
The "shirtwaist kings" immigrated from Russia and made a fortune manufacturing "Gibson Girl"-style blouses. (Photo, "The American Experience"/PBS)
The Emmy-winning opening slate of the "Cheers" television series before the "slate" of creators is superimposed. Looks like Mr. Harris' dead ringer (at left) is having a bloody good time.

"Who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" Chico Marx disguised as Groucho Marx in "Duck Soup" (1933)
Back to the story of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist holocaust

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Copyright © 1982-2018 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 the executive producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration and serves as first vice-president and political action chair 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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