BARBWIRE
by
ANDREW BARBANO
Pirate Laureate of the High Desert Outback of the American Dream
The Barbwire Molly Ivins Memorial Columniator Hall of Flames
Now including Dennis Myers and Don Dondero


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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

TRUMP URGES UNITY VS. RACISM
New York Times front page headline 8-6-2019
BARBWIRE TRANSLATION: "You provide the unity, I'll provide the racism"

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

An Alternative National Anthem

   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 that the boat is leaking.
Everybody knows that the captain lied.
   Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died.
   Everybody talking to their pockets.
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
   And a long red rose.
Everybody knows.

   Everybody knows that you love me, baby.
Everybody knows you really do.
   Everybody knows that you've been faithful,
Give or take a time or two.
   Everybody knows you've been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
   Without your clothes.
Everybody knows.

   Everybody knows that it's now or never.
Everybody knows that it's me or you.
   And everybody knows that you live forever
When you've done a line or two.
   Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton
   For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows.

   Everybody knows that the plague is coming.
Everybody knows that it's moving fast.
   Everybody knows that the naked man and woman —
Just a shining artifact of the past.
   Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
   That will disclose
What everybody knows.

   And everybody knows that you're in trouble.
Everybody knows what you've been through
   From the bloody cross on top of Calvary
To the beach at Malibu.
   Everybody knows it's coming apart.
Take one last look at this Sacred Heart
   Before it blows.
And everybody knows.

Everybody knows. Everybody knows.
   That's how it goes. Everybody knows.


By Leonard Cohen and Sharon Robinson.
© 1988 CBS Records, Inc.

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


Medflies, flyweights and President Pelosi
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 3-11-2020 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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and Jake Highton and Dennis Myers next.

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10 the Hard Way
Barbwire wins 10th Nevada Press Association award

GOLD 2017-18

2018 First-Place Winners

From the depths of despair to the den of iniquity & holy of holies

"Excellent work. These are some of the most moving columns I've read."
— NPA contest judge/9-29-201
8

The Grasshopper and
the Dragonfly

9-6-2017

Kicked off the Ledge
4-18-2017

NATIONAL NEWS FIRST-BREAK
Back to the Future in
Mississippi West Nevada

10-18-2017

Gold 2017
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

More statewide and national award winners

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

1997 Pulitzer Prize entries

Barbwire.TV:
15-year overnight success

Daily Sparks Tribune 2-10-2008

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

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

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TOP SECRET— HushHush!

 

Czar Donaldov is now learning the harsh lesson that California Gov. Jerry Brown experienced the hard way in his 1970s incarnation: There are some problems that press releases can't solve.

Jerry Brown, the former governor's kid, set the template for modern executive leadership. When presented with a problem, the correct response is to ignore it and hope it goes away. Kinda like Trump hoping that the Coronavirus doesn't like warm weather.

Much of the time, that works. Once a CEO, a governor or president validates a problem by looking into it, the press has a story. Ignoring it for underlings to worry about often achieves the desired result: solution or institutional drift. Either way, the boss retains plausible deniability should something blow up.

Jerry Brown spent so much of his time writing press releases that Garry Trudeau's "Doonesbury" comic strip had a character go to work for Brown as his director of symbolism. The PR approach to governing, which Ronald Reagan did so well, served both of them. Their biographers have noted that they learned media symbolism from each other.

Brown's superficial style was good enough to make him a serious contender for president in 1976, when he beat Jimmy Carter by more than two-to-one in the Nevada primary, among others.

He easily won a second term in 1978 but failed to learn a lesson taught by no less than United Farm Workers leader César Chávez: Sometimes, you actually have to do something.

Chávez marched hundreds of dedicated workers from central California to Sacramento demanding rights for agricultural laborers. César Chávez would not accept symbolism and came away with the California Farmer-Laborer Act.

Then came the medfly, a threat to California's entire agriculture industry. Brown shilly-shallyed, wanting to try any and everything including press releases but not pesticides. Finally, the critter got out of control and folks all over California awakened on many mornings to find their homes and autos coated with sludge that would make Rachel Carson cringe.

Brown was defeated for U.S. Senate by San Diego Mayor Pete Wilson in 1982.

Donald Trump has gone a long way as a TV entertainer but now with people dying, he hasn't a clue. You can't stop a virus with a press release or presidential executive order. The legendary hypochondriac has gotten one message: Avoid people. He usually has rallies in states scheduling Democratic primaries. Not this week.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd recently related having dinner with Trump some years ago. He kept a squeeze bottle of hand sanitizer next to her salad between the two of them. He was so worried after someone came up to him and shook his hand that he could not eat.

So he's sent Vice-President Pence out as front man against his own personal medfly and has denied any worry that the virus might get to the White House. The Republican Party can retire its elephant mascot and ordain the ostrich.

I wonder if Trump knows that if both he and Pence die, or become otherwise incapacitated and unable to perform their duties, that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi becomes the first woman president of the United States.

That may be the Donkeykongs only shot this year. Right now, it looks like instant replay of the old saw that Democrats don't win elections, Republicans lose them.

So the jackasses are apparently kicking toward Hillary with Hair Plugs.

Nay.

YAY FOR THE RGJ. Maximum kudos to the Reno Gazette-Journal for exemplary public service journalism for its coverage of Coronavirus issues in the region, a perfect example of why every community needs a major newspaper. They have been kicking some serious ass. I'm a fan.

BEN FRANKLIN'S CRYSTAL BALL: The founding father said he "did not entirely approve of this Constitution at present," but that "the older I grow, the more I am apt to doubt my own Judgment, and to pay more Respect to the Judgment of others..." (Any form of government) "may be a Blessing to the People if well administered and I believe farther that this (Constitution) is likely to be well administered for a Course of Years, and can only end in Despotism as other Forms have done before it, when the People shall become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other."

Look in the mirror, fellow citizens.

SAVE THE DATE — SATURDAY, MAY 30: César Chávez XVIII, Atlantis Resort. Sponsored by Laborers' Union Local 169, the Reno-Sparks NAACP and the usual suspects. Doors open 5:30, dinner 6:30-ish. I don't know how I'll top my greatest hits of a cherried-out Aretha Franklin 1965 pink Cadillac convertible (with suitable live music) followed by Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak with suitable politics, but I'm working on it. Reservations at CesarChavezNevada.com/ For obvious reasons, I've had to move the event from March 31, the great labor leader's 93rd birthday. Ex-Tribunite Dennis Myers will become the first journalist inducted to the César Chávez Nevada Labor Hall of Fame. In addition to the HOF, nominations remain open for union organizer, employer and project of the year.

Be well. Raise hell. Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)
être bien, élever l'enfer (And my French.)
Stammi bene. Scatenare l'inferno. (And Italian.)

¡Sí se puede!
__________________

Andrew Barbano is a 51-year Nevadan, executive producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration, first vice-president and political action chair of the Reno-Sparks NAACP, superannuated 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 and Protect Our Washoe.org and ChantalCoalition.org/ He is a withdrawn-in-good-standing member of Culinary Local 226. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us. He has lived in both northern and southern Nevada during his half-century+ in the Silver State. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988 and received its 10th Nevada Press Association award (6 of 10 first-place) at the 21 Sept. 2019 NPA annual convention in Ely. In 1996, he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for a six-month investigative series. His multi-media road construction zone safety campaign for Laborers' Union Local 169 won a first-place award from the National Safety Council in a nationwide competition. (Such ephemera and about six bucks will get you a Latte Mocha Cotsafracas Chingade at just about any Starbux worldwide, guaranteed.) His work has appeared on CNN, in The New York Times, The Guardian of London/UK and more important publications.

WEB XTRAS & SMOKING GUNS —>

Veni, Vidi, Jockocracy?
Locker room rules: Caesars goes commando, union vows resistance to Eldorado empire

By Bryan Horwath / Las Vegas Sun 6-28-2019 / Reno Gazette-Journal 7-8-2019

Eldorado-Caesars merger means labor union battles far beyond Reno & Las Vegas
Culinary Union leader D. Taylor: "Where are they going to cut?"

Building trade union campaigns continue

By Ed Komenda / Reno Gazette-Journal / 6-27-2019

[4-20-2019] — About 100 demonstrators from almost all the region's unions, local community service organizations and political activists joined Culinary Union members picketing Circus Circus in the late afternoon of April 18. A couple of CC suits came out to see what all the fuss was about, as if they didn't already know. In addition to the familiar union "contract now!" chants came calls for a strike against the Carano jocks. ¡Viva Huelga! ¡Sí se puede!

REAL NEWS DEPT. In January 2019, Culinary Union Local 226 defeated an attempt by Circus Circus-Reno to decertify (terminate) the union's representation of its workers. No word on whether management plans to appeal the result to the National Labor Relations Board which was recently put out of business for 35 days. Thank you, Czar Donaldov.

CONSUMER CONUNDRUMS: PINK SLIPS, PURGES AND PRUNING. I need to hear from recently purged Eldorado Hotel-Casino, Circus Circus-Reno and Silver Legacy employees. Barbwire spies report perhaps 100 workers got the ax just in time for the 2018 holidays. In the Tribune, at Barbwire.US and in the London Guardian, I have lamented the deepening desperation of renters here in Tesla Valhalla. I'm now getting complaints about medical and dental practices purportedly pruning their patient loads, cutting loose the less-lucrative. That's de facto malpractice but medical professionals are lawsuit-proof under Nevada law — unless you're rich enough to personally pay a few hundred grand in legal fees. That's why TV lawyers only advertise for arrest or accident cases these days. If you've been cast adrift by patient pruning, call me at (775) 882-TALK or e-mail me.


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For 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!)

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.

Smoking Guns—>

Trump's Blackrobes: Humpty Dumpty Homotextuals
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 3-4-2020 Sparks Tribune

Bernie or bust, Dolores a must
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 2-26-2020 Sparks Tribune

Czars Donaldov & Nixon win Democratic Caucus
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 2-19-2020 Sparks Tribune

Springtime for fat cats & unburied hatchets
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 2-12-2020 Sparks Tribune

Love saves a life on Reno's mean streets
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 2-5-2020 Sparks Tribune

Bill Harrah's cookie cutter crumbles
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 1-29-2020 Sparks Tribune

Going to confession with Father Barbwire
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 1-22-2020 Sparks Tribune

National welfare, corporate welfare and MLK
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 1-15-2020 Sparks Tribune

The New Jim Crow — Nothing New
By Michelle Alexander / New York Times January 17 & 19, 2020
Printable Text Version

The only way to stop killing is to stop killing
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 1-8-2020 Sparks Tribune


Barbano sells out to white Republicans

Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 1-1-2020 Sparks Tribune

The Sermon on Mount Barbwire
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno /
Expanded from the 12-25-2019 Sparks Tribune
Typhoid Mary infects Sparks Addams Family
In the spirit of true democracy which provides that your rights don't allow you to sneeze on mine
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 12-18-2019 Sparks Tribune
A fake news fable for our times
In the spirit of true democracy which provides that your rights don't allow you to sneeze on mine
Barbwire Confidential by Andrew Barbáno
/ 12-11-2019 Online Edition
Red-flag warnings — Ignoring history at our peril
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 12-11-2019 Sparks Tribune
Major rent raunch and a big book launch
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 12-4-2019 Sparks Tribune

Billionaire Tom Steyer owes me $5
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 11-27-2019 Sparks Tribune

Back to the future down Amnesia Lane
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 11-20-2019 Sparks Tribune

People get ready, that train's a comin'
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Special Barbwire Confidential Internet Edition 11-12-2019 / Updated 11-14 & 11-15-2019
A version of this column appeared in the 11-13-2019 Sparks Tribune
An excerpt of the following was included in Andrew Barbano's address to the school board on Nov. 12.

SPECIAL REPORT FROM THE SCENE OF THE CRIME: Clever maneuvering prevents vote after 4 of 7 trustees announced support for Feemster.

DO NOT risk your kids at Golden Eagle Park
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 11-6-2019 Sparks Tribune

Tale of 2 city halls: Cancer kids & brain damage
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 10-30-2019 Sparks Tribune

Written in the stars: UNR football for racial justice
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 10-23-2019 Sparks Tribune

Goodbye, Columbus: A mirror for America
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 10-16-2019 Sparks Tribune

Déjà vu all over again: Bernie turns 2020 into 1968
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 10-9-2019 Sparks Tribune

City of Reno turns W. Plumb Lane into horny street
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 10-2-2019 Sparks Tribune

Hip-hopping mad over molesters and Mad Kings
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 9-25-2019 Sparks Tribune

Trade the Confederacy straight across for Greenland
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 9-18-2019 Sparks Tribune

Cut in twain
(Myers' favorite photo)

Dennis Myers: Enroute to the universe next door
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 9-11-2019 Sparks Tribune
Obituary, 1948-2019
[En Español — La Voz Hispana En Nevada 9-18-2019]

Philippines to Burning Man to Ireland: Adios GOAT
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 9-4-2019 Sparks Tribune

Nevadian Dennis Myers: The Greatest Of All Time
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno
/ Expanded from the 8-28-2019 Sparks Tribune

Veteran Nevada reporter Myers removed from life support
Obituary:
Dennis C. Myers 1948-2019
[En Español — La Voz Hispana En Nevada 9-18-2019]

Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno
/ Special Internet Edition 8-25-2019


Reno City Council passes rent control
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 7-17-2019 Sparks Tribune

DAY OF THE DEAD
Relieve Rent & Pillage: Save SB398 & AB399

Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno
/ Special Online Legislative Edition / 4-12-2019 / Updated 4-13 and 4-14-2019 GMT
Fairness for tenants dies 4-12 unless lawmakers throw it a lifeline

Politics does not reward the shy
Rent justification and a death penalty for corporate depredation
Barbwire
by Andres Luis Barbáno
/ Expanded from the 4-10-2019 Sparks Tribune / Updated 4-11 and 4-12-2019 GMT
Fairness for tenants dies 4-12 unless lawmakers throw it a lifeline

Sore-oppressed Soul-Sister Cities: Menlo Park and Reno-Sparks-Fernley share similarly sad high-tech stretch marks.
"All humanity has left the area": paying for Tesla's Gigafactory with outrageous rents and scrambling schools
Barbano and Nevada conservatives decry corporate welfare depredations
By Rory Carroll / The Guardian 7-3-2018
Editor's Note: The Guardian publishes 180,000 newspapers daily in London and environs and generates ONE BILLION monthly web page views. (I should live so long.)
[MUCH MORE TESLACIDE]

"Facebook is taking everything": rising rents drive out Silicon Valley families
Property companies advertising their proximity to Facebook’s campus are giving low-income residents a choice: pay a huge rent increase or move out
By Sam Levin / The Guardian 6-20-2018

Rentvolution.org


We Don't Need No Education

A cuckoo coup and a president, too
Barbwire exclusive: Secret 2017 meeting set the setup in motion
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno
/ Uploaded 7-23-2019 / Expanded from the 7-24-2019 Sparks Tribune

Alfred E. Neuman for Washoe school superintendent
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 7-10-2019 Sparks Tribune

Witness at the execution
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 7-3-2019 Sparks Tribune

Gang banging on 9th Street
Barbwire
by Andrew Barbáno
/ Special Barbwire Confidential Extra Edition / Monday 7-1-2019 / Updated 7-3-2019

NevadaLabor.com We Don’t Need No Education Archive

BLACK LIKE ME 2119: The problem as solution
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 2-13-2019 Sparks Tribune / Updated 2-14 and 2-16-2019
Breaking News —> Culinary Union defeats decert at Circus Circus Reno
Dear Readers: The above column served as the conclusion of remarks I submitted before the "Tahoe Talks: Racism in America" symposium at the Incline Village, Nev., Library on February 12, 2019. So you might want to read "FADE TO BLACK" before you read "Black Like Me 2119".



$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

Triangle tragedy recalled as requiem
"The Fire in My Mouth," a new oratorio by Pulitzer honoree Julia Wolfe, premiered with the New York Philharmonic Jan. 24

By Michael Cooper / The New York Times 1-23-2019

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

NevadaLabor.com | U-News | Bulletins + Almanac
Casinos Out of Politics (COP) | Sen. Joe Neal
Guinn Watch | Deciding Factors
| BallotBoxing.US
DoctorLawyerWatch.com | Barbwire Oilogopoly Archive
Barbwire Nevada Corporate Welfare Archive
The Barbwire Molly Ivins Memorial Columniator Hall of Flames
Annual César Chávez Celebration
War Rooms:
Banks, Cabbies, Cabela's/cabellyup, Cable TV, Cancer Kids/Mining, Energy, Food, Health Care, Resurge.TV/consumers, Starbucks, Wal-Mart
We Don't Need No Education
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Copyright © 1982-2020 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 51-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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