Barbwire: Monsters

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

On January 16, 1959, two babies were born.
They became sisters in both life and death.

Larry Barbano, Frater Mei
12-18-1947 / 10-18-2023

UPDATE: WORLDWIDE LEADER? ACT OF GOD OR JUST A GARDEN-VARIETY IMPOSSIBLE DREAMER? ALL OF THE ABOVE? VERY POSSIBLY. Was Andrew Barbano the only advocate for an American pope? Google apparently says YES! At minimum, the Barbwire stumped and broke Google trying to find out. See for yourself. And please lemme know what you think.

Under construxion/Links, references & properly offensive memes shortly. Stay tuned.

Monsters of our own creation
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 7-16-2025 / Expansions in blue

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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

Tomorrow's news today —> Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential
TOP SECRET— HushHush!

"We don't care, we don't have to. We are the phone company and we are omnipotent." — Ernestine the telephone operator

The great Lily Tomlin's star-making creation of Ernestine back in the 1960s on "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" could easily apply to corporate America today.

The moral obtuseness of business has trickled down to the local level. You see it on your TV every day.

The purpose of charity is not for the public good. It's just part of some car dealer's advertising budget. The little kids helped by the tax-deductible donation are just props for a television commercial.

Doing good works were supposed to be from the heart. Generosity was supposed to be genuine and not used to garner profit or power.

No more. There was a time not so long ago when using charity to pimp for yourself could blow up in your face.

One of the things that sank Lt. Gov. Harry Reid's campaign for U.S. Senate in 1974 provides a case study.

Harry saw a need in hard-luck Hawthorne Nevada and used some campaign money to renovate a couple of old houses for a community center. So far, so good.

Showing the moral obtuseness for which Gomorrah South is famous, his campaign managers produced a TV spot to tout Harry's generosity, which was genuine.

Alas, using it on paid ads rang phony to northern Nevadans who are always wary of Las Vegas good intentions.

The spots came off as Harry doing good works for political posturing. He should'a just shut up. A few more schlub-flubs like that and his big lead evaporated. In the year of Watergate, he lost to Republican Paul Laxalt by 611 votes.

The United States has a constitutional provision barring establishment of a government religion. Actually, America does have a preferred god, Mammon, God of Greed.

He's a sly sumbitch. We United Statesians have always idolized the myth of rugged individualism. Anyone willing to work hard, especially if they are white, blue-eyed and blonde-haired, can prosper thru individual effort alone. Right, cowboys?

Such a convenient myth. America is a teamwork success story. Each of us needs a support system of other people — a community. Our society nurtures us and expects the same in return.

We organize to form governments and entities to benefit the tribe. Alas and alack, human weakness provides an opening for Mammon's demons.

Just about everything around us has been created by collective enterprise. Conservative dogma for decades has been to blame government for the ills of society. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Look at all the government-created businesses which have built America: The Internet, started by the military. Wonder drugs created by government labs and handed over to BigPharma for marketing and profit. Railroads, oil and gas, mining, gambling, even television.

All would not exist as we know them without humongous assistance from government, aka us.

So, as Pogo the Possum memorably stated 55 years ago, "we have met the enemy and he is us."

That comic strip was cartoonist Walt Kelly's reflection of how we are fouling the environment of our home, Mother Earth.

With Mammon as our godhead, his zealots have perverted the good intentions of proper community effort for private gain.

As Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, often says, "capitalism without regulation is tyranny."

Aye, there's the rub. Recent natural disasters have brought needed focus on our wastrel ways.

Like the public land given to railroads and mineral drillers, the public airwaves provide max profit for a pittance to the public. TV today is saturated with spots offering every form of "insurance."

The for-profit industry's recent response to natural disasters reinforces the Barbano Rule: Insurance companies operate two businesses, collecting money and denying claims.

The bandidos have already privatized the majority of Medicare. President Bulsha Tartist's "Big Beautiful Booby Bill" will increase industry costs to a point that us peons are going to get further squeezed.

How rapacious are they? Mafia rules: Once you're in Medicare Advantage, you can't opt out. The only exit is death. Mafia rules.

The two remaining major pots of federal money not yet privatized are the US Postal Service and Social Security. Be forewarned.

Wall Street drums are already beating about how Social Security will run out of money in just a few years. There's only one remedy: Immigrant workers. (Barbwire 12-13-2023) khame

Czar Donaldov's deportees contribute about a trillion a year to the economy. Both Iranian and United Statesian despots are exporting the hands that feed their economies.

SOUL BROTHERS: Speaking of mafiosi, President T-Rump and Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei do business the same mob way.

Both gather absolute power by pretending to fight enemies within. Both hate immigrants and blame them for everything. T-Rump is expelling anyone not blonde-haired and blue-eyed and the unholy man is ousting millions of Afghans who fled the Taliban after we abandoned the country. A matched pair of Mammon worshippers.

WE NEED PBS AND NPR. Where else would I find a humorous way out of this column?

The July edition of KNPB TV-5's program guide describes a BBC-produced cop show about discovery of "a severed human hand in a crayfish pot."

The grisly promo appears immediately below a half-page color photo showing four smiling chefs in front of a kettle labeled "The Great American Recipe."

Bon apetit!

Get the latest boosters, protect yourself and your family by masking up, continue praying for the oppressed, unenlightened and unvaccinated as well as Popes Leo and Francis, and the world's more than 160 currently war-torn lands, including ours.

¡Sí se puede!

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

Or, as they say in Poland, SOLIDARNOSC!

Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 56-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com, SenJoeNeal.org, DoctorLawyerWatch.com, BallotBoxing.US, ConsumerCoalitionv.org, ChantalCoalition.org, Rentvolution.org, MIssissippiWestNV.org and CesarChavezNevada.com among others. He is a longtime member and former vice-president of the Reno-Sparks NAACP and a member Sparks-based Communications Workers of America Local 9413/AFL-CIO. As always, his comments are entirely his own. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since August 12, 1988. His first byline in the paper came in 1973.

The Northern Nevada Central Labor Council/AFL-CIO inducted him into the César Chávez Nevada Labor Hall of Fame on April 5, 2024.

Breaking News —> Masks work!

And the plague is rampant once again. Be very afraid.

Trump Victory Would Be a Public Health Disaster
By Whistleblower Rick Bright/New York Times/10-10-2024

T-RUMP TRAVESTY TRILOGY HAT TRICK TRIPLE PLAY

Lisa Murkowski got publicly porked
And hit us with chops on July the 4th
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 7-9-2025 / Expansions in blue

How did we get to this sad and lonely place with faceless stormtroopers on our streets kidnapping random people based on their Jewishness?

Oops, that was awhile back.

Now it's based on their brownness. The Latino American mayor of Pasadena, Calif., takes his passport wherever he goes to prove to the Gestapo that he's a citizen no matter despite his looks.

How did we get to this particular circle of hell?

As I have said for decades, when laws and rules are laid down, all you've done is show those with larceny in their hearts how to exploit them.

Most American voters feel a vague, seething frustration that no matter what they do, they can't get ahead.

So, in the apt aphorism of the late great John Hanks, they "feel like doing something even if it's wrong." The long-ago Sparks businessman and old crop duster pilot was on to something in human nature.

The average U.S. worker has not had a raise, adjusted for inflation, since 1973, the year of the gas lines caused by the infamous Arab Oil Embargo.

World-class economist David Schwartz helped me and future Sen. Randolph Townsend, D- then R-Reno, establish the Nevada Attorney General's Office of Consumer Advocacy.

Dr. Schwartz told me in 1981 that America had reached a state of "mature capitalism" where the big fish have eaten most of the little ones and thus acquired unmatched power.

That was at the dawn of the Internet, but Microsoft got right into the game, financially capable of buying out small, innovative competitors and smothering their work.

U.S. President Bulsha Tartist's idol, Vlad the Impaler Putin, has his kleptocracy. Bulsha has his broligarchy, all the corporate titans he has cowed and bent to this twisted will.

It all leads to the same damned place and both the Russians and soon all of us will dwell in the Fourth Circle of Hell reserved for the greedy.

The price at the pump has been rigged since 1983 starting with ARCO, now part of BP, the guys who brought us the Shah of Iran in 1953. I've built a whole consumer website giving the history of gas price rigging which persists to this day. Alas and alack, there's no sex scandal involved for attention and governments are too afraid of the oil companies to bring anti-trust actions.

Same thing in the grocery store. By the time a product gets on the shelf, it's not only the result of extensive test-marketing, but the grocery chain has very possibly received a kickback for stocking it, something small producers can't pay. I've often written about that, too.

The Incredible Shrinking Reno Gazette-Journal ran a story last week about gas tax price hikes. Remember Bill Clinton's promises that allowing expanded drilling on Alaska's North Slope would eliminate shortages and permanently cut retail prices on the west coast because all the oil would be shipped to western U.S. refineries?

Fantasyland.

The feds eventually allowed selling Alaska crude to Japan. No one whispered a whimper while western gasoline remains the most expensive in the country.

THE LAST VIRGIN. Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski engineered lots of cutouts favoring her state in exchange for selling out America last week. She fell back on the old Confederate trope of representing her state first and foremost. The Civil War abides.

Before the vote, she made a big deal of saving critically needed public broadcasting stations throughout the Alaskan outback. I've searched every possible source trying to find out if PBS and NPR, especially in Alaska, survived the torching. Nobody knows nothin', neither Murkowski's minions nor Nevada senators nor PBS nor even Alaska media. I guess funeral announcements get low priority in big time PR departments.

BTW: Murkowski has long advocated for more drill-baby-drill even if it kills baby seals.

NOBEL STRANGELOVE. In a textbook demonstraton of chutzpah, Israeli mass murderer Bibi the Yayhoo presented his idol a copy of a letter to the Nobel Committee nominating T-Rump for the Nobel Peace Prize.

I guess he had to do that during his DC visit. The alternative was probably something like posing naked with a goat for President Bulsha's amusement.

A Nobel nomination is only worth the price of a first-class postage stamp. Anybody can nominate anyone. I could nominate Diddy.

Dr. Strangelove hisself, Henry Kissinger (he actually was the model for the nutso title character in the classic Stanley Kubrick film) scammed the Nobel Peace Prize after subverting 1968 negotiations that could have ended the Vietnam War.

It helped his boss, Richard the Rotten, win the presidency and extended the war to 1975.

As the great musical satirist Tom Lehrer said, "satire died the day they gave Henry Kissinger the Nobel Peace Prize."

The danse macabre continues.

I take mild comfort in the knowledge that I was the sole voice advocating for an American pope before the conclave, as verified by Big Bad Google. (Proof at the latter link.)

I could think of no other counterweight to increasing worldwide fascism including in this troubled land. Sometimes prayers get answered.

SOMETIMES THEY DON'T. You probably saw the news about the barge loaded with fireworks that sank at Lake Tahoe without firing a shot. You might not have heard about Wendover.

The Utah-Nevada state line bisects East and West Wendover in Elko County. The west allows sin, the eastside does not.

Their 4th was spectacular in a bad way.

"An explosion occurred where firefighters and public works employees were preparing for the city’s annual fireworks," the High Desert Advocate reported.

\"Blackened debris, burned brush and charred equipment still smoldered hours later. Some fireworks accidentally detonated and started a continuous chain of explosions...injuring most of the firefighters and public works employees in attendance. There was nowhere to really hide. They all sustained non-life-threatening injuries."

Get the latest boosters, protect yourself and your family by masking up, continue praying for the oppressed, unenlightened and unvaccinated as well as Popes Leo and Francis, and the world's more than 160 currently war-torn lands, including ours.

¡Sí se puede!

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

Or, as they say in Poland, SOLIDARNOSC!

The Northern Nevada Central Labor Council/AFL-CIO inducted him into the César Chávez Nevada Labor Hall of Fame on April 5, 2024.

Breaking News —> Masks work!

And the plague is rampant once again. Be very afraid.

Trump Victory Would Be a Public Health Disaster
By Whistleblower Rick Bright/New York Times/10-10-2024

T-RUMP TRAVESTY TRILOGY PART DEUX

We become what we despise
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 7-2-2025 / Expansions in blue

"We have met the enemy and he is us." So said cartoonist Walt Kelly in his legendary "Pogo" comic strip.

More than a century earlier, philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 -1832) said pretty much the same thing as the wise little possum from the comics page.

Goethe authored "Faust," the oft-copied story of a guy who sells his soul to the devil.

The storied German philosopher observed that we are all in danger of becoming what we despise, or words to that effect.

So what? Well, we have indeed met the enemy and he is us. We have become what we despise.

We despise the concentration camps of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, the Shah of Iran and Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet (the latter two monsters, we created).

Based on a lie by a racist general, FDR ordered concentration camps for Japanese Americans.

Now, our fearless leader is doing the same thing but on a much grander scale.

T-Rump only deals in the biggest ever. He has already cost the lives of at least a half-million Americans and furriners around the globe. And he's just getting started.

American movies are filled with stories of heroic individuals kidnapped off the streets by dictators never to be seen again. Just like now.

Somewhere in hell, Dr. Josef Mengele is laughing at how many will die because our Mad King Donaldov the Destroyer just killed distribution of a new anti-AIDS wonder drug.

A great medical experiment on human subjects, eh wot?

Sieg heil!

We have joined another of our creations, Israel, in wholesale slaughter in the name of peace. We become what we despise.

War is peace. Hate is love. Don't worry, this won't hurt me a bit, right Dr. M?

Because darkness abides in each of us, the darkside often comes to the fore and conquers.

The mildest, meekest milquetoast nerd can became a soulless torturer when given power over others and impunity.

Bush the Lesser and shadow president Dick Cheney banished ragheads to torture in foreign lands. They called their program "extraordinary rendition," defined as "a euphemistically-named policy of state-sponsored abduction in a foreign jurisdiction and transfer to a third state."

Wise man George Carlin warned us about draining the humanity out of words by adding syllables.

"Shell shock" is now "post-traumatic stress disorder." Lots of our vets off themselves no matter the label.

I once crashed a Washoe Republican luncheon to challenge San Francisco Chilean Consul General Leopoldo Porras. I asked one question: "When will your government provide an accounting of your 'desaparecidos,' the disappeared ones?"

He called me a dirty commie for making such an accusation. ("Chile took Nevada for a sucker," Barbwire, Labor Day weekend 1988, updated 7-19-1998).

The Ammotextual majority on the U.S. Supreme Star Chamber is now poised to rule that just being born here does not confer citizenship. T-Rump already set it up, alleging that the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution only applies to the children of slaves.

Under the bogus constitutional concept of "originalism," court decisions must be decided by looking at what words meant at the time the great document or its amendments were adopted.

The text in context. Period.

By that standard, the FAA, the FCC, the EPA, the CDC, the U.S. Air Force and countless other innovations of the past 250 years are all unconstitutional and thus must be abolished.

As will the citizenship of anybody that MAGA Moonhowlers don't like.

You or me or anyone can be grabbed by ICE neo-Nazi blackguards and spirited away and no one will ever hear of us again.

T-Rump and his tribe are now doing deals to pay off pliant third-world countries all over the globe to take such troublemakers off American hands.

Permanently.

I hear that South Sudan is balmy in the springtime. If you can avoid gunfire.

With heavy heart but always highest hope (hey — my poor prayers were answered as the only writer to advocate for an American pope),

I leave you with the pledge of allegiance as I have been saying in public in recent years.

"I pledge allegiance to the United States of America, a republic, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for some."

Happy Independence Day. Protect, preserve and defend.

As George Carlin advised, take care of each other.

¡Sí se puede!

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

Or, as they say in Poland, SOLIDARNOSC!

The Northern Nevada Central Labor Council/AFL-CIO inducted him into the César Chávez Nevada Labor Hall of Fame on April 5, 2024.

Breaking News —> Masks work!

And the plague is rampant once again. Be very afraid.

Trump Victory Would Be a Public Health Disaster
By Whistleblower Rick Bright/New York Times/10-10-2024

T-RUMP TRAVESTY TRILOGY PART 1

We don't need no stinking badges!
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 6-25-2025 / Expansions in blue

Humphrey Bogart: "If you're the police, where are your badges?"
Alfonso Bedoya: "Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges.
"I don't have to show you any stinking badges!"

Or any stinking Constitution or any smelly laws.

I was reminded of that oft-quoted exchange from the 1948 film "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" when I heard the biggest whopper of all leading up to last weekend's illegal carnage in Iran.

T-Rump's minions apparently put out the story that our fearless leader received a threat from Iran's dictator that he would unleash "sleeper cells" in the U.S. if we got involved in the Israeli-Iran War.

The ultimatum purportedly came to the Mad King while he was pimping for Putin at the G-7 meeting in our new state, Canada.

I flashed on Vice-President Dick Cheney's shuck and jive leading up to the 2003 Iraqi invasion under Bush the Lesser. Cheney leaked a story about Saddam Hussein's mythical "weapons of mass destruction" which was "confirmed" by another "confidential source." That source was ordered to parrot Cheney so that the standard media rules of the game could be triggered: two "independent" sources bolstering authenticity.

The ploy worked. Soon, the "confirmed information" was being repeated as accurate by government officials and we entered into perpetual war on the sands of Araby.

I have complained many times that the legit news media are being suckered by T-Rump whenever they play by the obsolete rules of proper journalism.

RULE NUMBER ONE: If the president says it, then it's news.

SUCKERS!

T-Rump told a well-documented (Google at will) 20,000-plus lies during his first term. But when he says it, it's always "news."

If it's a lie, that ain't news.

The media are getting played by playing the psycho's game.

As former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel famously said, "never fail to take advantage of a good crisis."

So, look for T-Rump and Steve Miller the Malevolent to maximize the newly-planted threat of "sleeper cells" to get you to spy on your neighbors and turn them in.

Sieg heil, mein fuhrer.

I'm not trying to minimize the potential of such possibilities, especially from lone wolves who want to go out in a blaze of glory.

But remember, this is the well-traveled road to dictatorship. Enemies within and without but "only I can fix it."

We already have masked, unbadged Nazi-esque storm troopers loose in the land. If you have a good suntan, you could well be deported to El Salvador or South Sudan.

T-Rump's Ammotextuals on the Supreme Court just approved it.

Beware the monsters we create.

We've been basically at war with Iran since 1953 when we destroyed their democracy so that British Petroleum could get its oil refinery back. We installed the bloody Shah who was finally overthrown.

President Carter allowed him into the U.S. at the behest of oil magnate David Rockefeller, which precipitated the taking of hostages in the American embassy, costing Carter his re-election.

In 1973, Nixon and Kissinger destroyed Chile's democracy, leading to the neo-Nazi holocaust of Gen. Augusto Pinochet -- who actually employed many fugitive Nazis.

We have now come full circle. The Shah's kid made a speech in Paris this week calling for the ayatollah and his boys to be brought to justice for their crimes. The sumbitch is auditioning for his dad's old job!

We're still looking for a 51st state, right? All we need is a congressional rubber stamp to legitimize this bastardized obscenity of a "special military operation" by anointing statehood on the pariahs of the Persian Gulf.

More oil than Greenland, right?

Perpetual war. Sometimes I regret my chutzpah when I occasionally guess right. I've said for months that when T-Rump saw his political support at home slipping, he'd start a war. an oft-successful ploy employed by his Russian mentor. So he did. (Maybe that's why they were on the phone for over two hours a few days ago.)

There's only one thing left. Remember when the Mad King said this in 2024 to all the precious snowflakes looking for simple solutions: "Re-elect me and you'll never need another election."

Democrats should not count their 2026 electoral chickens. T-Rump may soon send them to KFC.

OOPS DEPT. Our Mad King's penchant for mispronunciation has spread to local media.

The munching of Nevada names by green Reno TV news readers just reached epidemic proportions.

In the past few months, I've suffered thru St. Thomas "Ackunuss" Cathedral (for St. Thomas Aquinas downtown); "Ross Parrot" for H. Ross Perot; Jerry "Tar Can" (like Tarzan) for legendary UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian; "Toy-A-B" (As in A-B-C) for Toiyabe National Forest; "Tone Uppah" for Tonopah Nevada and "Place Or" for Placer County, Calif.

They reached a new high (or low) by changing the gender of the great Reno-Sparks Indian Colony leader Arlan Melendez. How? You guessed it: A TV news reader announced the passing of Arlene Melendez while showing his photo.

Great work, guys. Keep it up and you can get a job in the White House.

OOPS PART DEUX: WHAT MONTH IS IT? Last week, I said former Polish President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Walesa would start his U.S. lecture tour "next month." Oops. Actually, the legendary Solidarity trade union leader starts in Los Angeles on August 31 and goes nationwide through October.

Notable exception: Washington, DC.

¡Sí se puede!

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

Or, as they say in Poland, SOLIDARNOSC!

The Northern Nevada Central Labor Council/AFL-CIO inducted him into the César Chávez Nevada Labor Hall of Fame on April 5, 2024.

Breaking News —> Masks work!

And the plague is rampant once again. Be very afraid.

Trump Victory Would Be a Public Health Disaster
By Whistleblower Rick Bright/New York Times/10-10-2024

ANGELS FOR AMERICA
Pope Leo-14 and President Lech Walesa for the good guys
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 6-18-2025
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 6-18-2025 / Expansions in blue/ Updated 6-20 & 6-22-2025 GMT

"The arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice" — Rev. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.

To all casual readers who can't stand my died-in-the-wool liberal affliction, hope abides.

I herewith turn over this column to a couple of guys sent by the universe to light our way in dark times: Pope Leo14 and Lech Walesa, Nobel Peace Prize honoree and former president of Poland.

Several Barbwire readers have sent rave reviews of the pope's Pentecost homily:

Somewhere, John Lennon is smiling. Just imagine.

SPEAKING OF GOD, he's box office. I mean hizzoner the American pope.

Leo 14's June 14 address sold out Chicago White Sox stadium. And the team wasn't even playing. Well over 30,000 bought tickets to see the pope on the big screen with a message to the young people of his hometown. It was the first address by the new pontiff to Americans.

"Outreach, in service, in looking for ways to make our world a better place — gives true life to all of us, and is a sign of hope for the whole world," he said. Full text at NevadaLabor.com

LEO-14 RELATES TO EVERYBODY. Last Sunday's New York Times Magazine cover story is little short of amazing.

"Finding the Pope's Roots: Noblemen, enslaved people, freedom fighters, slaveholders: What the complex family tree of the first American pontiff reveals." So begins an incredibly detailed piece of genealogical research by Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., host of the longrunning "Finding Your Roots" on T-Rump-despised PBS TV.

Gates compiled a complete family tree for God's new guy. Interesting tidbit: The pontiff's mom's maiden name was Martinez, born in Chicago. (Still, don't tell ICE stormtroopers. They have White House quotas to meet and don't care.)

Links with the expanded version of this column at NevadaLabor.com

TOLD YA SO. According to Google, only this column called for election of an American pope. ("Let It Be: An American Pope Francis2" 4-23-2025, uploaded 4-22-2025.)

Every once in awhile, your prayers get answered.

THE LIBERATOR RETURNS. Lech Walesa begins a nationwide speaking tour in California in August .

"We, The People, live in challenging times and face a turning point in history," the legendary Solidarity Union leader stated.

"The world is changing before our very eyes. Are we ready for these changes? On this lecture tour, I will reflect on our past, confront our present and offer ideas for a better future. Join me for this historic conversation. Together, we can create the change we need."

Along with Pope John Paul2, Walesa became a major catalyst sparking the fall of the Communist Soviet Union,

In 1990, he helped galvanize union organizing right here. He taped a message for the AFL-CIO and I used it in this market: Lech Walesa in English, Polish — and Spanish!

"Povyetskay, Union Yes!,' he stated. (Close as I can come to transcribing Polish.)

BELIEVE NOT BAD BOBBY2: RFK The Lesser's T-Rumpian anti-vaxx rantings can kill you.

New findings underscore the benefits of vaxx jabs for all ages.

Updated formulations of golden oldies can especially benefit human golden oldies.

"A recent study found that shots against shingles cut the risk of dementia," the NYTimes reported on Tuesday. Link with this column at NevadaLabor.com/

Already got my RSV shot.

HOT TIP: Wells Ave. workers are excited at the rodeo coming back to town. Not the one this week, but the gay rodeo this fall.

Gay rodeo participants and fans tip much more generously, workers have told me.

So much for the vaunted "cowboy state of mind."

¡Sí se puede!

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

Or, as they say in Poland, SOLIDARNOSC!

The Northern Nevada Central Labor Council/AFL-CIO inducted him into the César Chávez Nevada Labor Hall of Fame on April 5, 2024.

Breaking News —> Masks work!

And the plague is rampant once again. Be very afraid.

Trump Victory Would Be a Public Health Disaster
By Whistleblower Rick Bright/New York Times/10-10-2024

Confessions of an altar boy
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 5-14-2025
Updated 5-15-2025/ Expansions in blue

Am I all alone in the world?

I have not conquered the world as we know it. I will leave that to the likes of President T-Rump and the power-drunk Muskatel mob.

I'll settle for conquering Google. Or at least asking the A.I. monster a question it could not answer.

I asked for web pages that published anything about an American pope before April 23, 2025, uploaded 4-22-2025. That's the date the Tribune printed this column entitled "Let it Be: An American Pope Francis2."

I tried several versions of the word search, and Google'a A.I. bot kept responding that since the new pope was not elected until May, it could not respond.

I am not so arrogant as to think that the idea of an American pope had never occurred to anyone in the world, so if you find any references, I'd like to see them.

I've broken my share of news over the decades, but until further enlightenment arrives, I will brag that I broke Google. Alleluia.

MISTS OF MEMORY. I am the product an excellent Catholic education system. As a schoolboy, I once served all seven masses from 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. one long ago Sunday at little St. Alphonsus Church in west Fresno.

Alas, they taught me too much. One lazy morning, I arrived early and was fully decked out in altar-boy black and white when the priest arrived. He was a guest of the parish from France, a little elf of a cleric.

He asked me if I had thoughts of the entering priesthood. I answered truthfully: "Yes, father, I have."

"Good," he responded. "We like to catch them young before they discover girls."

Huh? What?

I discovered girls in the first grade. I have written before about my second grade crushes on the two Mary Anns, one ebony black and the other Chicana. Forbidden love at recess.

There wasn't much to do back in the church sacristy while waiting for the priest to show up. Unlike some of my peers, I never snacked on unconsecrated wafers or altar wine.

There wasn't much to read, so I browsed the Sacristy Manual, a how-to of various ceremonies. I will never forget "The Churching of Women," a purification rite to sanctify new mothers after childbirth. I never could figure out what was dirty about new moms.

I doubt if that anachronism is still on the books, but it's emblematic of what Leo XIV is up against, a hidebound, stodgy institution that often forgets to "dance with who brung ya to the party," as southern football coaches often say.

The moonhowler wing of the church, which was just getting cozy with looming control of the U.S. government, just got a cold shower courtesy of a lifelong Chicago White Sox fan.

Last month, I was praying for a savior for my country, a counterweight to looming racist fascist dictatorship.

Sometimes, your prayers get answered.

Loudly.

HOW TO SUCCEED IN REAL ESTATE. Pope Leo's Chicago childhood home was purchased for $66,000 last year. The new owner just pulled it off the market for a little pricing review.

Perhaps symbolically, T-Rump's childhood home in Brooklyn, now in serious disrepair, once sold for $2.14 million and has since been downgraded to $835,000.

Depreciation means never having to say you're sorry.

AN INSECURE PRESIDENT. T-Rump's desire to accept a free Boeing 747 for his everlasting use reminded me of the aborted U.S. embassy in Moscow a few decades back. We had put a lot of money into new construction until the awful truth started to appear.

The place was infested with more listening and monitoring devices than bedbugs in a flop house. Some were actually embedded in the concrete pour.

After a lot of research, the State Department abandoned the multi-million ruble unfinished edifice because the spying infestation proved incurable.

T-Rump only cares about the biggest and bestest of all time, or at least what he can boast about. Our Mad King blithely ignores the anti-bribery clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Reminds me of something I heard from an egocentric lawyer long ago. "The law doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is what I can get away with in court."

Speaking of infestations...

ANTI-SOCIAL DISEASE. The Nevada Alliance for Retired Americans is organizing protests against MAGA threats to retirement. This Friday, show up in front of the Reno or Gomorrah South Social Security offices.

Marching starts at 10:00 a.m. PDT May 16, on the public sidewalks outside Social Security Administration offices. The Reno building is at 1170 Harvard Way across the street from the Reno main post office at Vassar and Harvard.

TRUTH IN ADVERTISING. Please pardon the oxymoron, but an insurance company commercial that has been irritating TV viewers for years accidentally tripped over the truth.

You've seen it, the one that asks "what are the three p's of life insurance?" Actually, it's the three p's of the insurance industry: Profit, profit and profit.

You don't need to be a prophet to have been personally affected by insurance p-p-p.

Get the latest boosters, mask up and continue praying for the oppressed, unenlightened and unvaccinated as well as Popes Leo and Francis, Ukraine, Gaza and the world's more than 160 currently war-torn lands, including ours.

¡Sí se puede!

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

Or, as they say in Poland, SOLIDARNOSC!

The Northern Nevada Central Labor Council/AFL-CIO inducted him into the César Chávez Nevada Labor Hall of Fame on April 5, 2024.

Breaking News —> Masks work!

And the plague is rampant once again. Be very afraid.

Trump Victory Would Be a Public Health Disaster
By Whistleblower Rick Bright/New York Times/10-10-2024

Let it Be: An American Pope Francis2
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 4-23-2025, uploaded 4-22-2025
Updated 4-23-2025/ Expansions in blue

When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me,
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness, she is standing right in front of me,
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be." — Paul McCartney & John Lennon, 1970

Listen up, guys. And I mean all you guys, the 138 old men in red robes who will soon spend a few days in the world's most exclusive frat house, illustrations by Michelangelo.

I am one of your flock. I received the fabled indelible marks on my soul which the church says makes me a member in vitam aeternam.

The United States has helped all of your countries over the past century or so. Now we need saving.

Don't just do it for us, do it for yourselves and your flocks. We are still the fattest, richest, most powerful country in the world.

Alas and alack, darkness has engulfed us. We have raised demons of our own making who spread the plague of ignorance.

We are paying a heavy price, but so are you, and all the weak and the meek who look up to you.

Just the mindless and cruel elimination of the U.S. Agency for International Development has already caused many of your children to die horrible deaths from starvation and preventable diseases.

We Americans of peace stand cold and naked in our hour of darkness.

We have lost our way and flail about in dire need of a leader who will guide us out of the wilderness before ignorance and fear engulf the entire world.

Let there be a United States pope and may he take the name of Francis the Second.

Powerful and symbolic, it will convey to the misbegotten that they follow the wrong path, a journey toward misery rather than mercy.

Mercy — If there is one word that defines the life of Pope Francis, that more than suffices.

Yes, our war machine continues to cause unconscionable harm in many of the unfortunate climes of this small planet.

But it has been and can be repurposed to light our way, to finally give peace a chance.

War is the most counterproductive addiction of our still-evolving species.

Small souls now use America's power to further the goals of the unenlightened, the self-centered, the greedy.

The merciless.

Francis saw the good in all of us and of this magical little world which blesses us as our home. God gave us each other to care for each other. Many wise prophets have come forth to teach us wisdom and mercy.

Alas, so many of us and our brethren have ears but will not hear, eyes that will not see, perpetrating wars in the name of their gods in order to enrich themselves.

Jesus left us with one over-riding and oft-ignored admonition: "Whatsoever you do to these, the least of my brethren, you do also to me."

America has been your shield for a century. Now, that shield has fallen to the soaked battleground.

You must help us pick it up.

The promise, the idea, the hopefulness of America still stirs the imagination of the world, especially the oppressed yearning to breathe free.

Francis saw the desperation caused by our lack of proper stewardship of our home. The dispossessed move by the millions into the wilderness.

Francis taught us not to react with fear but love.

America is a land of immigrants, going back to the first wanderers from Asia who crossed arctic ice and looked southward.

The north has prospered but the world's southern hemisphere still lies sore oppressed.

The Catholic Church long ago stopped growing in the north because of the narrowness of small men.

Help America rejuvenate our tremendous potential for mercy. We need only follow the better angels of our nature.

Give us an American pope. He need not be from your number, perhaps a humble priest who has demonstrated the resolve of a fatherly lion.

The past errors of the church's ways came thru common human weakness.

Please, shed the shackles of 5,000 years of the primacy of the primitive.

Embrace the enlightenment which radiates all around. And recognize the intrinsic — yes, God-given — value of all living things.

Send us new hope. We have proven how much good we can do and how much harm we can avoid.

Embrace the large to enhance the small. Wisely fill the Shoes of the Fisherman.

You may well not get many more opportunities.