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


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Je Suis Charlie

"If voting mattered, they wouldn't let us do it."Travus T. Hipp, 1982

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¡Feliz año nuevo!
César Chávez Celebration XIII / Celebración de César Chávez XIII
Tuesday 31 March 2015
/ Martes 31 de Marzo 2015
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.
— Leonard Cohen

Education Dysfunction Part LIII—>
Gov. Veto El Obtusè talks some trash
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 1-20-2015 Sparks Tribune


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

Support Don Dondero next

SIX PACK!
Barbwire wins sixth Nevada Press Association award

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

Barbwire.TV
Watch NevadaLabor.com for show times.
Help us get the word out.

Support the project at http://resurge.tv#donate

SUING FOR SCHOOLS
Updated 8-30-2011
Reruns on Carson-Dayton 226

Additional programs
on Boulder City cable. Go to bcnv.org and then
go to the BCTV link.

If Reform Fails: Health Care, Jobs and Unions — new power to the people on the public airwaves

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
Highlights from radio days
mp3 file


Tomorrow's news today —> Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential

When I outed Sparks Assemblycritter Ira Hansen, R-18th Century, as a flaming racist and bigot, his first reaction was that the Devil...er, the Tribune...made him write all those hate-filled and bizarre columns of yesteryear.

Ira's next spin alleged that the items were so old they didn't count anymore.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal's Steve Sebelius promptly published a bigotry besotted 2013 letter on Ira's legislative stationery.

Ira then blamed Gov. Brian Sandoval, alleging/warning that he was preparing more than $1 billion in tax increases and wanted Ira out of the way.

Last Thursday's State of the State Address proved Ira correct on the tax hikes but Ira is by no means out of the way.

I spent several days building a website chock full of Ira stuff, then broke the story in this newspaper on Nov. 18.

I uploaded a press release on behalf of the Reno-Sparks NAACP on Nov. 20.

It went viral from there, thanks to LVRJ Capital Bureau Chief Sean Whaley and former Tribunite Dennis Myers at the Reno News & Review.

Brian Sandoval can count.

He would not have proposed all those new programs and taxes without having lined up votes from moderate Republicans and Democrats.

Senate Majority Leader Michael Roberson, R-Gomorrah South, endorsed Sandoval's proposals.

Sen. Debbie Smith, D-Sparks, liked the education aspects.

Sen. Patricia Spearman, D-N. Las Vegas, cautioned against unfairly burdening small business with the guv's additional licensing fees.

Thanks to defrocked former Republican Gov. Jim the Dim, it only takes 15 assembly votes to kill any tax or fee hike.

Ira still controls 15 moonhowlers in the 25-member GOP caucus.

Sandoval's proposals closely parallel the 2003 gambling industry-sponsored gross receipts tax and last year's teachers' union initiative, both of which failed.

THE GOOD OLE BOYS. Sandoval appointed disgraced Washoe County School District Superintendent Pedro Martinez as his new grand high executioner.

Martinez will rule over Nevada's 78 (10 percent) underachieving schools.

Sandoval also wants local school boards appointed, not elected, and increased taxpayer subsidies for private and religious schools.

The 78 will be morphed into private charter schools with no labor rights for teachers.

Will any Republicans rail against "a state takeover of local education?"

The guv said he wants to "adjust when we count student enrollment."

That's been a key component of how Pedro, his predecessor, Heath Morrison, and Clark County's Dwight Jones cooked the books to make Nevada's worst-in-the-nation graduation rates look better.

With Pedro in charge of reshuffling the deck statewide, prepare for another PR miracle. (See We Don't Need No Education at NevadaLabor.com/)

ADIOS, JERRY CLABORN. The former Las Vegas Democratic Assemblymember and strong union man's memorial service is scheduled for 11:00 a.m. Jan. 20 at Davis Funeral Home, 6200 S. Eastern Ave., LV.

Wish he were in Carson City today.

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

ONLINE EXTRAS...

TOMORROW'S NEWS TODAY: FEEL UP YOUR FIRE METER. The Reno Gazette-Journal did big spreads on three consecutive Sundays (Sept. 14, Sept. 21 and Sept. 28) on NV Energy smart meter fires. Welcome aboard. Barbwire readers were two years ahead on the fire meter issue. (Touch a Smart Meter, Go to Jail — 11 October 2012)

[UPDATES: THE NEVADA FIRE MARSHALL'S INVESTIGATION concluded "don't worry, be happy." I'm still worried and will continue fondling NVE's precious equipment. In its Sunday 21 Dec. 2014 front page headline major story, the Reno Gazette-Journal published results of the NVEnergy-commissioned "don't worry, be happy" echo study. Spoonfed stenography means never having to say you're sorry.]

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 already responded and keep sending show suggestions.

"Media is the plural of mediocre."
                              — Jimmy Breslin

  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.

Get ahead of corporate-influenced news—>Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential.

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

 






Andrew Barbano is a 46-year Nevadan, chair of the Nevada César Chávez Committee, 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 JoeNeal.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.

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Smoking Guns...
Get ahead of corporate-influenced news—>Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential

Good grief: Je suis Charlie Brown
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 1-13-2015 Sparks Tribune

Corporate media: Thou shalt censor thyself
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 1-6-2015 Sparks Tribune

The ever-expanding Ira Hansen Archive of an anachronism

BREAKING BAD
Walter White and some other white guy
Who's,,,
...Who?

Breaking Bad 5: Machine Gun Michele and the good ole boys
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 12-16-2014 Sparks Tribune

Breaking Bad 4: Ira and his ammosexuals flip us the finger
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 12-9-2014 Sparks Tribune / Updated 12-11-2014

 

Union decline and rising inequality in two charts
by Colin Gordon
Economic Policy Institute / 6-5-2012
Labor Day: State of the Unions
By Mark Robison / Reno Gazette-Journal / Sunday 9-1-2013

The above graph was used in journalist Mark Robison's extensive Hard Labor: Nevada unions tout role in helping workers, firms, economy (Sunday 2 Sept. 2012 Reno Gazette-Journal, page one, Reno Rebirth section of the print edition). Union men Jim Burrell, Paul McKenzie and Guy Louis Rocha did the movement proud.

WOMEN AND UNIONS — ORPHAN MAJORITIES
The Barbwire Labor Day column
Reno Gazette-Journal / 9-3-2012


...and more ammo...

We Don't Need No Education
The continuing Barbwire series

Barbwire: Nevada not really a state
No, we were not Battle Born in Kenya
Top 10 reasons Nevada lives in the 19th Century

Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 10-17-2013 Sparks Tribune

Low-income penalty: Nevada socks it to the working poor
BARBANO: Nevada is one big company town
Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 10-10-2013

State of Health
National health care comes up against a very sick state. WHAT'S IN IT FOR US?
Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 10-10-2013

...and more ammo yet

IMF Head Says Inequality Threatens Democracy. Here Are 7 Charts Proving She’s Right.
By Erika Eichelberger / Mother Jones/BillMoyers.com 5-30-2014
“The behavior of the financial sector has not changed fundamentally…since the crisis.
The industry still prizes short-term profit.”

The Post-Dated Recession: Pay me now or pay me later
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 9-6-2012 Daily Sparks Tribune

The Post-dated Recession
By Joshua H. Silavent / Daily Sparks Tribune / 5-3-2011



Nevada Press Assn. Better Newspaper Contest

2013-14: BARBWIRE SCORES SIXTH NEVADA PRESS ASSOCIATION AWARD

BRONZE 2014
Hopelessly trying to win an earthquake / 4-18-2013

The 2013 Loony Tunes Legislative Lexicon / 5-30-2013

The politics of media ga-ga boosterism / 3-20-2014

2012: WE WON —> BIG NEWS FROM THE NEVADA PRESS ASSOCIATION GOMORRAH SOUTH CONFAB—> BARBWIRE NOMINEE GUY RICHARDSON INDUCTED INTO NPA HALL OF FAME ON FIRST BALLOT

Support legendary photographer Don Dondero next

2010 GOLD HAT TRICK: Barbwire takes first place three years in a row.
The winning entries
Suing for Schools: The 20-year shuck

Expanded from the 2-21-2010 Daily Sparks Tribune

RED flags flying low over Sparks
Expanded from the 1-10-2010 Daily Sparks Tribune

The wrath of self-righteous racism
Expanded from the 11-8-2009 Daily Sparks Tribune





The campaign against forcibly-paid newspaper obituaries
And they wonder why the newspaper business is dying?

 

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

The 2009 first-place Nevada Press Association award winners
Tony the Tiger & the flaky NFL
Barbwire / 11-30-2008
Deregulation is never having to say you're sorry
Barbwire / 8-3-2008
Nevada: A good place to visit, but do you want to live here?
Barbwire / 6-15-2008


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We Don't Need No Education
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Copyright © 1982-2015 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 46-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and JoeNeal.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.

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