BARBWIRE
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ANDREW BARBANO
Pirate Laureate of the High Desert Outback of the American Dream
The Barbwire Molly Ivins Memorial Columniator Hall of Flames


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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



The Trump Whisperer and a $40,000 baseball ticket
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the Wednesday 8-21-2019 Sparks Tribune
/ Updated 8-22 & 8-25-2019 GMT / Expansions in blue


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Barbwire wins 9th Nevada Press Association award

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11-24-2015
Leading questions, lead-headed leaders
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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

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TOP SECRET— HushHush!

 

Is a Reno Aces baseball ticket worth $40,000? Maybe if you are hospitalized after getting hit in the face with a line drive.

One recent Sparks victim came within millimeters of losing an eye, then got an eye-popping hospital bill.

I wonder why my colleagues in the legit media don't publish statistics about injuries at the Reno Corporate Welfare Ballpark.

I've asked the Aces front office for "statistics on how many spectators have been injured over the years at Greater Nevada Field, especially by line drives. How many required hospitalization and for how long? When a fan is injured, do you provide any medical care? Are all costs the responsibility of the injured person? Do you bill them? I am aware that amusement parks place such a disclaimer on tickets. If you also do so, I'd appreciate a copy. Have you modified your baseline netting to make the bleachers safer? (It's been awhile since I made it to a game.)" I received no response.

I stopped going to games a few years back. A toddler was placed between me and the kid's parents along the first base line. Around the fifth inning, a line drive screamed into the seats just below us, hitting with a blood-curdling crack and almost taking out some poor lout who barely managed to duck.

I spent the rest of the game frozen to my seat, ready to stop a ball from hitting that baby whose parents were distracted with their friends.

When the Aces won via walkoff homer, I felt only relief.

Major league teams have merely extended netting to dugouts, no matter that a 79 year-old grandma was killed at LA's
Dodger Stadium and a man was blinded at the Chicago Cubs' Wrigley Field. The Chicago White Sox alone extended protection to the foul poles this season. Four states have even passed laws exempting sports teams from all responsibility. [UPDATE: After presstime, the Houston Astros announced expanded netting and a look at the Cubs vs. San Francisco Giants at Wrigley showed mesh to the foul poles.]

"A 2003 study found that about 35 fans were injured by foul balls per one million spectator visits to major-league stadiums," according to the Chicago Tribune (10-14-2017).
I recommend watching on TV. It's not only safer, but lots cheaper.

INSURANCE SALES OPPORTUNITY.
The billionaires who own the Aces can make even more money over and above getting a free ballpark and $1 million a year from the City of Reno. How about kiosks selling single-game medical and life insurance?

BURN, BABY, BURN. The fire house demolished to make room for the ballpark has never been replaced by cash-strapped Reno which, like Sparks, always teeters on the edge of insolvency due to corporate freebies. Two "temporary" fire stations have been operating under tattered tents for a decade.

THIS JUST IN: "LGBT Republican group endorses Donald Trump for the 2020 election"

Wow. All two members?

I AM THE TRUMP WHISPERER. My longtime Tribune conservative colleague in columny Thomas Mitchell expressed amazement and reproach last week that scurrilous Democrats questioned the sincerity of the scripted speech which El Presidente awkwardly read off a teleprompter after the most recent machine gun carnage.

The Tribune, as usual, has spared every expense in providing this translation.

New York Times front page headline 8-6-2019: "TRUMP URGES UNITY VS. RACISM"

TRANSLATION: "You provide the unity, he'll provide the racism"

LORD KEYNES, YOU'RE OUTTA HERE. Czar Donaldov has been openly cavorting with the most promiscuous woman in Washington, the notorious Ms. Rosy Scenario. His Wonderfulness proclaims that we are nowhere near recession while the price of gold futures just jumped more than $50 an ounce in one freakin' week.

TRANSLATION: "Who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" (Courtesy of the Marx Brothers)

DORIE AND DAVE. Nevada just lost two of her finest. Former Washoe Democratic Party chair and tireless women's rights advocate Dorie Guy died August 3 at 75. Sweet Dora Jean chaired the Sparks Parks and Recreation Commission and served on the board of the National Alliance for Retired Americans. Her sendoff happens Sunday, September 1, fittingly at Sparks Parks & Rec, 98 Richards Way, 2:00-4:00 p.m.

Sparks resident and longtime Sparks Sheet Metal Workers Local 26 Business Manager Dave Peel, 82, departed for the big picket line in the sky on July 26. Dave helped me induct his fellow tin bender, Sam Lumpe, into the César Chávez NevadaLabor.com Hall of Fame in 2012. His adios will be celebrated where oldtime Nevadians have oft conducted proper sendoffs, the Coney Island Bar on E. 4th Street, between the Reno IBEW 401 Hall and the Sparks City Limits; 2:00-4:00 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 8.

TARNISHED STAR. Activists plan a major demonstration at 8:30 a.m. today about Storey County Sheriff Gerald Cook-Antinoro. (He had his name changed, adding the Italian suffix, a great way to foil background checks.)

The Nevada Ethics Commission will meet at 9:30 a.m. August 21, at 808 West Nye Lane in Carson City. Organizers fear another Cook-Antinoro whitewash.

"We are protesting against domestic violence, sexual assault, rape, abuse and harassment, with Antinoro being the poster boy of repulsive conduct," stated organizer Joe Panicaro, 775-322-1239, e-mail <paralegal@kozaklawfirm.com>

Lugubrious Gerald is the reason I have not ventured into Storey County in five years. (Barbwire 10-31-2014 and endless updates) He is nothing if not fastidious, even ordering a homicide crime scene cleansed before CSI's could do their work.

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 50-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/ 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 ninth Nevada Press Association award (6th first-place) at the 29 Sept. 2018 NPA annual convention in Las Vegas. 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 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.


Peruse the Underbelly of the News —> Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential

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—>

Perfectly Nevadian: Joe Conforte, 1925-2019
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the Wednesday 8-14-2019 Sparks Tribune

Guns and roses, traitors and political poses
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the Wednesday 8-7-2019 Sparks Tribune

The Sting, spike heels, green eggs & ham
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the Wednesday 7-31-2019 Sparks Tribune


Reno City Council passes rent control
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the Wednesday 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


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 Wednesday 7-24-2019 Sparks Tribune

Alfred E. Neuman for Washoe school superintendent
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the Wednesday 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 Wednesday 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

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Copyright © 1982-2019 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 50-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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