Barbwire: MELT ICE!

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.

Big news. Prayers answered: Pope takes on T-Rump head-to-head.

Under construxion / Stay tuned

Greatest Hits Dept.

BREAKING NEWS—>

BOXCARS!
Barbwire wins 12th Nevada Press Association award

Hi yo Silver 2025
3-12-2025
4-17-2024
4-3-2024

Nevada Press Assn.
Hall of Fame
5 down, 3 to go

7-31-2025 Barbwire Winner
Congratulations to Barbwire nominee Norman Cardoza, 1977 Pulitzer Prize winner, Reno Gazette-Journal

2024 Barbwire Winners!

Jake Highton & Guy Louis Rocha 2024 honorees BUENO!

Barbwire nominee Dennis Myers elected to NPA Hall of Fame (2019)

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 (2012)

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Eee-yo-leven!
Barbwire wins 11th 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/9-29-2018

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

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Daily Sparks Tribune 2-10-2008

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BEATING LUSH RAMBO AT HIS OWN GAME: 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

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

BARBWIRE BY ANDREW BARBANO
For the 2-18-2026 Sparks Tribune

Melt ICE —> Mask up!

Hi yo Silver, away! Who was that masked man?
You. I hope.
The vicious dictatorship of China is using American-made facial recognition software to surveil its citizens.
T-Rump's storm troops at Inhuman Citizen Exploitation (aka ICE) are doing the same to i.d. and track seditious protesting Americans. Some have even been hassled in their own homes just because President Bulsha Tartist's Black-shirt Gestapo got them on video.
As regular readers know, I've been self-quarantining since Friday the 13th of March, 2020. I've had all my vaxx jabs and so far, nada. Can't say the same for students at Galena High.
"Students and staff at Galena High School may have been exposed to pertussis, also known as whooping cough, a serious infection (that) spreads easily through coughing and sneezing," the Reno Gazette-Journal reported earlier this week.
"The south Reno school sent notifications Friday to families warning of possible exposure. After being in close contact with an infected person, an estimated 80% of vulnerable people will get the disease, USA TODAY reported. Symptoms typically appear five to 10 days after exposure but can take up to three weeks after exposure to show up.
"The disease 'can produce a severe cough that can last for weeks or months, sometimes leading to coughing fits and/or vomiting,' according to information sent to Galena students and staff from Northern Nevada Public Health.
“ 'Anyone can get pertussis, but it can be very dangerous for infants and people with weakened immune systems,' ” NNPH noted.
"Corruption is a germ’s best friend," stated Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman on Tuesday. He noted how T-Rump's wacko health boss, Kennedy the Lesser, has made millions selling books trashing vaccines.
Remember Alex Jones who was forced into bankruptcy after losing a defamation suit brought by the families of those murdered at the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting? He re-perverted his millions of minions by preaching that the massacre was some liberal-concocted hoax and was ordered to pay about $1.5 billion in damages.
He paid nothing by merely moving his fortune into the hands of others before the verdict, then declared bankruptcy. I was amazed at all the megamillions he scored selling anti-science snake oil on his NewsMax website (which still spews 24/7).
As Krugman notes, the anti-science crowd and the magaquacks make millions shearing their trusting sheep.
"The reign of the quacks will condemn thousands, perhaps millions of Americans — many of them children — to gratuitous illness and in some cases death," Krugman concluded.
Any MAGAmoonhowler parent can file a "religious vaccine exemption" with the Washoe County School District allowing kids to attend school as little walking superspreaders.
So you can kill two dirty birds with one stone by just masking up: Keep your family free of disease and make sure our fuehrer's gestapo storm troopers can't facial-rec and kidnap you to Honduras or Uganda.
Mask up or risk "whoopsy-daisy" when T-Rumpian plagues, both germ-sized or goon-sized, pay your house a visit.
ICING YOUR VOTE. Donner Pass blizzarding killed both mail and news delivery this week. Most northwestern Nevada newspapers are now printed in California. The cost-cutting Reno Gazette-Journal arrives by mail, the lead time of which explains why its stories are two days behind other media.
The New York Times and a few others still offer home delivery but Donner Pass also made that impossible this week.
I still subscribe to print editions because they are faster than skimming websites. They also allow me to read stories I would not have noticed web surfing.
The postal service has stranded northwestern Nevada mail in Sacramento more than once after often-promising otherwise. They recently added insult to injury by announcing that postmarks will no longer reflect the date USPS received mail, just the date when they got around to processing it.
Zounds!
That plays hell with Nevada law that says ballots will still be counted if postmarked on or before election day if they arrive within a few days afterward. (A great service to those in overseas military service.) Unreliable postmarking and shunting local mail to Sac for processing guarantees that some voters will be disenfranchised -- exactly what T-Rump and his neo-Nazis want.
I now agree with some of my friends that the only safe bet is taking your ballots down to the Washoe County registrar's dropbox. But what about shut-ins or the disabled for whom mail voting has been a blessing? Tough luck. Trust your president.
ADIOS, JESSE JACKSON. Culinary Union Local 226 leader Ted Pappageorge said it for the masses upon learning of the great man's death.
"Today, working people in Las Vegas and across the country are mourning the loss of a champion, Reverend Jesse Jackson. In 1990, when I was a bartender at the Horseshoe and we were on strike for nine long months, almost no one would stand with us, but Rev. Jackson did. We were told that we couldn't march in the street and if we did, there would be arrests. Rev. Jackson came to Las Vegas, stood shoulder to shoulder with workers, led us on that march, and not one worker was arrested. "At a time when our fight felt uphill, he gave us courage and hope. He kept showing up, walking picket lines during the Frontier strike, and standing with workers who were organizing at the Venetian and Trump Hotel Las Vegas.
"Rev. Jackson believed in workers, immigrants and civil rights for all. We feel his loss deeply, but his legacy lives on in every picket line, organizing drive and contract fight where workers demand respect and a better future."We will honor him by marching forward and doing what he always told us: Keep hope alive."
Amen, brother.
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, the Dalai Lama, Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Syria, Somalia, Ethiopia, Yemen and Venezuela among the world's more than 160 currently war-torn lands, including ours.
¡Sí se puede! Or as they say in Poland, SOLIDARNOSC!
Be well. Raise hell. Stay safe.
_______________
Andrew Quarantino Barbáno is a 57-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com, MississippiWestNV.org and a member of the César Chávez Nevada Labor Hall of Fame. He is a longtime member and former first vice-president of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since 1988. E-mail <barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us> Links and references with the expanded edition at NevadaLabor.com.
BRWR DD2/18 MASK UP/brwr/opsn26a
CWA 9413/AFL-CIO
-30-

BARBWIRE BY ANDREW BARBANO
For the 2-11-2026 Sparks Tribune

B-Movie: Bad Bunny, Ballgame, Bernstein and Barbano's Beethoven Brunch

I will give a $20 bill to anyone who finds anything coming anywhere near the first block of this column.
It all goes back decades. One day about 1974, I was in line for lunch at the old Pioneer Inn (now the Washoe courthouse south parking lot).
Behind me were two crackerjack Reno Gazette-Journal investigative reporters, Mark Oliva and Earl Biederman. Oliva was also a world-class classical music critic.
Somehow, I happened to mention that my favorite Beethoven symphony was "The Little Seventh."
Oliva as taken aback. "Andy," he said, "in all my discussions with people about Beethoven, you are the first I've ever met who listed the Seventh as his favorite."
I still glory in my Philistine obscurity. Beethoven's Seventh and Eighth were written at arguably the lowest point of his life. He was resigned to losing his hearing and he was broke.
The great one turned his sorrows inward and created the most uplifting piece of music I have every heard in my eight decades. The Eighth is OK, but the opening movement of the Seventh elevates me like I want to just fly away.
And so it was on Super Bowl Sunday. I usually take the boring halftime to make something to eat. This year, I started in the second quarter of the defensive grinder. I needed something uplifting, so I put on Beethoven's Seventh with Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic. The joyful first movement orchestrated prompt preparation of my Italian creation. It was in the oven when Bad Bunny took the stage.
I did not want to zap Beethoven but I still wanted to see what all the hype was about. So I left my boom box blasting Beethoven and turned up the TV audio.
Then something magical began to happen. Bad Bunny, Ricky Martin and Lady Gaga were suddenly in sync with Beethoven! Not entirely, but in enough scenes that I exclaimed, laughed and cheered on several occasions. (I first noticed when the bunny dancers were doing their bouncy and buttocky shake-it-up-baby.)
Ludwig Van's magnum opus concluded when Bunnyperson was about halfway thru, so I listened to the rest as everyone else viewed it.
If you have video of Bad Bunny and company's 13-minute Super Bowl show, get a copy of Beethoven's Seventh and sync up the final movement of the symphony with the first few minutes of the bunny hop. You will find it worth your time. Bugs Bunny would admire it as, indeed, a joyful answer to "what's up?"
WHY SO BRAVE? This column was the only place on the Internet (verified by Big Google A.I.) that advocated for the election of an American pope. (Barbwire 4-13-2025) The surprise of that gift from the Almighty gives me confidence that I will never have to send out any $20 bills.
And to the Killer B's and their crews (including Italiana Gaga), danke, gracias, molto grazie!
ED PEARCE, HALL OF FAMER. Last Friday, KOLO TV-8 said goodbye to its three-time news director and Nevada media legend Ed Pearce. There were short tributes from old timers and local glitterati, but they missed the great man's true depth and impact.
In 1970, brand new KTVN TV-2 was struggling in rickety digs on Pine Street downtown. GM Lee Hirshland had fired his news director and sales manager for leaking pre-broadcast TV-spot info to a candidate they liked. Lee took a chance on the young man from Fallon.
Ed was such a purist that he would not even allow Bill Raley to place a sign on his anchor desk stating that Raley's was sponsoring the newscast. TV-2 really could have used the money.
When Car & Driver editor Leon Mandel contributed a commentary telling people to buy cars in California because there was no real competition in Nevada, EVERY car dealer in town save one tromped into the station demanding that Mandel be axed or they would cancel their advertising. (Only Subaru dealer Paul Havas would not participate.)
Ed and Lee took the heat, Leon and the advertisers stayed. Decades later, another kid Ed gave a chance, future Tribunite Dennis Myers, was fired by new TV-2 owners for no reason in order to pacify a megalomaniacal car dealer.
Dennis went to the Trib for awhile until Ed and KOLO TV GM Chuck Alvey, resisting calls from the powerful to blackball Dennis, gave him a new home at CHannel 8. (Alvey related that story at Dennis' 2019 memorial gathering.) Dennis concluded his triple hall-of-fame career at the Reno News & Review.
Longtime TV-8 newsman Josh Little thanked Ed for taking a chance on him years ago. Such a man is Ed Pearce.
If the Nevada Press Foundation won't consider a TV guy for its Hall of Fame, I'm gonna raise hell till they do. Stay tuned.
BAD B-B-B-MOVIE. President Bulsha Tartist started a "Board of Peace" where the super-rich can buy their way aboard with a $1 million ante.
This guy was responsible for at least 200,000 needless U.S. deaths when he chose to ignore the looming COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. (Conservative estimate by Baylor University). His cuts to worldwide health programs are now projected to kill 21 million by 2030.
Now I think I understand the genesis of the "Board of Peace." Everyone knows T-Rump can't spell and is semi-literate on his best day. I think he meant to write "Bored of Peace," truth-in-advertising at last. And perfect insight into his twisted mindset given the various wars he has started in the past year. For once, the awful truth. Air Force One will thus not be visiting Oslo, Norway, anytime soon.
Please don't inform T-Rump that I have accused him of not knowing from homonyms. He'll sue me for calling him queer.
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, the Dalai Lama, Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia among the world's more than 160 currently war-torn lands, including ours.
¡Sí se puede! Or as they say in Poland, SOLIDARNOSC!
Be well. Raise hell. Stay safe.
Andrew Quarantino Barbáno is a 57-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com, BallotBoxing.US and a member of the César Chávez Nevada Labor Hall of Fame. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since 1988. E-mail <barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us> Links and references with the expanded edition at NevadaLabor.com.
BRWR DD2/11 Badbunny/brwr/opsn26a
CWA 9413/AFL-CIO
-30-

BARBWIRE BY ANDREW BARBANO
For the 2-4-2026 Sparks Tribune
TITLE: We don't need no stinking badges!

Treasure hunter Humphrey Bogart: "If you're the police, where are your badges?"
Bandito 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!"
-- From "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," 1948
The U.S. Boarder Patrol was founded in our Tangerine Mussolini's image and likeness in 1924 before he was even born. It was meant to curtail immigration from everywhere but "northern Europe." Can you say racist?
T-Rump recently wondered why more northern Europeans don't emigrate here? Well, for example, Scandinavia is a lot better on its citizens. He made a special exception to import white South Afrikaners. Now, the guy who has long used immigrant labor at all his enterprises, just quietly allowed more "temporary worker" visas.
Like his predecessor as corporate America's useful idiot Ronald Reagan, President Bulsha Tartist gets some of his most dumb-ass ideas from old movies.
T-Rump, like King Ronald the Vague before him, spent many hours lost in old movies. The current Washington administration is not a government but a soggy soap opera.
The Orange Crusher came up with the "brainstorm" for the sadistic "Alligator Alcatraz" Everglades concentration camp after watching the old Clint Eastwood flick, "Escape from Alcatraz."
BAD DREAM DEPT. "Bernie and Tulsi" read a sign on the UNR quad when Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, spoke to a lawn-obscuring crowd in 2018. I asked the late great Tribune triple hall-of-famer Dennis Myers "what's a Tulsi?"
A new Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, he replied. Dennis was always ahead of the game.
Alas and alack, like so many others, Tulsi Gabbard sold out to the Mad King.
So why did the current Director of National Intelligence (or lack of same) Tulsi show up with T-Rump storm troopers to raid Fulton County (Atlanta area) 2020 ballot archives?
As you well know, President Bulsha never admitted to losing to Joe Biden in 2020. If he thinks he was actually elected in 2020, why doesn't he resign? The Constitution limits presidents to two election wins, right? Do you think he will resign if he can somehow phony up evidence that he actually won? Sure, just like he don't need any stinking badges.
T-Rump is nothing if not inconsistent, a term which has nothing to do with diapers. The game is to rig 2026 and 2028, if we still have elections by then.
International investigative reporter Greg Palast has been following this for years.
"Georgia is the swingiest of swing states...So how exactly do you stop Fulton County Black folk...from voting? The answer is in one word: DROP-BOX," Palast stated.
"First, the state slashed the number of drop-boxes allowed in Atlanta and Savannah, the two big cities with the urban Black population, by 77%.
"Early voting days, when you can use the drop box, were cut from 60 to just seven (!). And drop boxes — meant to serve voters who can only vote when they get off work at night — were sealed up at night in state office buildings.
"The result, not reported by a single US outlet (except, God bless him, Thom Hartmann) was that the number of mail-in ballots cast dropped by 83% — 83%! — from over a million to 0.2 million (191,286) by the run-off of 2022," Palast reported.
That's just the basics. Long before today's stinking badgeless, Blacks and Latinos knew to avoid cops. T-Rump will try to place uniforms near every Democratic-leaning polling place in the country. Would you feel comfortable voting if heavily-armed men in black stood at your polling place here in Nevada, where that's legal outside of 100 feet?
Now, we find that the postal service is again shunting Nevada mail to Sacramento for cancellation, making it harder for mailed ballots to arrive by election day. Worse, they won't guarantee postmarking on the day a piece is mailed.
And they don't need any stinking badges to do this.
It will be a miracle if we even have elections this year. Be very afraid.
WATCH YOUR WALLET. Old-time conservatives railed against "proliferating government bureaucracies." Unless it served their overlords. D-Day General and Republican President Dwight Eisenhower warned of the post-WW2 "military-industrial complex."
Before the "Great War," the U.S. military was ad hoc and small. Today, it gets about a trillion a year to do things like make the latest MAGAmillions super tank -- a sitting duck for modern drone tank-killers. Ditto the F-35, a Cold War dinosaur. Once started, it created a lot of make-work jobs in a majority of congressional districts, so it is with us forever, cost-overrun hemorrhages and all.
Not to be outdone, T-Rump gave the armorers a permanent Christmas present: expanding the F-16 to a twin-engine F-47. I wonder who come up with that number?
It's amazing how deeply you can rape and pillage the public treasury if you simply give T-Rump a media opportunity to showcase his wonderfulness.
ZERO-SUM SHELLGAME. Remember that dog and pony show where the Mad King ordered the bosses of major drug companies to the White House? He got them to "agree" to cap the co-pays of 20 or so popular prescriptions (out of more than 20,000), like insulin, at (drum roll, please) $47.00!
Asthma twice-daily inhaler Breo Ellipta was on the list. The banditos at Aetna/CVS overcharged me more for more than a year at $108.00 a pop. I like to breathe, so I paid it. Then, almost by accident, Aetna informed me that a zero-dollar co-pay generic was available and that they had so informed me. Bulsha! Can you say "kickback"?
I switched to another insurer this year and was pleasantly surprised to find out that my occasional heavy inhaler, the saturation-advertised AirSupra (the one with the TV spots where a dinosaur follows a guy everywhere) had been reduced from last year's $115 (and sometimes much more) to just $47. Should I thank El Presidente? Hell no.
The formerly zero co-pay generic version of twice-daily Breo will now cost (drum roll, please) $47.00! T-Rump got his TV blurb and the drug overlords simply shifted money around. Remember your heard it here first.
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, the Dalai Lama, Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia among the world's more than 160 currently war-torn lands, including ours.
¡Sí se puede! Or as they say in Poland, SOLIDARNOSC!
Be well. Raise hell. Stay safe.
_______________
Andrew Quarantino Barbáno is a 57-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and a member of the César Chávez Nevada Labor Hall of Fame. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since 1988. E-mail <barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us> Links and references with the expanded edition at NevadaLabor.com.
BRWR DD2/4 Badges/brwr/opsn26a
CWA 9413/AFL-CIO
-30-

BARBWIRE BY ANDREW BARBANO
For the 1-28-2026 Sparks Tribune

TITLE: What if you knew them and found them dead on the ground?

[BEGIN BOLD ITALICS]
Mary had a little lamb
One and one made two
Candles on a birthday cake
Blow them out
And your wish came true...
Oh, to be a child again
Oaks from acorns grew
One and one made two
I believed it all,
Didn't you?
[END BOLD ITALICS]
I awoke from a deep sleep, living in the 1960s again. Young people had been killed at South Carolina State, Kent State and Jackson State. No national guardsmen or "law enforcement officers" were ever convicted.
[BEGIN BOLD ITALICS]
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming
We're finally own our own
This summer I hear the drumming
Four dead in Ohio.
What if you knew her
And found her
Dead on the ground?
How can you run when you know?
[END BOLD ITALICS]
What affected me so? News that some of my late wife's mid-teen descendants are hell-bent on enlisting in the U.S. war machine, alas and alack in service to our mad king. I can only understand it in the context of Taiwan.
A few years back came news that the Taiwanese Army was having trouble meeting its recruiting goals. Why, despite living under constant threat of invasion by China? Because Taiwanese politicians don't glorify the military like American pandering pols do.
Of course President T-Rump turned patriotism into cheap burlesque, frequently dry-humping American flags for the cameras.
Unknowingly or knowingly, shallow kneejerk flagwavers are oft-unwitting devotees of the greatest mass-murderer in history -- Mao Tze Dong, who famously advised that "power comes from the barrel of a gun."
As wiseman Bill Maher often notes, flagwaving "truly is the least you can do."
How does one reach fully-inundated youngsters that it ain't all parades, bands and banners?
Would they listen to techie-talky that this world could rather easily become the paradise God created if we would just stop squandering so damned much blood and treasure on our war machines?
This monster mannunkind's most counterproductive addiction is war. That fact is just not competitive with a chest-swelling F-35 flyover at a UNR game or a Super Bowl.
Until you know someone who's been killed or maimed. The perps are almost always men, which is why women taking political power is the only remedy that makes sense. Macho egos make males temperamentally unsuited for leadership.
[BEGIN BOLD ITALICS]
Where have all the flowers gone
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone
Long time ago
Where have all the flowers gone
Young girls picked them, every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
[END BOLD ITALICS]
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction if one believes Sir Isaac Newton. After my nightmares, while making my first cuppa coffee, I started retrieving long ago warm memories of singing dumb little songs with small children.
[BEGIN BOLD ITALICS]
Ladybug, Silver Dollar, Rabbit's foot
With a four-leaf clover and a horseshoe
Wishbone, Shamrocks, got me shook
Singin' abracadabra in a cat's eye
Wonder wonder if you love me
Guess I'll ask the stars above me
When the moon is bright canary yella
It'll really be amazin'
If that crystal ball I'm gazin'
Says I'll always be your steady fella
[END BOLD ITALICS]
Then I remembered how "Puff the Magic Dragon" became the nickname of VietNam-era death-dealing aerial gunships that mowed down people like grass.
[BEGIN BOLD ITALICS]
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards, every one...
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the graveyards gone
Long time ago?
Where have all the graveyards gone
Gone to flowers, every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
[END BOLD ITALICS]
Teach your flower children well: Thou shalt not kill.
[BEGIN BOLD ITALICS]
Oh, to be a child again
Oaks from acorns grew
One and one made two
I believed it all, didn't you?
[END BOLD ITALICS]
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, the Dalai Lama, Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Syria, Somalia, Ethiopia, Yemen and Venezuela among the world's more than 160 currently war-torn lands, including ours.
¡Sí se puede! Or as they say in Poland, SOLIDARNOSC!
Be well. Raise hell. Stay safe.
_______________
Andrew Quarantino Barbáno is a 57-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and a member of the César Chávez Nevada Labor Hall of Fame. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since 1988. E-mail <barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us> Links and references with the expanded edition at NevadaLabor.com. Props to all those great lyric poets.
BRWR DD1/28 Flowers/brwr/opsn26a
CWA 9413/AFL-CIO
-30-

War is peace, right?
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno/ Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 1-21-2026 / UPDATED 1-22-2026 / Expansions in blue

Watch your wallet. And Orange-haired Big Brother over your shoulder.

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, the Dalai Lama, Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Ethiopia and the world's more than 160 currently war-torn lands, including ours.

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.)

Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 57-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

Is the light breaking through at last?
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno/ Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 1-14-2026 / UPDATED 1-15-2026 / Expansions in blue

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

Pinky & the Brain taking over the world
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 4-2-2025

Ain't we a pair?
Dennis Myers & Andrew Barbano inducted into César Chávez Nevada Labor Hall of Fame
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 4-10-2024

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

To Die For
My daughters were born 65 years ago yesterday. Alas, their youth was cut in twain.
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 1-17-2024

Web Xtras & Smoking Guns—>

Why the science is clear that masks work
By Zeynep Tufecki / The New York Times / 3-10-2023

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

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$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

Wasting workers where everybody knows your name
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 10-18-2023

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Andrew Barbano is a 57-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and SenJoeNeal.org; and former chair of the City of Reno's Citizens Cable Compliance Committee. He was the longtime executive producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration and has been a quarter-century member and 10- year officer of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us.

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

Barbwire by Barbano moved to Nevada's Daily Sparks Tribune on Aug. 12, 1988, and has originated in them parts ever since. His first byline in the paper came in 1973.
Whom to blame: How a hall-of-famer's hunch birthed the Barbwire in August of 1987
Tempus fugit.

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