Barbwire: Green

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

How Green Was My Valley
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno/ Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 9-2-2026 / UPDATED 9-7-2026 / 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

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"I can close my eyes on my valley as it is today, and it is gone, and I see it as it was when I was a boy. Green it was, and possessed of the plenty of the Earth. In all Wales, there was none so beautiful...The simple lessons my father taught me are as sharp and clear in my mind as if I had heard them only yesterday. In those days, the black slag — the waste of the coal pits — had only begun to cover the sides of our hill, not yet enough to mar the countryside, nor blacken the beauty of our village. For the colliery had only begun to poke its skinny black fingers through the green."— Opening sequence of "How Green Was My Valley" (1941).

Three or so decades ago, this humble writer gave some advice to residents of the pretty valley by the mucky Truckee: "Make your money and get out as soon as you can. They are going to pave it over in the name of corporate profit and make it unlivable."

I had met a dynamic young couple who just moved here, exactly what this incestuous little company town needed to live long and prosper.

A corporate executive and his equally-impressive wife were raising two young children. They bought a nice home in the expanding Caughlin Ranch area, within sight of a soon-to-open elementary school.

The gorgeous new facility sold them on Reno — until they enrolled their kids. They found the curriculum like the desert — dry and foreboding, especially the lack of arts education. They left.

Reno-Sparks was ugly before the Hawk and other fires. Now, our black slag is visible on the hills all around us.

It could have been different. Some might not have lost their homes. Or their lives.

Alas and alack, we have lived up to Nevada's slightly inaccurate reputation for legalized prostitution. The overt is practiced in our 19th Century Cow Counties. The covert, in our metros, casinos and governments.

Either way, we have sold our self-respect and betrayed our children in worship of Mammon, the false god and pillager of our species since sentient superstition began successful brokerage by greedy holy men.

The colliery-black streets and highways of this little asphalt jungle could not handle the action when evacuation was declared last week. Some in the crispy zones returned to untouched but looted homes.

Why?

Three decades ago, I joined a group opposing a new Wal-Mart plopped in the path of the northwest Reno flood control infrastructure built after the record monsoon of 1950.

Northwest Reno residents voted to pay that safety tab and it remains the most flood-resistant part of the area. A man actually drowned on Sparks Blvd. during the great flood of 1986 while northwest Reno just got damp.

The Wal-Mart got built with a flood overflow catch-basin in its front yard. The retail behemoth also paid an "impact fee." Sounds fair, right?

Wrong.

Impact fees are a shell game, a governmental kick-the-can-down-the-road Ponzi scheme. Wal-Mart's miniscule impact fee, like all others, was immediately shunted to other areas. What about the Wal-Mart zone? Government would cover those impacts, like expanding roads, from other fees paid by future development. New turn lanes were added to W. McCarran about 20 years later.

This partly explains local governmental lust for new growth at any cost, even cancerous.

Downtown Sparks now looks like a ghetto overlaid with Tokyo-style rabbit warren chintzy apartments. Ditto all over Reno which has fallen in love with the Stalinist architecture of Cold War East Berlin.

NOTHING can be done, there's not enough lipstick in the world, to prettify our downtown pigs. (Apologies to noble porcine creatures.) Downtown Sparks and Reno "redevelopment agencies," which earmark casino district taxes to beautify the pigs' frontyards, have failed for half a century. Room taxes have long been skimmed for casino promotion. Sales taxes on families have replaced progressive policies.

If a billion dollars in corporate welfare hasn't worked, why stop now? The union-busting Grand Sierra recently scored its own tax-skimming district to help build its new sports arena, whoring out UNR's athletic dept. in the process. (Lawlor Events Center will soon be hosting bake sales.)

Reno bulldozed a $25 million firehouse containing the regional 911 emergency dispatch center. Why? To pay Cleveland billionaires a million a year forever to import a minor-league baseball team to draw traffic to downtown casino floors. And build the stadium for free, too.

Meanwhile, the Reno Fire Dept. had to live for years in leaky used quonset huts imported from Alaska.

I lived thru cattywhompus growth spawned by the MGM Grand (now Grand Sierra) in 1978.

When queried about six new gambling properties opening in the same time frame, no less than Bill Harrah hisself asked "how many more casinos can this town support?" Six closed within a short time after six opened.

It took almost half a century for local roads to catch up with the MGM spawn. Then came Nevada's world champion welfare queen, Elon MuskAx. The cancer returned and metastasized.

Every neighborhood will soon have a cute little data center to call its own.

My predicted paving of the little valley makes global warming worse. The "heat island" effect caused by all the concrete and asphalt contributed mightily to our hottest of all summers this year.

A lot of good people live here. Speak. Organize. Fight. Vote

MELT ICE —> Mask up and vaxx up! (COVID is back — BIG. Measles and its dastardly deadly cousins are running wild, schools are back in session to maxize the flu and T-Rump's cuts to U.S.A.I.D. are infecting and killing millions and flying the fallout here.) Get the latest boosters, protect yourself and your family, mask yourself up to melt ICE, and continue praying for the oppressed, unenlightened and unvaccinated as well as Popes Leo and Francis, the Dalai Lama, Sarah Mullally (the new Archbishop of Canterbury), Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Burma/Myanmar (Rohingya genocide) and eastern China (Uyghur genocide) among the world's more than 160 currently war-torn lands, including ours.

May we survive WW3, perhaps coming soon to a polling place near you. Be very afraid. And vote, dammit.

¡Sí se puede! Or, as they say in Poland, SOLIDARNOSC!

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 and MississippiWestNV.org among others. He is a longtime member and former vice-president of the Reno-Sparks NAACP and a member of 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 Nevada Labor Hall of Fame on April 5, 2024. For all the news you never knew you needed to know, head for BallotBoxing.US.

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

Going to Heaven in a Flash of Fire
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno/ Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 8-26-2026 / UPDATED 9-7-2026 / Expansions in blue

Roll me up and smoke me when I die
You won't see no sad and teary eyes
When I get my wings and it's my time to fly
Call my friends and tell them
There's a party, come on by
And just roll me up and smoke me when I die.
— Willie Nelson & Snoop Dogg

I've been singing Willie's country chestnut a lot lately.

I don't smoke and spent the weekend sending prayers/vibrations/emanations/projexions that none of us will have to bodily take up that vice in the immediate future.

At least the monster Hawk Fire turned Reno into the lead item on all forms of news worldwide. Bigger than Burning Man. Any publicity is good publicity, eh wot?

Just before 11:00 p.m. Saturday, my homeowners association forwarded a general "get outta Dodge right now!" order from local government. I went upstairs to look around. Nada.

My 'hood was actually on a fringe "pack up and get ready" area. The HOA-types sent the blanket panic and went home.

Local government said to watch PerimeterMap.com but I couldn't find my street. They found identical names everywhere from here to Serbia. Serbia, fergawdsakes! So whassup?

Finally, I punched in my zip code with no street name. Turns out I live on "Mesouite Court." Huh? They can't even spell "Mesquite"? And that's not my street.

Back in the 70s, the flaky developer of my area named my street after himself and left town before the cops found him.

Until last Sunday morning, I had never heard of "Mesquite Court." Which means that PerimeterMap.com was apparently using an old subdivision map more than half a century out of date.

Reminds me of Google Maps listing Dog Valley Road's one-lane cowpath as the alternative for Donner Pass during I-80 blizzards. Trust but verify, my fellow innocent snowflakes.

DOWN AMNESIA LANE. At this point on my old Barbwire talk-rock radio show, I would cue Hoyt Axton...

Betrayal means never having to say you're sorry.

The Renown Octopus just got swallowed up by a bigger beast. Kaiser Permanente is so named after old-time Kaiser Automobile mogul Henry J. Kaiser who branched off into construction with the pretentiously-named Permanente Cement over half a century ago. Then his minions got into healthcare, much to Nevada's detriment.

Kaiser just ate Renown and is now busy putting patients in cement shoes and dropping them into Lake Tahoe. As its first official act, a few weeks ago the beast terminated a whole bunch of doctors and wished its health plan patients lotsa luck.

MATCH MADE IN HADES. Renown tried to monopolize heart care until they got sued and lost. In 2012, the Federal Trade Commission ruled "Renown Health agreed to settle charges that its acquisitions of two local cardiology groups reduced competition for the provision of adult cardiology services in the Reno area." (Full decision at NevadaLabor.com)

Our former public hospital, Washoe Medical Center, was stolen by clever banditos back in the 1980s. Washoe Med execs marketed a clever lie, corrupted a few pols and acquired assets worth up to $120 million for just $3 million.

The bright shining lie asserted that even though Washoe Med had never lost money, it would soon bankrupt the county due to providing care for people who could not pay. (Which today is almost everybody.)

"Let us take this white elephant off your hands, sweetie," oozed the sales pitch. A corrupt county commission got hornswoggled. The soon-to-expire Nevada Health Systems Agency signed off and folded.

The banditos promised to control ("cut") health care costs and permanently take indigent care off the backs of taxpayers: "Just give us a free hospital and trust us."

Washoe County had an honest deputy D.A. writing the giveaway contract. His boss, the late Ed Dannan (later to become a district judge) took him off the case and cut the indigent care section.

To this day, Renown regularly gets a fat check from Washoe County taxpayers to pay for indigent care. And what cost control?

It's all in the 1995 Washoe Grand Jury report available online only at the Barbwire Health Care War Room. (See NevadaLabor.com)

The day the report was published, I hand-delivered a copy to the honest lawyer, by then no longer working at the DA's office.

Here's the latest Google Ai summary: "The 1995 Washoe County Grand Jury report, highlighted by NevadaLabor.com, documented the controversial privatization of the public Washoe Medical Center. Deputy District Attorney Bill Baker was removed from the case by his supervisor, Ed Dannan, after Baker aggressively challenged the deal as unfair to taxpayers."

ATTENTION ATTORNEY GENERAL AARON FORD: I know you're busy in many places fighting the depredations of Mad King Donaldov. Many thanks, but if Mr. Baker is still practicing, hire him to bust up this slimy octopi medical marital miscarriage.

MELT ICE —> Mask up and vaxx up! Get the latest boosters, protect yourself and your family, mask yourself up to melt ICE, and continue praying for the oppressed, unenlightened and unvaccinated as well as Popes Leo and Francis, the Dalai Lama, Sarah Mullally (the new Archbishop of Canterbury), Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Burma/Myanmar (Rohingya genocide) and eastern China (Uyghur genocide) among the world's more than 160 currently war-torn lands, including ours. May we survive WW3, perhaps coming soon to a polling place near you. Be very afraid. And vote, dammit.

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.

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

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

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 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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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!)

Barbwire dark foreshadowings unfortunately have a way of becoming 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.

$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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