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[[EDITOR'S NOTE: Unless otherwise noted, historical items appear courtesy of longtime Nevada reporter Dennis Myers' Poor Denny's Almanac [PDA]. Items highlighted in blue are of interest to labor in particular and seekers of justice in general. Copyright © 2009 Dennis Myers.]]

President Barack Hussein Obama

UPDATE: Saturday, 28 Feb. 2009 6:03:28 p.m. PST, 02:03:28 Sunday 3-1-2009 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUT –

Press briefing / February 28, 2003:

Reporter:
My question, I guess, is General Shinseki [who said publicly that "several hundred thousand soldiers" would be needed to handle postwar Iraq] in any trouble? You're his boss.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: No! Come on! Absolutely not. No. John, what are you trying to do, stir up trouble? [Shinseki was later forced out of the service. He was brought back into government as a member of President Obama's cabinet.]

On Feb. 28, 1574, the Inquisition, now operating in the new world, burned two men at the stake in Mexico for the crime of Lutheranism; On this date in 1859, Congress carved Nevada Territory out of Utah Territory and Dakota Territory out of Nebraska Territory; in 1861, the gold rush to the Rockies prompted Congress to create the Territory of Colorado; in 1905, a Carson and Colorado train wreck in Mound House piled up seven cars, one of them filled with dynamite, nitroglycerine and blasting caps, but no explosion occurred; in 1933, Nazi claims that the Reichstag fire was set by communists prompted a gullible President Paul Von Hindenburg to issue a decree placing emergency powers in the hands of Chancellor Adolf Hitler (an even more gullible Associated Press reported the nazi claims as fact: "Evidence uncovered today indicated that the reichstag fire, which left the main hall of the legislative building a mass of charred ruins, but which spared the library of the historic edifice, was deliberately set by a Dutch communist named An Der Luebbe [Marinus van der Lubbe], acting in concert with a number of other conspirators"); in 1941, Alice Brock was born (you can get anything you want at Alice's restaurant); in 1943, the federal war relocation center in Topaz, Utah, notified Nevada Governor Edward Carville that it would provide 100 Japanese Americans evacuated from the west coast to assist Moapa farmers with their tomato crop, but Carville – to the farmers' consternation – objected to the entry of the evacuees into Nevada; in 1947, an anti-government uprising in Taiwan (Formosa) was suppressed with sadistic violence by the Chiang Kai-shek regime and led to a long period during which tens of thousands disappeared, went to prison or were murdered; in 1955, a group of Israeli commandos attacked and destroyed an Egyptian military camp near the town of Gaza on the Gaza strip, an unprovoked attack (in an area that rarely saw violence) that Danish, Belgian and Swedish investigators later condemned as a "shocking outrage of extreme gravity and a clear provocation to the Egyptian military forces" and that set off an arms race between Egypt and Israel; in 1989, the Nevada/Semipalatinsk Movement to Stop All Nuclear Testing was started in Russia, inspired by 1980s anti-nuclear protests at the Nevada Test Site.

UPDATE: Friday, 27 Feb. 2009 00:34:23 PST, 08:34:23 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUT – On this date in 1897, England's prime minister recognized the authority of the United States over the western hemisphere (neglecting to check with the other hemispheric nations, which do not agree); in 1898, the Nevada State Journal raised the issue of the 35 year-old debt supposedly owed by the U.S. government to Nevada for the cost of fighting against state tribes during the civil war: "As there is now a probability of an appropriation being made for the payment of those claims, as several States are interested in the passage of the bill, the press of the State should agitate the subject and publish facts from old settlers relative to the manner in which the depredations were committed and the hardships endured by reason of the loss of their cattle, and provisions and the burning of their houses by hostile Indians."; in 1915, Al Jennings, an actual old west gunfighter and outlaw (as well as lawyer and prosecutor – he had trouble picking a side and sticking to it), appeared at Reno's Majestic Theater to introduce a movie, Beating Back, about his life ("A Bandit Story for ReSpectable Audiences WHICH EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA SHOULD SEE"); in 1933, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ray Wilbur, in a letter to U.S. Senator Tasker Oddie of Nevada, said plans to make Boulder City a virtual fascist reservation (which Oddie opposed) were made necessary by permissive "Nevada law and customs" involving liquor, prostitution and gambling; in 1934, Ralph Nader, named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, was born in Connecticut; in 1939, the NBC Radio series I Love A Mystery began a month-long serial, The Case Of The Nevada Cougar, about killings at a Nevada gold mine; in 1964, heavyweight champion Cassius Clay confirmed that he had converted to Islam (the World Boxing Association suspended him because his conversion was "conduct detrimental to the best interests of boxing" but state boxing regulators ignored the suspension); in 1969, University of Nevada-Reno radio/television services manager Wendell Dodds announced that the campus would begin providing National Educational Television Network programs on community antenna channel 6 and would also begin producing a nightly newscast staffed by journalism students; in 1973, Native Americans took control of a richly symbolic settlement at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota to protest federal treatment of Native Americans and alliances between federal officials and entrenched tribal leaders; in 1980, the Grammy awards, which had long had categories like children's, comedy, country, folk, gospel, jazz, cast album, soundtrack, pop, R&B, and spoken word recordings, decided to add a new one: rock (rock & roll had previously competed in the pop category); in 1994, candidates Jan Jones and Robert Miller, running for governor against each other in the Democratic primary, spoke against an anti-gay initiative petition at a rally at a Reno gay bar, Bad Dolly's; in 2000, Texas Governor George Bush apologized in writing to New York Catholic Cardinal John O'Connor for appearing at Bob Jones University with anti-Catholic campus officials; in 2007, acting without a warrant at the request of U.S. army officers impersonating Canadian police, local police in Nelson, British Columbia, arrested U.S. army combat engineer Kyle Snyder, who fled to Canada in protest against the Iraq war, but he was released after the misconduct of U.S. officials was disclosed and members of Parliament called for an investigation.

UPDATE: Thursday, 26 Feb. 2009, 11:23:13 a.m. PST, 19:23:13 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUT – On this date in 1866, Lincoln County, Nevada, was created, after having previously been a part of Mexico, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah; in 1877 at a meeting at Wormley's Hotel in Washington, Republican and Democratic congressional leaders carved up the winner of the 1876 presidential election, Samuel Tilden, and agreed to appoint the loser, Rutherford Hayes, as president, a case of the winner of both the popular and the electoral votes being deprived of the presidential office; in 1915, the Nevada Legislature approved measures to disincorporate Virginia City, Gold Hill and Austin; in 1923, Bessie Smith recorded Gulf Coast Blues for Columbia Records; in 1937, the Reno Central Trades and Labor Council sent wires to President Franklin Roosevelt and the members of the Nevada congressional delegation demanding that only Nevada workers be employed on the construction of Boca Dam in California; in 1969, Governor Paul Laxalt convinced the Nevada Board of Health to fire state health officer Edward Crippen for ending a years-long coverup of a public health menace in Fallon – high arsenic levels in the water, which officials had concealed from the public in order to protect tourism; in 1969 at Pleiku, Private First Class Barry Wagner of Las Vegas received the combat infantryman's badge, generally given to soldiers who serve for thirty consecutive days under fire; in 1997, thirty three years after their arrival in the U.S., The Beatles won three Grammys (Best music video/long form, best music video/short form, and best pop performance by a duo or group); in 2001, the government of Afghanistan ordered the destruction of Buddha images in the country, some of them dating back centuries; in 2003 in a message to a joint session of the houses of the Nevada Legislature, Nevada Chief Justice Deborah Agosti called on the lawmakers to fund efforts to bring the state supreme court into the computer and digital age.

UPDATE: Wednesday, 25 Feb. 2009, 12:16:03 p.m. PST, 20:16:03 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUT – On this date in 1870, Reverend Hiram Revels, former provost marshal of Vicksburg and Natchez alderman, became the first African-American U.S. Senator; in 1886, the National Education Association convention in D.C. heard an address from Charles Young of Nevada, the expected next president of the group, on "Co-Education of Races"; in 1910, the Goldfield Daily News carried a story headlined "BRUTISH NIGGER FLEES FROM A TEXAS MOB"; in 1949, actor Robert Mitchum completed his two-month sentence for marijuana possession; in 1957, The Crickets recorded That'll Be the Day; in 1969, Senator Warren Magnuson, D-Wash., labor unions and competing airlines all called for tough scrutiny of Howard Hughes' proposed acquisition of Air West airlines (which, under Hughes‚ ownership, became known as Air Worst); in 1974, a federal grand jury in Washington secretly named President Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Watergate coverup, a decision that has never actually been disclosed to the public by federal officials but was revealed in a leak on June 6 by The Los Angeles Times; in 1974, columnist Jack Anderson reported that the notorious Hoover files, records on the private lives of public figures, vanished after J. Edgar Hoover's death, including a file on John Kennedy's wartime affair with suspected German operative Inga Arvad (in testimony a year later to a U.S. House judiciary subcommittee, Attorney General Edward Levi reported that Hoover kept 48 such files on presidents and members of Congress in his office, but he did not say – and no one on the committee asked – what happened to them); in 2003, NBC cancelled one of its highest rated programs, Donahue, which had frequently provided alternative information to that provided by George Bush and Republicans and Democrats in Congress about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, claiming low ratings (the website AllYourTV.com later produced an NBC corporate memo reading "Donahue presents a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war. At the same time our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."); in 2008, Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton reunited for three days of concerts at Madison Square Garden, where they had performed in their legendary supergroup Blind Faith in 1969.


UPDATE: Tuesday, 24 Feb. 2009 07:52:45 PST, 15:52:45 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUT – On this date in 1836 on the same day, U.S. Representative John Quincy Adams began his seven hour argument before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the African passengers of La Amistad, and William Travis, leader of the pro-slavery Mexicans rebelling against the prohibition of slavery in the new Mexican constitution, sent a plea for help from the Alamo; in 1904, a day after U.S. Senator Francis Newlands of Nevada voted against the Panama Canal treaty, the Carson City News labeled him a traitor and called for his tarring and feathering; in 1917, Woodrow Wilson made public the decoded Zimmerman telegram sent from the German foreign secretary to the German ambassador in Mexico, offering Mexico restoration of land stolen by the U.S. in the Mexican war if Mexico entered the First World War on Germany's side; in 1933, Senator Albert Henderson of Clark County introduced legislation requiring businesses to pay workers in money and not in scrip redeemable only at the company store, a measure to address abuses on the Hoover Dam project; in 1944, Soviet troops systematically rounded up 400,000 Ingush and Chechens and shipped them by rail to the east (about a third died on the way); in 1957, Reese River Reveille publisher Jock Taylor was elected president of the Nevada Press Association, succeeding the Las Vegas Sun's Hank Greenspun; in 1969, twenty workers on the Nevada Test Site were stranded on Pahute Mesa (4071 feet low elevation to 7575 feet high elevation) in a blizzard; in 1981, the Nevada Supreme Court, which had negligently sat on a "temporary" restraining order (issued against the National Collegiate Athletic Association's effort to declare Edgar Jones ineligible to play basketball for UNR) for years to accommodate boosters, ruled that the case was moot since Jones had departed the campus (without a degree) and was playing for the Nets; in 2003, John Darren Smith of an undisclosed Nevada community died in Kuwait; in 2003, during a live interview with Dan Rather, Saddam Hussein challenged George Bush to a televised debate.

UPDATE: Monday, 23 Feb. 2009 12:34:25 a.m. PST, 08:34:25 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUT –

Martin Luther King, Jr.:
History cannot ignore W.E.B. DuBois because history has to reflect truth and Dr. DuBois was a tireless explorer and a gifted discoverer of social truths. His singular greatness lay in his quest for truth about his own people. There were very few scholars who concerned themselves with honest study of the black man and he sought to fill this immense void. The degree to which he succeeded disclosed the great dimensions of the man.

On this date in 1778, the colonial army, which had deteriorated under Washington at Valley Forge during a warmer-than-normal winter, began a revival with the arrival of Prussian military officer Friedrich Wilhelm Rudolf Gerhard August Freiherr von Steuben, who trained the force into ready-to-fight units with greater self confidence and also imposed hygiene and organizational regimes on the camp (in subsequent decades, to help rehabilitate Washington's reputation, the story of Valley Forge was rewritten as a tale of a bitterly cold winter); in 1836, 145 northern Mexicans, rebelling against the abolition of slavery in Mexico, barricaded themselves inside the Alamo where they were beseiged for 13 days by the forces of General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna; in 1847, U.S. General Zachary Taylor defeated Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna in the Battle of Buena Vista, effectively winning the U.S. war of territorial conquest against Mexico; in 1847, Sylvester Churchill, former journalist (publisher of the Vermont Republican) and inspector general of the Army after whom Nevada's Fort Churchill was later named, was promoted to brevet brigadier general following the battle of Buena Vista in the Mexican War; in 1868, reporter, editor, author, teacher, sociologist, NAACP founder, United Nations consultant, and father of Pan Africanism W.E.B. DuBois was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts; in 1883, Naches harvested the wheat at his Lovelock ranch and had it milled at Kemler's mill, receiving forty sacks of flour which he distributed among the tribal members who assisted him, prompting Winnemucca's Silver State to observe that "he is more generous to the red men than the Great Father at Washington and the Piutes think a great deal more of him than of the Chiefs of the Indian Bureau, who keep the lion's share of the money appropriated for their support"; in 1910, supporters of the convention nominating system filed an action in the Supreme Court of Nevada to stop Nevada's new primary election process; in 1937, as an "experiment in school management", St. George's public school in England began broadcasting whippings of crying children over the school public address system, sending children in classrooms into hysterics and infuriating parents; in 1940, Woody Guthrie wrote This Land Is Your Land; in 1944, President Franklin Roosevelt signed executive order 9426 authorizing the secretary of war to take possession of plants and facilities of the Los Angeles department of water and power in California and Nevada; in 1946 in Seattle, Paul Robeson expressed optimism over racial relations, opposed the armed services' segregation policies, said African-Americans had begun losing some of the gains they made during the war, and said black workers were better able to advance because of labor unions; in 1955. the council of the Southeast Treaty Organization (SEATO), organized by U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to create a legal pretext for U.S. intervention in southeast Asia, held its first council meeting of member states; in 1966. the U.S. announced that 13 percent of the South Vietnamese army had deserted in the previous calendar year; in 1969, Gary Dean Judd of Las Vegas died in Quang Nam province, Vietnam; in 1976. the Pyramid Lake Tribe was seeking liquor taxes from merchants within the reservation's "exterior boundaries", a term which was being treated both by the U.S. attorney and the tribe's own counsel as land adjacent to the reservation's boundary, both inside and outside the reservation; in 1981, the Assembly Taxation Committee approved a 2 percent state room tax but its prospects were not good – members of the committee said they approved the measure only as a favor to its sponsor; committee chair Paul May refused to identify the sponsor ("it sure as hell wasn't me").

UPDATE: Sunday, 22 Feb. 2009 7:43:56 p.m. PST, 03:43:56 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUT 2-23-2009 –

Interview with Eleanor Roosevelt/York Gazette and Daily / February 22, 1955

Q:
President Roosevelt once said "If I worked in a factory, the first thing I would do would be to join a union." If you had to work in a department store, let us say, would you join a union?

A: I certainly would. I do belong to a union in my own field, the American Newspaper Guild, CIO, and I would urge every woman who works to join the union of her industry.

On this date in 1349, as mob executions of Jews (usually by burning) swept across Europe, Zurich expelled all Jews; in 1860, a shoemakers strike began in the U.S., eventually spreading to 20,000 shoemakers; in 1902, Indian Agent Fred Spriggs denied that there was smallpox on the Pyramid Lake reservation and also denied that there was a quarantine in force; in 1918, telling evidence that the old west was dead: The Montana Legislature enacted fascist legislation making it illegal to criticize the federal government or the military, which Congress used as a model for a sedition law that was used to crack down on labor unions and antiwar activists; in 1930, four-time Emmy-winning singer Marni Nixon (the actual singing voice of Margaret O'Brien in The Secret Garden, Deborah Kerr in The King and I and An Affair to Remember, Natalie Wood in West Side Story, Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady) was born in Altadena, California; in 1942, President Roosevelt ordered General Douglas MacArthur, who had bungled the defense of the Philippines by failing to follow U.S war department plans, to leave the Philippines for Australia, and MacArthur again refused to obey orders (he yielded in March); in 1943, Sophie Scholl and her brother Hans, leaders of the anti-Nazi resistance group White Rose, were executed two days after their arrest in Munich (Hans Scholl had gotten involved in the resistance because, he said "It's time the Christians finally did something about it"); in 1946, George Kennan, U.S. chargés d'affaires in the Moscow embassy, sent an influential 8,000-word telegram to the Department of State that helped lead to the Truman administation's policy of containment and belligerence toward the Soviet Union that was maintained by most later administrations and that Kennan himself came to regret; in 1949, plans were announced for three million dollars in construction in Gerlach, with a 44-unit housing project, a United States Gypsum Company factory, a sewer system, telephone facilities and an electric distribution system; in 1963, Lennon and McCartney formed Northern Songs as the publisher of their own songs; in 1965 after Malcolm X's assassination, The New York Times published an editorial suggesting that he had brought it on himself; in 1965, actor Pernell Roberts worked his last day as "Adam Cartwright" on the Bonanza television program set in Nevada; in 1964, Temple Sinai in Reno got its first rabbi, author Julius Leibert, who had worked in Nevada in the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1938: "Nevada is the only state that has shed hypocrisy by allowing liberal attitudes"; in 1969, the AFL-CIO denounced black capitalism; in 2002, Kerry W. Frith of Las Vegas or Jamesville, Nevada, was killed in the Philippines as part of the U.S. intervention in local insurgencies; in 2008, The New York Times ran a gossipy front page story about John McCain and a woman lobbyist that was full of emotionally loaded terms and insinuations but did not actually accuse McCain of anything and the Times was roundly denounced by other journalists.

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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

 

UPDATE: Saturday, 21 Feb. 2009 09:43:56 a.m. PST, 17:43:56 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUT – On this date in 1885, President Arthur dedicated the Washington Monument; in 1912, former president Theodore Roosevelt, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination against incumbent William Howard Taft, endorsed judicial recall (empowering voters to overturn court rulings) in a speech before the Ohio constitutional convention, crippling his candidacy – Elihu Root and Henry Cabot Lodge withdrew their support, the stock market fell, and he was roundly denounced by the left and right press; in 1925, The New Yorker magazine appeared for the first time, with the famed Eustace Tilley character on the cover; in 1925, film director Sam Peckinpah (whose lyrical western romance The Ballad of Cable Hogue, was filmed in Nevada's Valley of Fire) was born in Fresno; in 1937, Virginia City native John Cavanagh, once a telegrapher for the Virginia and Truckee Railroad at Gold Hill and later an electrician and substation attendant with the Comstock's electicity company, died in San Francisco; in 1945, Reverend Eric Liddell, 400 meter gold medal olympian whose story was told in Chariots of Fire, died as a Christian missionary while in Japanese captivity, probably from a brain tumor; in 1950, Governor Vail Pittman held an extradition hearing to hear arguments from Las Vegas attorney (and Nevada Assembly judiciary committee chair) Harry Claiborne and Dallas assistant district attorney Louis Woosley on whether Las Vegas casino figure Benny Binion should be turned over to Texas authorities for trial on racketeering charges; in 1956, the Howard Hughes movie The Conqueror, filmed in Utah downwind of the Nevada atomic test site, was released into theatres, followed in succeeding years by the leukemia and cancer deaths of most of the cast and crew, including Susan Hayward, John Wayne, Pedro Armendariz, Agnes Moorehead and director Dick Powell; in 1964, the Nevada Board of Examiners authorized the Tax Commission, Department of Motor Vehicles, Banking Division, and Public Service Commission to destroy old records, some of them dating back to the turn of the century; in 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated at a meeting of his Afro-American Unity Organization in Harlem; in 1966, The Beatles' Nowhere Man was released; in 1967, Bernard Fall, French Resistance fighter, Nuremberg war crimes tribunal analyst, and Indochina scholar whose books (The Viet-Minh Regime 1954, Street Without Joy 1961, The Two Vietnams 1963, Viet-Nam Witness 1953-66 1966, Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu 1966) were devoured by the activist young and U.S. soldiers in the 1960s, was killed when he stepped on a mine along the coast north of Hue, the same area he had made famous as the "street without joy"; in 2002 Kerry W. Frith of Las Vegas was killed in the Philippines.

UPDATE: Friday, 20 Feb. 2009 12:23:37 p.m. PST, 18:23:37 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUT –

Albert Einstein / February 20, 1954:
In talking about human rights today, we are referring primarily to the following demands: protection of the individual against arbitrary infringement by other individuals or by the government; the right to work and to adequate earnings from work; freedom of discussion and teaching; adequate participation of the individual in the formation of his government. These human rights are nowadays recognized theoretically, although, by abundant use of formalistic, legal maneuvers, they are being violated to a much greater extent than even a generation ago.

On this date in 1801, two weeks before the presidential inauguration, President John Adams (who lost to Thomas Jefferson in the election) wrote to Jefferson to tell him "In order to save you the trouble and Expence of purchasing Horses and Carriages, I shall leave in the stables of the United States seven Horses and two Carriages with Harness"; in 1881, Matt Canavan of the Comstock said "Among these Indians no one has ever found a harlot, a coward or a thief" to which the Nevada State Journal responded "This is a pretty high compliment to pay to an inferior race; but, thinking over it, we cannot say that it is undeserved. We know the male Piutes are a fine brave, manly set of fellows. We will have to take Mr. Canavan's word for the [females]."; in 1901 in New York, Robert Leroy Parker, Harry Longabaugh and Etta Place boarded the British ship Herminius bound for Argentina; in 1931, Assemblymember Lindley Branson's bill providing for the purchase of the Lehman caverns by the White Pine county commission with a $15,000 bond issue was delayed because of objections to the purchase price; in 1933, the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce had an electric sign installed at Fourth and Front streets in Kingman, Arizona, directing tourists to the site of the Hoover Dam construction; in 1944, Norwegian resistance fighters blew up and sank the ferry Hydro in Lake Tinnsjø, causing the loss of huge tanks of heavy water being transported to Germany and setting back the Nazi atom bomb program significantly (the Norwegian anti-heavy water operations were dramatized in the movie The Heroes of Telemark and chronicled in the BBC documentary The Real Heroes of Telemark); in 1964, Reno high school students Martin Muth and Willie Molini deposited $1,800 ($10,864.07 in 2005 dollars) raised at a four-school carnival for the March of Dimes; in 1970 John Lennon's Instant Karma was released in the United States; in 2003, the Bush administration said it would send 1,700 U.S. troops to the Philippines to fight in an internal dispute.

UPDATE: Friday, 20 Feb. 2009 12:01 a.m. PST, 08:21 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUT –

LIPSTICK LAWSUIT REDUX
Film featuring fired Harrah's bartender premieres at UNR

Admission FREE – Friday, Feb. 20, 6:30-9:30 p.m., Crowley Student Union

RENO (U-News) – A former Reno bartender whose wrongful termination case made worldwide news has a featured part in the motion picture documentary America the Beautiful which has its northern Nevada premiere Friday evening at the Crowley Student Union on the University of Nevada campus in Reno.

Darlene Jespersen
Harrah's Photo
UPDATE: An evening with the beautiful people
Barbwire 2-22-09

Darlene Jespersen was fired by Harrah's-Reno in 2000 for refusing to conform to a new appearance code which mandated a double standard for men and women. The program required all females to wear heavy makeup and to never change or show signs of age.

Director Darryl Roberts heard of Jespersen's lawsuit and flew to Reno to interview her. America the Beautiful has recently been winning awards at film festivals across the nation.

Venerable reviewer Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called it "a film that might rescue the lives of some girls ages 12 and up."

Roberts will attend on Friday evening and Jespersen is trying to rearrange her schedule in order to be there.

The film includes interviews with Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis, Academy Award nominee Julianne Moore, actresses Mena Suvari, Aisha Tyler and Paris Hilton, singers Jessica Simpson and Tisha Campbell and comedian Martin Short, all commenting on America's fixation with the superficial and skin deep.

Jespersen had been a model employee at Harrah's for 21 years when she objected to being treated differently from male workers.

Once a female worker was given a makeover by a Harrah's image consultant, she was photographed and required to look exactly like that photo for the rest of her life or be fired.

Work clothes sizes could only be altered for women who had boob jobs.

Adding insult to surgery, Harrah's "Personal Best Program" required employees to "be able to tolerate second-hand smoke."

At the time, Culinary Union Local 226 secretary-treasurer D. Taylor called Harrah's new rules "tantamount to saying working mothers need not apply."

Jespersen's "Personal Best" photos (sans makeup) and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals 7-4 decision denying Jespersen her day in court are posted at NevadaLabor.com. Despite being shut out of the legal system, Jespersen's case made new law which will help future victims of discrimination.

In his dissenting opinion, Judge Alex Kozinski wrote "I believe that Jespersen presented a triable issue of fact on the question of disparate burden....I note with dismay the employer’s decision to let go a valued, experienced employee who had gained accolades from her customers, over what, in the end, is a trivial matter. Quality employees are difficult to find in any industry and I would think an employer would long hesitate before forcing a loyal, long-time employee to quit over an honest and heartfelt difference of opinion about a matter of personal significance to her. Having won the legal battle, I hope that Harrah’s will now do the generous and decent thing by offering Jespersen her job back, and letting her give it her personal best — without the makeup."

Jespersen had no desire to go back and never did. She currently works in Reno outside of the gambling industry. A complete history of the case may be accessed at NevadaLabor.com.

Her stand on principal made news worldwide. NevadaLabor.com has handled requests for photos and information from media as far flung as Japan, Canada, Europe and Argentina as well as from law schools, legal journals and textbook authors. The Jespersen section consistently ranks in the top 15 most-frequently accessed pages at Nevada's flagship labor website even after all these years.

Jespersen and Roberts have been invited to call in and discuss the film on the Barbwire live TV and webcast show today from 2:00-4:00 PST/22:00-24:00 GMT/ZULU on Reno-Sparks-Washoe Charter digital cable channels 16 and 216, streaming at KJIV.org and Barbwire.TV, where viewers may ask questions via chatcrawl. The on-air phone number is (775) 682-4144.

The reception and film showing are scheduled from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 20. Admission to the premiere is free but reservations are suggested and can be made by calling Maria Dias at (775) 225-5102. Free parking has been arranged on the first floor of the Brian J. Whalen parking garage which borders the south end of the Lawlor Events Center parking lot. The Crowley Student union stands directly to the east of the Lawlor parking lot. (For a UNR campus map, click here.)

After the screening, director Roberts will take part in a panel discussion about eating disorders. Participants include Julie Holland, vice-president of business development for CRC Health Group’s eating disorders division; Dr. Cheryl Hug-English, M.D., M.P.H., medical director for the University of Nevada student health center; Rhonda Kildea, M.A., M.F.T., C.E.D.S., a well-known eating disorders specialist; and Leah Leonard, Ph.D., clinical director at Center for Hope.

The event is part of the Center for Hope of the Sierras Eating Disorders Awareness Week. Questions on that aspect should be directed to Maria Dias at the Center for Hope, (775) 225-5102.
______________

MEA CULPA DEPT. My personal apologies for this latecoming notice, but I did not receive information until after the close of business on Thursday. – AB

COMING SOON: Northern Nevada's annual César Chávez celebration at Circus Circus-Reno on March 31, the legendary union leader's birthday. Watch NevadaLabor.com for more details, ticket and sponsorship information.

IN MEMORIAM: Tomorrow, Feb. 21, is the fourth anniversary of the untimely death of Nevada Alliance for Workers' Rights founder Tom Stoneburner. Stoney was one of Darlene's earliest and strongest supporters.



UPDATE: Wednesday, 18 Feb. 2009 07:21:50 PST, 15:21:50 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUT – On this date in 1871, the Arizona Territorial Legislature abolished Pah-Ute County after most of its land was transferred by Congress to Nevada; in 1916, Latino brothers Enrique and Ricardo Flores Magon were arrested and beaten at their communal farm by Los Angeles police who claimed they mailed articles "inciting" arson, murder and treason, then hospitalized; in 1929, Wings, the 1927 movie about class warfare between two fliers in the world war that was directed by William Wellman and starred Buddy Rogers and Clara Bow, won the first academy award for best picture; in 1930, Clyde Tombaugh, a 24-year-old high school graduate, discovered Pluto, which was a planet before George W. Bush became president; in 1937, employees of the irrigation service of the Owyhee tribal reservation were on furlough until Congress approved funding to complete the Wild Horse Dam project (the dam in Elko County was complete, but Congress had not appropriated money for the diversion dams and canals); in 1937, legislation for a sharply graduated tax on chain stores ($5 on the first store, $25 on the second, up to $500 for each store over five; $25 in 1937 being equivalent to about $317 in 2003) was being considered by the Nevada Legislature; in 1942, the Mills Brothers Paper Doll was released by Decca; in 1964, the U.S. government cut off military assistance to France, Yugoslavia and Britain to punish them for trading with Cuba, but the three nations continued their trade; in 1970, the Chicago Seven were acquitted of conspiracy charges but two of the seven were convicted of having an intent to incite a riot while crossing state lines (the other two were found not guilty); in 1999, Richard Bryan announced he would not run for another term as U.S. senator from Nevada, closing out a public career that included service as the state's first public defender, in both houses of the legislature, as attorney general and governor; in 2004, sixty leading scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, issued a statement saying the Bush administration had manipulated and twisted science to serve an ideological agenda on biomedical research, the environment, health and nuclear weapons (on February 26, in Bush's home state, local scientists criticized Texas textbook officials for tampering with the content of textbooks to tailor the language to political purposes).

UPDATE: Tuesday, 17 Feb. 2009 07:45:08 PST, 15:45:08 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUT –

U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing / February 17, 1966:

U.S. Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon: You know we are engaged in historic debate in this country where there are honest differences of opinion. I happen to hold to the point of view that it isn't going to be too long before the American people as a people will repudiate our war in Southeast Asia.

General Maxwell Taylor: That, of course, is good news to Hanoi, Senator.

Morse: I know that that is the smear that you militarists give to those of us who have honest differences of opinion with you, but I don't intend to get down in the gutter with you and engage in that kind of debate, General. I am simply saying that in my judgment the president of the United States is already losing the people of this country by the millions in connection with this war in Southeast Asia. All I am asking is, if the people decide that this war should be stopped in Southeast Asia, are you going to take the position that is weakness on the home front in a democracy?

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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

 

On this date in 1782, twenty-one French and English ships engaged in the first of several battles in the Indian Ocean over the American war of independence with neither side winning a conclusive victory; in 1801, Thomas Jefferson won enough votes in the House of Representatives to become president, ending John Adams' despotic presidency (electors had failed to reach a majority, throwing the election to the House); in 1872, the Nevada State Journal denounced the introduction of bills in the Nevada Legislature to provide funding for religious purposes in violation of the state constitution; in 1919, African-American veterans, not permitted to march in the main New York parade for veterans returned from the World War, held their own parade; in 1937, the Nevada Assembly voted 26 to ten to add "incompatability" (sic) to the previous nine grounds for divorce in the state; in 1960, Elvis received his first gold album, for Elvis; in 1976, after receiving an award from Harvard's Hasty Pudding Club, Bette Midler said "This award characterizes what the American male wants in a woman – brains, talents and gorgeous tits."; in 1997, special prosecutor Ken Starr announced he would resign to become dean of Pepperdine Law School (some taunted him for cutting and running on the investigation, prompting him to withdraw his resignation and remain as special prosecutor).

UPDATE: Monday, 16 Feb. 2009 07:40:34 PST, 15:40:34 ZULU/GMT/CUT – On this date in 1740, typeface designer Giambattista Bodoni was born in Saluzzo, Italy; in 1863, Congress enacted a law providing that treaties with the "Sisseton, Wahpaton, Medawakanton, and Wahpakoota Bands of Sioux of Dakota are abrogated and annulled"; in 1878, the Nevada State Journal reported "Conamen, negroes and Caucasians can be seen all mixed in together in Carson's public schools"; in 1904, seven students at the Nevada State University in Reno were suspended for holding a social gathering in the mechanical department during working hours; in 1913, President Taft agreed to halt incessant attacks on Mexico (it did little good – Woodrow Wilson alone later invaded Mexico at least ten times); in 1918 in the historical capital of Vilnius, the First Lithuania Council declared the independence of Lithuania (independence was restated by a resolution passed by the Constituent Seimas on May 15, 1920); in 1937, construction began on a swimming pool on Riverside Drive in Reno's Idlewild Park, a New Deal project of the Public Works Administration; in 1944, Lt. Woodrow Ellertson of Reno, a 22 year old assistant manager of Walgreen's Drug Store when he was drafted, was killed in action during a bombing mission over Drehm (he received the Air Medal postumously for five missions over Europe and it was given to his father, Louis Ellertson of Carson City, in a ceremony at the Reno Army Air Base on June 17); in 1953, an earthquake occurred in Pipe Spring, Arizona, an area that experienced earthquakes in suspicious correlation with Nevada atomic bomb tests; in 1963, following President Kennedy's example, the Reno and Sparks police departments and the Washoe County sheriff's office competed against each other in fifty-mile hikes; in 1968, Elvis received a gold record for his album How Great Thou Art, for which he would later also receive a Grammy; in 1977, John Carrico, Jr., spokesperson for the slow growth group Citizens for Responsible Growth, said a ballot initiative to limit Reno growth to an annual 1.5 percent would be circulated for signatures; in 2001, cocktail waitresses in Reno held a rally to protest the Harrah's corporate policy making it an employment infraction to get older (the casino takes photographs of workers when they begin their employment and requires them to continue looking the same as the photographs during their periods of employment).

UPDATE: Sunday, 15 Feb. 2009 00:59:02 PST, 08:59:02 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUT – On this date in 1878, describing the local political situation in Elko County, the Elko Post observed "There are those who favor a new deck as well as a new deal."; in 1904, former Nevada governor Reinhold Sadler announced his candidacy for United States senator on the Silver Party line; in 1913, responding to a request from the U.S. secretary of state for a study of whether the state legislatures properly ratified the 16th amendment to the United States Constitution, the solicitor general wrote a report that said the amendment was ratified legitimately but noted many problems. Nevada's lawmakers made "errors of punctuation and capitalization" and even copied the text of the amendment inaccurately by inserting extra words; in 1917, the main branch of the San Francisco Library was dedicated; in 1937, a few days after the end of the General Motors sit-down strike, El Centro, California, Junior College freshman Lillian Mills, who was stripped of her role in a school play during an illness, seated herself in a desk on stage, chained herself to the desk, and chained the desk to a door; in 1937, construction began on a swimming pool on Riverside Drive in Reno's Idlewild Park; in 1941 at Victor Studios, Duke Ellington and his orchestra made the first recording of his trademark Take The A Train; in 1973, the Nixon administration was forced to drop its effort to prosecute investigative reporter Les Whitten, an aide to columnist Jack Anderson, and Native American leaders Anita Collins and Hank Adams after a federal grand jury refused to indict them for possession of stolen government documents; in 2002, George Bush approved Nevada's selection for a dump at Yucca Mountain for other states' high level nuclear wastes; in 2003 in what is believed to have been the largest protest in human history, millions of people in Barcelona, Madrid, Manila, Berlin, London, Glasgow, Andalusia, Paris, Tokyo, Tel Aviv, Istanbul, Toronto, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary, Ontario, Buenos Aires, Stuttgart, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Bangkok, Berne, Helsinki, Jakarta, Athens, Nova Scotia, Hong Kong, Canary Islands, Malta, Cyprus, Belgium, Austria, New Zealand, Bosnia, South Africa, Honduras, New Zealand, Hungary, Netherlands, Antarctica, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Equador, Brazil, Ireland, South Korea, Lebanon, Russia, Japan, India, Ukraine, Croatia, Singapore, Slovenia, Norway, Portugal, Brazil, Basque Country, Iceland, Poland and 600 U.S. communities (including September 11 targets New York and Washington) protested Bush administration plans to invade Iraq.

UPDATE: Saturday, 14 Feb. 2009 18:53:50 PST, 02:53:50 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUT 15 Feb. 2009 –

Ground Hog day was warm
     and fine;
But look what we get
     for a Valentine!

Nevada State Journal
February 14, 1954

On this date in 270, Christian leader Valentine was beheaded on the road between Gaul and Rome (the date is traditional); in 1843, a performance was held in Rochdale, England, immortalized more than a century later in lyrics For the Benefit of Mr. Kite (see below for a transcript of the poster of the original performance, which in an antique store inspired John Lennon to write the song); in 1880, the U.S. Senate confirmed James E. Spencer of New York as Indian agent for Nevada; in 1903, the Western Federation of Miners struck for an eight hour day in Cripple Creek, Colorado; in 1914, the Nevada State Journal reported that "Experiments have determined that there is nothing in the fruit, vegetable and cereal lines with the exception of lemons and oranges that cannot be grown advantageously and in commercial quantities in Las Vegas valley. Even cotton and almonds are raised, cotton being one of the principal products of the valley."; in 1933 in Florida, Giuseppe Zangara fired shots at a car carrying President-elect Franklin Roosevelt and Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, killing Cermak; in 1944, Lake Tahoe residents marked this as the centennial of the white discovery of Lake Tahoe; in 1961, testimony began in the trial of physician Thomas Wyatt, owner of Carson Hot Springs, on charges of performing an abortion; in 1967, Aretha Franklin recorded (Otis Redding's) Respect; in 1972, adding one more bit of colorful lore to the history of rock, John and Yoko began a week's stint as cohosts of the Mike Douglas Show; in 2002, the Bush White House announced a program to delay reducing major air pollutants which, in typical PR language, was called the Clear Skies Initiative.

PABLO FANQUE'S CIRCUS ROYAL
Town-Meadows, Rochdale
Grandest Night of the Season!
and positively the
LAST NIGHT BUT THREE!
being for the
BENEFIT OF MR.KITE,
(late of Well's Circus) and
Mr. J. Henderson,
the celebrated somerset-thrower!
Wire dancer, vaulter, rider, etc.

On TUESDAY Evening, February 14, 1843
Mssrs. Kite and Henderson, in announcing the
following Entertainments ensure
the Public that this Night's Production will be
one of the most splendid ever produced in this Town,
having been some days in preparation.

Mr. Kite will, for this night only, introduce the celebrated
HORSE ZANTHUS!
Well known to be one of the best Broke horses
IN THE WORLD!!!

Mr. HENDERSON will undertake the arduous Task of
THROWING TWENTY-ONE SOMERSETS,
on the solid ground.
Mr. KITE will appear, for the first time this season,
On The Tight Rope,
When Two Gentlemen Amateurs of this Town will
perform with him.
Mr. HENDERSON will, for the first time in Rochdale,
introduce his extraordinary
TRAMPOLINE LEAPS and SOMERSETS!
Over Men & Horses, through Hoops, over Garters
and lastly through a Hogshead of
REAL FIRE! In this branch of the profession
Mr. H challenges THE WORLD!

UPDATE: Friday, 13 Feb. 2009 08:58:48 PST, 16:58:48 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUT –

John Adams/February 13, 1818:
The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the hearts and minds of the people. This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.

On this date in 1822, Missouri Lieutenant Governor William Ashley and his business partner Andrew Henry published a St. Louis newspaper ad seeking fur trappers "to ascend the river Missouri to its source, there to be employed for one, two, or three years", an important step in the subsequent fate of the west (Ashley later sold the fur business to Jedediah Smith, the first known Euro-American to enter the Great Basin); in 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt, speaking to the New York City Republican Club, gave a patronizing analysis of race relations in the U.S. that urged "that the backward race [African-Americans] be trained so that it may enter into possession of true freedom while the forward race [whites] enabled to preserve unharmed the high civilization wrought out by its forefathers"; in 1917, the revolution got underway with strikes and assemblies in Petrograd; in 1925, silver was discovered in Spring Valley, Nevada; in 1937, Episcopal vicar William Stonson said that "paganism" was disappearing from the Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation; in 1946, homecoming African-American veteran Isaac Woodard was blinded while being mistreated by Atlanta police, an incident described in the Woody Guthrie song, The Ballad of Isaac Woodard; in 1964, Elvis Presley donated Franklin Roosevelt's presidential yacht, the Potomac, to St. Jude's Hospital; in 1965, the Western Shoshone, recently organized into an official organization with more than a thousand enrolled members so far, held a tribal meeting in Austin; in 1967, the Beatles single Penny Lane b/w Strawberry Fields Forever was released in the U.S. (in Britain on the 17th), signaling the group's growing use of electronically produced music, one of those rare 45s that produced hits on both sides; in 1975, members of the Nevada Senate budget committee scrutinizing the athletic funding of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said they worried that "the tail is wagging the dog" with academics becoming secondary to athletics; in 1987 in Moscow, CNN reporter Peter Arnett, covering a protest by Jewish dissidents, was beaten by KGB agents and dumped in an alley, his camerawoman knocked to the ground and kicked; in 2002, Jason Disney of Fallon died in Afghanistan; in 2004, about 18 minutes after midnight, the cost of the Iraq war reached $100,801,621,000; in 2005 at about 2 in the afternoon, the cost of the Iraq war reached $154,198,165,392; in 2007 at 9:02 a.m. PST, the cost of the Iraq war reached $366,069,655,984; in 2009 at about 8:52 a.m., the cost of the Iraq war reached $596,575,266,002 ($5,344,219,466 of that came from Nevadans).

Live Streaming Barbwire.TV
Monday thru Friday
Reno-Sparks-Washoe Charter cable channels 16 and 216

2 :00-4:00 p.m. PST
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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

 

UPDATE: Thursday, 12 Feb. 2009 00:11:44 PST, 08:11:44 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUT On this date in 1837, Thomas Moran, expedition artist on the 1870s U.S. Geological Survey of the Territories, whose paintings and sketches of the west helped introduce U.S. citizens to the beauty of the little known west (including Nevada's Rubies), was born in Bolton, England; in 1793, the Fugitive Slave Law was enacted, empowering slave owners to reclaim "their 'property'"; in 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born in Hodgenville, Kentucky; in 1900, Lift Every Voice and Sing by James Weldon Johnson, considered the black national anthem, was performed for the first time by a choir composed of schoolchildren at segregated Stanton School in Jacksonville, where Johnson was principal; in 1909, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded; in 1909 at a cornerstone ceremony for a memorial to Abraham Lincoln at his birthplace of Hodgenville, Kentucky, attended by President Theodore Roosevelt, press reports said there was "a notable lack of negroes" in attendance; in 1915, Lorne Greene, who visited Nevada repeatedly after he took on the role of "Ben Cartwright" in Bonanza, was born in Ontario; in 1937, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes approved an agreement among Washoe County, the federal government and Sierra Pacific Power Company on the operation of the proposed Boca reservoir; in 1937 in a ceremony in the Nevada Assembly hall on Abraham Lincoln's 128th birthday, the Nevada chapter of the Grand Army of the Republic (an organization for civil war vets) folded; in 1944, K.L. Ogden's three month gambling license to operate one nickel slot machine and one dime slot machine on the main ground floor of the Corral Bar in Fallon expired (the date of issue on the license, which was signed by G. Etcheverry, was twelve days after the license expired); in 1950, Eleanor Roosevelt interviewed Albert Einstein on television and he spoke out against President Truman's new crash program to develop a hydrogen bomb, prompting the Immigration Service to try to deport him and the FBI to start trying to find derogatory information on him; in 1962, Reverend Robert Spike, general secretary of the Board of Home Missions of the United Church of Christ, said "There are times when I see the city of Las Vegas as a preview of the future of civilization – and if that isn't horrifying, I don't know what is. Las Vegas could be the of the horrible future of a nation that owes its existence to self-indulgence which can only survive by spending more and more to pamper itself." (Reverend Tally Jarrett of Las Vegas's Christ Church Episcopal: "A churchman's job is to bring men to Christ. And if he [Spike] spent the time doing this he wouldn‚t have time to condemn others."); in 1968, Jimi Hendrix performed for the students of Garfield High School in Seattle; in 1997, The Washington Post reported on China funneling money to the Democratic National Committee in a probable effort to influence Clinton administration policies; in 2008, a 15 year-old gay child named Lawrence King who was kicking around in the foster care system as an abused child was murdered by a fellow student in a school lab in Oxnard, California; in 2008, a week after he won 13 states to Hillary Clinton's nine in the "super-Tuesday" contests, Barack Obama won Maryland, D.C. and Virginia, beginning an eleven-state winning streak that lasted until March 4.

UPDATE: Wednesday, 11 Feb. 2009 20:16:58 PST, 06:16:58 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUT 2-12-2009 – On this date in 1858, fourteen year old Bernadette Soubirous of Lourdes experienced the first of many apparitions of a woman; in 1861, Abraham Lincoln, departing for the District of Columbia to become president in March, spoke in Springfield to say goodbye to the people of Illinois (see below); in 1870 at the Carson City branch of the U.S. Mint, the first coin (a seated liberty dollar) was struck; in 1916 as she was about to enter Vorwart Hall on East Broadway in New York City to give a lecture on atheism, Emma Goldman was arrested for violating Penal Code section 1,142 by giving a February 8 lecture at the New Star Casino on what the New York Times called "a medical topic" – birth control (the crowd of 500 who were waiting to hear Goldman's atheism lecture dogged the police officers back to the station, cheering Goldman and jeering at the police); in 1916, Reno's Twentieth Century Club heard Jean Morris Ellis speak on eugenics; in 1937, the last assets of the Bank of Sparks were auctioned off in justice court, reportedly making it the first bank in the state to be completely liquidated; in 1962, former Nevada assemblymember and senator Newt Crumley, who brought big name entertainment to the Commercial Hotel in Elko in 1941 and later owned the Holiday Hotel in Reno, died in a plane crash; in 1964, The Beatles appeared in their first U.S. concert at the Washington Sports Arena in D.C., with The Chiffons, Tommy Roe, and The Caravelles as the opening acts; in 1979 after dictator Reza Pahlavi's flight from the country and the Khomeini government came to power, Iranian Prime Minister Shapur Bakhtiar stepped down after serving for 37 days and went into exile where he was eventually assassinated in Paris by Khomeini followers (during those 37 days, Bakhtiar dismantled the hated Savak secret police); in 1999, the distinguished Latter Day Saints historian Leonard Arrington (Great Basin Kingdom) died in Salt Lake City; in 2006 on a quail hunt, Richard Cheney shot a friend, Harry Whittington, in the face.

President-elect Abraham Lincoln/Springfield, Illinois/February 11, 1861:
My friends, no one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of the Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell.

UPDATE: Tuesday, 10 Feb. 2009 10:54 p.m. PST, 06:54 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUT 2-11-2009 –

BREAKING NEWS

MARCH OF THE UNEMPLOYED IN RENO
Out-of-work carpenter leads demonstration this Friday

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT
DARYL BODICK, (775) 674-9044

RENO, Nev. (U-News) – A union carpenter is organizing a march of the unemployed from the University of Nevada to the downtown Reno riverfront this Friday, Feb. 13.

Daryl Bodick, 45, a member of United Brotherhood of Carpenters Local 971, says he wants to generate support for President Obama's infrastructure stimulus plan.

Chilly congrats
Barbwire 2-15-2009

Jobless take to the streets
Daily Sparks Tribune 2-14-2009

"It's time to take it to the streets," Bodick says, "the more marchers, the bigger the message."

Bodick invites and encourages the general public to make their own signs and join the walk.

"As we look for work, job opportunities are diminishing. For every position, there are hundreds of applicants. There are more jobs being eliminated than created. We need immediate action. I hope people in other communities across the country will do what we are doing and turn this into a national campaign to send a message to Washington that we need help and we need it now," Bodick stated.

Bodick will be Andrew Barbano's guest on the Barbwire 2-4:00 p.m. Thursday on SNCAT Charter digital cable channels 16 and 216 in Reno-Sparks-Washoe, streaming at Barbwire.TV and KJIV.org. Viewers may ask questions via chat-crawl at the website or by phone call at (775) 682-4144.

"Obstructionists in Congress have succeeded in watering down and slowing down the president's plan to kick-start the economy. As it now stands, 42 percent is comprised of tax cuts which will do only marginal good," Bodick added.

MSNBC reported on Monday that "according to Moodys.com, every dollar spent on nonrefundable tax rebates generates about $1.02 of economic activity. Every dollar spent on infrastructure…creates $1.59 in economic activity."*

Bodick has been out of work for a year.

The march will form at 11:00 a.m. at Archie's Restaurant, 2195 N. Virginia St., across from UNR where N. Sierra and N. Virginia streets converge. Marchers will proceed to Wingfield Park on the Truckee riverfront in downtown Reno.

The restaurant is allowing people to assemble in the parking lot, but not leave vehicles there, as it has only about a dozen spaces for customers.

"Marchers may obtain a three-dollar day pass at the UNR parking structure service center building on 16th street and park in the garage north of Lawlor Events Center," Bodick said. People may also take the free Regional Transportation Commission RTC Sierra Spirit bus service from downtown to Archie's, he added.

He is working on other parking alternatives which will be posted at NevadaLabor.com as they are finalized. The website will also be updated with continuing news bulletins about Bodick's campaign.
__
Directions to the UNR Parking and Transportation Services Department Office, North Virginia at 16th Street — Head north on North Virginia Street and make a right turn on 16th Street. The office is located on the immediate right, in the tan building, #106. Please call (775) 784-4654 with any UNR parking questions.
___
*Commentary by Rachel Maddow, MSNBC, 2-9-2009

CWA 9413/AFL-CIO

-30-

UPDATE: Tuesday, 10 Feb. 2009 00:02:39 PST, 08:02:39 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUT – On this date in 1763, the Treaty of Paris ended the Seven Years War (the north American theatre was known as the French and Indian war), a world war between Austria, France, Russia, Saxony, Sweden and Spain versus England, Prussia and Hanover, with France ceding Canada to England (though Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, was returned to France and remains today as the only French colony in North America), elevating England and Prussia to major European powers; in 1865, legendary western lawman, attorney, politician and educator Elfago Baca, a champion of Latinos against white prejudice, was born in Socorro, New Mexico; in 1897, The New York Times added the slogan "All the news that's fit to print" to its front page (a contest for a replacement slogan was later held, with "All the world's news, but not a school for scandal" the winner, but it was not used and the old slogan was still kept in place); in 1900 in the Yukon, the Nome News reported that the office of Nome city attorney, occupied by Key Pittman, was abolished as a cost saving measure; in 1914, with a special session of the Nevada Legislature two weeks off, one member of the senate (W.F. Heffernan of Esmeralda County) was known to be living in Canada, one assemblymember (Halbert Bulmer of Storey) was traveling in South America, another (J.H. Cocks of Storey) was living in Alameda County, a third (George Coze of Lincoln) was rumored to be living in Utah, and fourth (W.D. Coppernoll of Lander) could not be located; in 1961, a bill was introduced in the Nevada Senate to remove Nevada District Judge John Sexton, who had sat on a politically sensitive Clark County strike injunction and also been cited for driving under the influence of alcohol, by the simple expedient of eliminating his judicial district (Assemblymember William Swackhamer, one of Judge Sexton's fellow Battle Mountaineers, said if the senate approved the bill he would put through a bill to remove a Clark County judge); in 1967, Laura Dern was born in Los Angeles; in 1981, a fire at the Las Vegas Hilton killed eight people and injured 198 others, reviving sprinkler retrofit legislation at the Nevada Legislature (introduced as a reaction to the 1980 MGM hotel fire that killed 84 people) that casino lobbyists had nearly succeeded in killing; in 2008, the Grammy awards presented a tribute to The Beatles introduced by Tom Hanks: "Together these four men made music that changed the history of our planet. Tonight we honor the power of The Beatles, the power they still create in our lives."; in 2008, U.S. Senator Barack Obama won his second "best spoken word album" Grammy for the audiobook of his book The Audacity of Hope, winning over Bill Clinton.

Live Streaming Barbwire.TV
Monday thru Friday
Reno-Sparks-Washoe Charter cable channels 16 and 216

2 :00-4:00 p.m. PST
22:00-24:00 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUT

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

 

UPDATE: Monday, 9 Feb. 2009 08:57:59, 16:57 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUT – On this date in 1267, the Catholic Synod of Breslau, Poland required Jews to wear distinctive caps (the same synod that year also forced Jews into compulsory ghettos), techniques later imitated by Nazi Germany; in 1825, the U.S. House of Representatives appointed the loser in the 1824 election, John Quincy Adams, to be president; in 1886, geologist Vincent Gianella, University of Nevada faculty member (1923-1952) after whom the mineral Gianellaite is named, was born in Marysville, California; in 1893, Nevada Assemblymember S.G. Boston, a Lyon County Republican, introduced "An act to prohibit the manufacture and sale or wearing of hoop skirts and methods of detection, etc." (though the assembly had a trades and manufactures committee and a public morals committee, the hoop skirts measure was sent to the internal improvements committee – and never heard of again); in 1914, two representatives of the Washoe Building Trades began a tour of the state to gather material for the Annual Labor Review; in 1940, the NBC Radio program Death Valley Days broadcast a radio play titled Nevada, The Battle Born; in 1951, El Rancho Vegas casino dealer Jack Waer was the first witness called before a federal grand jury investigation of mobster Mickey Cohen in Los Angeles; in 1953, air force officials, noting that there were no clubs in Reno that would admit African-Americans, urged the Reno city council to approve a liquor license for Theresa King who wanted to operate King's Lounge at 900 East Commercial Row (Col. Willard Walter said that when the old Reno Army Air Base was reactivated in 1952, the lack of facilities for blacks became a morale problem; Dr. Morse Little provided a character reference for Ms. King); in 1964, The Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, drawing an audience of 73 million; in 1977, after a hearing from which the public was barred and at which his defenders were not permitted to testify, University of Nevada Reno Sagebrush editor Gary Jesch was fired by the student senate, allegedly for misconduct but after complaints by his critics about news coverage critical of the student government (Jesch was promptly hired by the new editor to be news editor); in 1982, Vice-President George Bush denied ever using the term "voodoo economics" to describe the policies of Ronald Reagan, challenging anyone to produce taped proof, which NBC's Ken Bode did in an on-air report (Bush conceded defeat in a note to Bode); in 2000, Nevada archives manager Jeff Kintop gave a workshop on "Disaster planning for records of all kinds."

UPDATE: Sunday, 8 Feb. 2009 10:57:22 PST, 18:57 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUT – On this date in 1837, the U.S. Senate appointed Richard Johnson of Kentucky vice-president after the selection of a vice-president was thrown into the Senate when no candidate won a majority of electors (Johnson served his four years while presiding over the senate, working for Native American schooling, openly enjoying the company of his African-American common law wife and children, and spending one summer as manager of a small inn); in 1895, the Nevada Assembly approved "an act to prohibit the sale of ardent spirits within the capitol building of the State of Nevada"; in 1912, Governor Tasker Oddie called the Nevada Legislature into special session to deal with the empty state treasury; in 1912, Elko Free Press editor E.M. Steninger called on Governor Oddie to add to the special session call the question of prohibiting prize fights in order to prevent the Jack Johnson/Jim Flynn fight from taking place in Elko County (the Steninger plan was not followed, but the fight wasn't held in Nevada, it was held in Las Vegas, New Mexico); in 1918, the army newspaper Stars and Stripes, previously published for servicepeople in the civil war, was revived for two years to serve servicepeople in the world war (a front page story said Allied prisoners of war were being made to clean the latrine of the German Crown Prince); in 1937, during a "committee of the whole" session of the Nevada Assembly, Assemblymember Doug Tandy of Lander County presided, the first time since 1920 that a Democrat did not preside over the Assembly (the Political History of Nevada records him as a Republican; press reports of the time said he was an independent); in 1945, 350 U.S. soldiers – at least 150 Jews, others thought to be Jewish, and others considered troublemakers – culled by German soldiers from thousands of U.S. prisoners of war captured in the battle of the bulge, were sent to Berga-an-der-Elster concentration camp, the only known case of U.S. soldiers being caught up in the Nazi camps (some of the Jews were identified because their Army dog tags had the letter H for Hebrew stamped on them; following the war, survivors were given U.S. "security certificates" ordering them not to tell the story of Berga); in 1960, Teen Angel by one hit wonder Mark Dinning, about a couple that fled their car parked on the railroad tracks after which she "went running back" to get her going-steady ring only to be flattened by a train, hit number one on the Billboard chart (it is one of the best known, and possibly the first, of a string of teen tragedy songs featuring motorcycle crashes, car wrecks, plane crashes, suicides and so on); in 1964, in an effort to kill the 1964 civil rights bill, white supremacist U.S. Representative Howard Smith of Virginia introduced an amendment to the 1964 civil rights act extending the bill's protections to gender discrimination, causing President Johnson, liberals and civil rights leaders to oppose the Smith amendment, which nevertheless was attached to the bill by a 168 to 133 votes, making Howard Smith the father of sexual discrimination law (a National Women's Party member was ejected from the House hall when she yelled from the balcony "We‚ve won! We've won!"); in 1966, U.S. Senators Howard Cannon and Alan Bible voted against ending a filibuster designed to halt approval of union shops; in 1969, after the break up of Cream and Traffic, Ginger Baker, Stevie Winwood and Eric Clapton announced they were forming a new group that (after Rich Grech was added) became Blind Faith, which produced one monumental album and a legendary riot-torn concert tour before breaking up after only seven months; in 1977, in what was probably part of an effort to win support for the Equal Rights Amendment, President Carter telephoned Clark County senators Floyd Lamb and Eugene Echols and small counties Senator Norm Glaser, but was only able to reach Echols, who still voted against the ERA; in 1978, auto manufacturers critic Ralph Nader arrived in Reno for a speech, was picked up at the airport in a four door sedan, and when they arrived at the destination he pulled up on the door lock button and the entire apparatus fell apart; in 1980, President Carter proposed reviving mandatory registration for the draft; in 2007 in Mecca in a power sharing arrangement brokered by Saudi Arabia, Hamas and Fatah agreed on a national unity government for Palestine, generating a wave of relief across the world except in Israel and the U.S., which went to work seeding divisions between the two factions, including U.S. shipments of weapons to Fatah in Gaza and maintaining crippling sanctions on the Hamas government).

UPDATE: Sat., 7 Feb 2009 00:23:12, 08:23 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUT On this date in 1603, The Famous Historie of Troylus and Cresseid, Shakespeare's antiwar and anti-imperial play, was registered at the Stationers Company in London (now called Troilus and Cressida); in 1879 on an 18 to six vote, the Nevada Senate unseated Douglas County Senator Henry Dangberg, elected as an independent, and seated Republican James Haines, who lost to Dangberg in the November election by two votes (before the vote, the senate party breakdown was Republicans 16, Democrats 7, Citizens 1); in 1889, Piutes began a five day festival on the Nevada Rifle Association range near Virginia City; in 1912, Thomas Edison said France was becoming degenerate and the reason was the cigarette: "It is not the tobacco. It is the paper wrapping. The curse of absinthe is nothing compared to that of cigarettes. The world ought to follow Indiana in its legislation prohibiting the sale of cigarettes."; in 1945, Lutheran theologian and resistance leader Dietrich Bonhoeffer was sent to Buchenwald, where he died; in 1948, If You Knew Susie starring Joan Davis and Eddie Cantor was released, the last known film to use blackface (other than ironically or to recreate a historical period), though some critics consider A Mighty Heart starring Angelina Jolie – in which Jolie was heavily made up to portray a bi-racial person instead of just hiring a bi-racial actress – is the new title holder; in 1963, Sparks Nugget owner Dick Graves purchased a lot at 1402 B Street in Sparks and was rumored to be planning construction of housing for his thousand workers at the Nugget; in 1965, President Johnson ordered the bombing of Vietnam's north, provoking the Soviet Union to start sending surface to air missiles to Hanoi (the bombing continued, with occasional interruptions, for years; Vice-President Hubert Humphrey, who spoke against the bombing in National Security Council deliberations, was then excluded from Vietnam policy and planning for one year ); in 1968 at the battle of Ben Tre, a U.S. major told Associated Press reporter Peter Arnett "They are our friends out there. We waited until we had no choice. The Vietnamese chief of staff had to bring in an air strike on the house of his neighbor because the communists had occupied it. Our own positions were threatened, the government center nearly overrun. It became necessary to destroy the town to save it."; in 1980, Pink Floyd performed The Wall live onstage for the first time at the Los Angeles Sports Arena; in 1990, President Mikhail Gorbachev's recommendation that the Communist Party end its monopoly control of the political system was adopted by the party Central Committee, allowing other parties to enter political activity; in 2006, the CBS Evening News, in its coverage of the funeral of Coretta Scott King, failed to report the comments of Reverend Joseph Lowery and other speakers calling George Bush to account while Bush was seated in the audience ("We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there. [Standing Ovation] But Coretta knew and we know that there are weapons of misdirection right down here – millions without health insurance, poverty abounds, for war billions more but no more for the poor.").

UPDATE: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 09:40:59, 17:40 ZULU/GMT/CUT/SUT On this date in 1778, the Treaty of Amity and Commerce and the Treaty of Alliance was signed by representatives of France and the United States in Paris, giving recognition by a major European power to the U.S. and creating a military alliance against England, with U.S. independence spelled out as a condition of peace and the agreement of France to any peace agreement required; in 1790, after a thousand men worked for the better part of a year to tear down the hated Bastille, the last stone was presented to the French National Assembly; in 1899, a peace treaty formally ending the Spanish-American War and purchasing the Phillippines (which the U.S. had invaded and occupied while posing as liberators) from Spain for $20 million, was ratified by the U.S. Senate; in 1919, after local businesses used wartime sentiment to roll back recent wage gains, laborers in Seattle – having made provision to keep basic city services operating – launched a general strike that shut down the city, an effort that was portrayed by newspapers across the nation as the start of a Bolshevik uprising and resulted in the mayor and U.S. military intelligence officials mobilizing more than 3,000 operatives in military, vigilante and local police forces to crack down on the strike and send two railroad cars of strike leaders across the country in a train they called the "Red Special" to be turned over to Ellis Island officials for deportation, though all but three were later released (the strike lasted five days and ended when national labor leaders intervened on the side of business); in 1937, as the road between Reno and Carson was cleared after several days of being blocked by snow, Senator Frank Ryan of Clark County floated the idea of changing the law so that future legislatures started on July 1; in 1958, George Harrison probably met John Lennon and Paul McCartney for the first time at an appearance of the Lennon band, The Quarry Men, at Wilson Hall in Liverpool; in 1966, the Associated Press reported that in the Dominican Republic, provisional president Hector Garcia Godoy, who was installed after the U.S. invaded and occupied the nation, was being referred to as Hector Garcia Bunker (Ellsworth Bunker was the U.S. ambassador in the Republic); in 1966, the Las Vegas draft board, which called up 65 men in December and January, had to find another fifty for February (board clerk Cecile Oram: "With these high calls, the married man will have to be the next to go...And full time college students are much farther down the list."); in 1985, President Reagan announced the "Reagan Doctrine" asserting a U.S. self-defense authority to decide who around the world is freedom loving and intervene on their side, a doctrine used to try to overthrow the Nicaraguan government and intervene in the Angolan civil war; in 2003, an interAfrican conference called for commemoration of February 6 as an annual day of opposition to the practice of female genital mutilation.



THOU SHALT NOT BARBWIRE
Lipstick revisionism and toxic foreign affairs
Barbwire / Daily Sparks Tribune / 2-8-2009

TODAY ON THE BARBWIRE
Affairs of ancient and emerging states
FULL FRONTAL HILLARY ALERT: I have been informed that the state department is reviewing whether or not to let the visiting Kyrgyz journalists do my show, given the Russian power play. Stay tuned.
Barbwire / Daily Sparks Tribune /
2-1-2009
Updated 2-5-2009

UPDATE: Thursday, 5 Feb. 2009, 12:01 a.m. PST, 08:01 GMT/ZULU/SUT/CUT/SUT –

U.S. State Department muzzles visiting journalists from Kyrgyzstan

To: Jenny Bishop, Program Coordinator
International Visitor Leadership Program

Northern Nevada International Center
University of Nevada-Reno

From: Andrew Barbano / Barbwire.TV

Dear Ms. Bishop:

I appreciate caution in Foggy Bottom. However, the one thing I don't see is a response from any of our distinguished visitors themselves.

I am no Central Asia expert and would pose questions no harder than those of the average American on the street, e.g., details on the economic stresses on President Bakiyev which have reportedly played a part in this week's situation to oust the U.S. from the Kyrgyz base at Manas. Getting a feeling for how the U.S.-Afghan-Pakistan war affects everyday life in their country would provide Americans with a fresh perspective.

Alas and alack, it would be a disservice to my viewers to ignore the recent news on the front page of just about every newspaper in the world, including Nevada's. I thus cannot participate in a government-controlled interview.

Bush and Cheney are out of office.

I realize that Kyrgystan's political environment is different from ours, but since these are all experienced journalists, any question that goes too far could simply be evaded. They know how far they can go.

Again, I would like to know what they have to say rather than what our government has to say for them.

I am sorry that they will not be made available to do my show and hope that they enjoy their lunch and tour of Sierra Nevada Community Access television and KJIV.org in Reno today.

Please stay in touch for the future.

Be well. Raise hell.

Andrew Barbano
NevadaLabor.com
Barbwire.TV
Resurge.TV

ec: interested parties

For details about northern Nevada's three Kyrgyz visitors, go to
http://www.nevadalabor.com/barbwire/barb09/barb2-1-09.html

CWA 9413/AFL-CIO
_____

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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

 

Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 09:50:52 -0800
Subject: Fwd: FW: interviewing delegates from the Kyrgyz Republic
From: Jenny Bishop <leah3586@gmail.com>
To: barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us

Hello Mr. Barbano,

These are the e-mails from my program officer and the state department. They can be interviewed, but not on a political matter. These delegates were invited as guests to our country to learn about managers of local radio stations. It would be inappropriate to put them in this situation of answering questions about their current country political situation. Putting the delegates in this situation could put them in danger for returning to their home country. Since they are guests to our country, we need to respect them concerning this matter.

If you have any further questions or concerns please contact our Executive Director, Carina Black. 775-784-7515 x 221

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: Crystal Kelch <<mailto:crkelch@mcidwashington.org>crkelch@mcidwashington.org>

Date: 2009/2/5
Subject: FW: interviewing delegates from the Kyrgyz Republic
To: Jenny Bishop <<mailto:leah3586@gmail.com>leah3586@gmail.com>
Cc: Carina A Black <<mailto:cblack@unr.edu>cblack@unr.edu>

Hello ladies,

I just wanted to pass along the information from TJ, State Department PO, regarding the potential interview/call-in show for the Kyrgyz delegation. He doesn't think that the subject matter would be appropriate for this delegation. Please call me if you have any questions.
See below.

Crystal R. Kelch
Director, MCID Washington
1636 Connecticut Avenue, NW
3rd floor
Washington, DC 20009
Telephone: (202) 667-6248/(800) 413-9845
Fax: (202) 667-6240
Website:  <http://www.mcidwashington.org>www.mcidwashington.org

-----Original Message-----

From: Grubisha, Thomas J [mailto:<mailto:GrubishaTJ@state.gov>GrubishaTJ@state.gov]
Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2009 11:17 AM
To: Crystal Kelch
Subject: RE: interviewing delegates from the Kyrgyz Republic

Probably not the best idea to have these Radio folks try to answer questions that would be better answered by the Kyrgyz government... If he wanted to interview them about the program, their impressions and experiences to date, where they've been, etc... that could work - but let's not get political. 

If he wants to do that kind of interview (with a strong understanding of what NOT to do), great, go ahead and query the group for interest. If they have too many preconditions or questions about how it might work, I would then recommend against it. We had an Uzbek delegation recently that was trying to make sure they 'cleared' on the final version of whatever was put out and released, not understanding how our system worked and not getting why they couldn't really request that - they were worried it would be mishandled/misconstrued and get back home (which was likely). In the end, we decided not to do it.

Thanks,
T.J.
T.J. Grubisha


"Only my mother calls me Thomas/Tom, and only when she's angry...!"

IVLP Program Officer
Central Asian Republics
U.S. Department of State
202-203-7606

<mailto:GrubishaTJ@state.gov>GrubishaTJ@state.gov

From: Crystal Kelch [mailto:<mailto:crkelch@mcidwashington.org>crkelch@mcidwashington.org]
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 3:46 PM
To: Grubisha, Thomas J
Subject: FW: interviewing delegates from the Kyrgyz Republic

Hi TJ,

I spoke with Jenny (Reno CIV) recently about one of the interlocutor's interest in interviewing our delegation (details are below). Because the group is in transit from Seattle to Reno she hasn't reached Artem just yet to see if the group has any interest in talking about the topic. Please let me know if the powers-that-be will clear this interview. After I hear from you, I will check with Artem for the group's reaction. If we all are on the same page, we'll give Jenny the thumbs-up.

Warmly,
Crystal R. Kelch
Director, MCID Washington
1636 Connecticut Avenue, NW
3rd floor
Washington, DC 20009
Telephone: (202) 667-6248/(800) 413-9845
Fax: (202) 667-6240
Website:  <http://www.mcidwashington.org>www.mcidwashington.org

-----Original Message-----

From: Jenny Bishop [mailto:<mailto:leah3586@gmail.com>leah3586@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 3:09 PM
To: Crystal Kelch
Subject: interviewing delegates from the Kyrgyz Republic

Hello Crystal,

I tried to call Artem regarding this interview but he is in the air.

Sierra Nevada Community Access Television has a community radio station. KJIV-Community Radio, affiliated with SNCAT, streams live on the web. KJIV is working toward establishing an FM radio station. Support community radio by buying a piece of our FM tower, and forever be remembered as being a sponsor who helped get KJIV Radio on the air!

Andrew Barbano, host of this radio will be meeting with the delegates to discuss the station and how their organization works. Mr. Barbano also wants to possibly interview the delegates about the Kyrgyz Republic closing down the US military base. He was going to bring them on the show and have callers call in. Is this going to be a problem?

Thank you,

Jenny Bishop
Program Coordinator
International Visitor Leadership Program
Northern Nevada International Center
Office: 775-784-7515 x 223
Mobile: 775-790-4085



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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

 

Thu., 5 Feb. 2009, 00:08:21, 08:08:21 GMT/ZULU/SUT/CUT/SUT – On this date in 1631, Roger Williams, who would become a defender of religious freedom, advocate of Native Americans, and founder of the Providence Plantation (Rhode Island) colony as a refuge from state religions, arrived in Boston; in 1883 in a sharp breach of the separation of powers the Nevada Legislature, meeting in joint session, appointed Frank Bell state prison warden; in 1891, it was reported that the anti-Native American campaign that included the massacre at Wounded Knee Creek cost the U.S. $2,000,000 ($41 million in 2005 dollars) and the Nevada State Journal editorialized that it would be "cheaper to maintain military posts in the Indian country and prevent outbreaks than to fight Indians" (no suggestion that outbreaks could also be prevented by fair treatment of the tribes); in 1902, there was a dispute in Lovelock over the Southern Pacific Railroad's assertion of ownership of all the land for 200 feet on either side of the roadbed, since it meant that the SP owned the town; in 1917, while the Carson band played patriotic music in the Nevada Assembly hall, a joint session of the Nevada Legislature pledged support for any war President Wilson decided to launch; in 1937, Nevada Highway Department Director Robert Allen called for a force of six highway patrol officers to patrol state highways; in 1940, the Glenn Miller Orchestra recorded "Tuxedo Junction"; in 1960, four year old Steven Walls wandered off from his family's sheep farm in Australia, prompting a remarkable mass search by thousands of volunteers that located the boy (who had been warned by his parents to stay away from strangers) after he led them on a merry chase for four days during which he covered seven miles until he was found alive and well (the story was told in a 1978 movie, Little Boy Lost); in 1966, Tony Hatch's "My Love" by English movie star Petula Clark hit number one on the Billboard chart, the second of fifteen number one hits she had in the United States; in 1967, CBS put the Smothers Comedy Brothers Hour on the air opposite Bonanza hoping that the comedy duo could make some headway against the long time ratings powerhouse and the brothers blew Bonanza away; in 1969, ABC broadcast the biggest, shortest-lived turkey in television history – Turn On, a spin off of Laugh In that was so boring and tasteless that some local affiliates refused to air it and sponsor Bristol Myers dropped it (it was cancelled after a single show); in 1980, Nye County's corruption-busting Sheriff Joni Wines was recalled from office; in 2003 at the United Nations, a gullible U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell made the case for an armed and dangerous Iraq using false intelligence, a performance Powell later called "a blot" on his record though the testimony remained posted until January 19, 2009, on the White House web site (the occasion also provided classic evidence of the way mainstream journalism shapes the news to support the establishment – the networks carried Powell's testimony live but cut away from conflicting testimony by a better informed U.N. arms inspector).

Wed., 4 Feb. 2009 09:38:42, 17:38 GMT/ZULU/SUT/CUT/SUT – On this date in 1818, John Keats, Leigh Hunt and Percy Shelley spent an evening competing to write the best sonnet on the subject of the Nile; in 1861, Chiricahua chief Cochise accepted an invitation to meet with cavalry Lt. George Bascom at Arizona's Apache Pass, where he was accused of kidnapping a white boy and arrested (he escaped); in 1899, a long insurgency against U.S. aggression and occupation in the the Phillippines began; in 1927, after a Las Vegas glee club trip to Bunkerville was cancelled and the Tonopah basketball team cancelled its game with Bunkerville, reports of a quarantine of Bunkerville were exposed as a hoax; in 1941, the USO (United Service Organizations) was founded to provide support to military servicepeople on passes and leaves; in 1954 at a planning commission meeting in Las Vegas, residents objected to racial integration of apartment complexes near Nellis Air Base; in 1962, after the latest Pentagon experiment with new technology to win the war in Vietnam, veteran war correspondent Homer Bigart of the New York Times wrote a legendary story lead that foreshadowed U.S. ignorance of Vietnamese culture and much of the course of the rest of the war: "SAIGON, VIET NAM, Feb 4 – American antimalarial spray killed the cats that ate the rats that devoured the crops that were the main props against agitation in the central lowlands of South Vietnam. The result: a hungry, embittered rural population tending to support the Viet Cong insurgents."; in 1962, a sign that the NLF was beginning to adapt to and master U.S. technology came during the battle of Hong My when the first US helicopter was shot down in Vietnam; in 1966, four effigies were hung from a Nevada Southern University balcony, carrying labels with the names of three teachers and the Nevada Committee for Peace in Vietnam; in 1970, "Jim Bronson" arrived in Reno to visit his gambling addicted cousin in the dramatic television series Then Came Bronson; in 1977, a great one-night band made up of Gregg Allman, Donald Byrd, Charlie Daniels, Chuck Berry, Chuck Mangione, Les McCann, the Pointer Sisters, Johnny Rivers, Seals & Crofts, Doc Severinson, Junior Walker and several members of Booker T and the MGs performed on ABC; in 1992, President George Bush visited a National Grocers Association convention where he was puzzled by a price scanner at a grocery checkout counter; in 2008, the surviving members of the Grateful Dead reunited to play a San Francisco fundraiser for presidential candidate Barack Obama.

February 3d/The day the music died

Mon, 2 Feb 2009 23:42:12, 07:42 GMT/ZULU/SUT/CUT/SUT 2-3-2009 –

On Feb. 3, 1879
, the Nevada State Journal editorialized on proposed legislation in Congress to establish reservations for African-Americans: "It lacks practicality."; in 1909, U.S. Senator George Nixon sent a telegram to the Nevada Legislature on behalf of President Theodore Roosevelt, asking state lawmakers not to enact anti-Japanese resolutions (Speaker J.B. Giffen responded by introducing a resolution censuring Roosevelt); in 1920, six oil rigs were at work in Churchill County, according to a Fallon Eagle article recapped in the Reno Evening Gazette; in 1947, Percival Prattis became the first African-American reporter admitted to the congressional press galleries; in 1959, a small plane carrying Richie Valens, Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper crashed in a field near Mason City, Iowa, killing all aboard (Waylon Jennings and guitarist Tommy Allsup had given up their seats to Valens and the Bopper and Dion chose not to spend the $36 for the flight because it was the amount of a month's rent for his parents); in 1968, The Beatles recorded "Lady Madonna"; in 1968, the Nevada State Journal reported plans to shut down Vista airport east of Sparks; in 1998, joyriding U.S. Marine pilots flew between the upper and lower lines of an Italian cable car service, severing a line and sending a gondola crashing to the ground, killing 20 (the U.S. refused to recognize Italian law and sneaked the four crew members out of the country and back to the U.S. where the pilot was tried and acquitted by a Marine tribunal).

Date: Mon., 2 Feb. 2009 00:02:24, 00:02 GMT/ZULU/SUT/CUT/SUT– On this date in 1494, Christopher Columbus began the practice of enslaving Native Americans; in 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, concluding the U.S. war of aggression against Mexico, which was forced to turn over a third of its territory, including Nevada; in 1920, forty eight women social justice leaders around the U.S., including Nevada's Anne Martin, reported in New York that families of alleged political radicals arrested by the Wilson administration and held at Ellis Island for deportation were desperately in need; in 1933, the Reno Indian Colony adopted resolutions asking the Nevada Legislature to memorialize Congress to abolish the U.S Bureau of Indian Affairs – "nothing more or less than an organized body of white people who are living at ease at the expense of a race of Indians who are suffering from want" and provide relief to Native Americans made indigent by bureau practices; in 1954, snow fell on Gibraltar and Algeciras; in 1959, Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly, and the Big Bopper appeared at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa; in 1961, The New York Times reviewed The Misfits, filmed in Nevada: "As William Saroyan put it, 'There‚s no foundation all the way down the line.' Characters and theme do not congeal. There is a lot of absorbing detail in it, but it doesn't add up to a point."; in 1968, Star Trek producer Gene Roddenberry personally endorsed the war in Vietnam with the broadcast of the "A Private Little War" episode, which he wrote (see below); in 1981, Guy Louis Rocha became Nevada State Archivist; in 2008, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations/World Meteorological Organization panel, released a report years in the making and peer-reviewed in 130-plus nations that found human-caused "warming of the climate system is unequivocal", that even in the most positive scenario temperatures will reach an unsustainable level, findings that helped cause a sea change in attitudes in the United States toward the reliability of the science on climate change, prompting a shift in public policies toward prevention; in 2009, the Nevada Legislature goes into session; in 2009 assistant administrator of the Nevada State Library and Archives Guy Louis Rocha retires, 32 years after he entered state service at the Nevada Historical Society and 28 years after he became director of the Nevada State Archives.

From "A Private Little War" by Gene Roddenberry:

McCOY: I don‚t have a solution. But furnishing them with firearms is certainly not the answer!

KIRK: Bones, do you remember the twentieth-century brush wars on the Asian continent? Two giant powers involved, much like the Klingons and ourselves. Neither side felt that they could pull out?

McCOY: Yes, I remember˜it went on bloody year after bloody year!

KIRK: But what would you have suggested? That one side arm its friends with an overpowering weapon? Mankind would never have lived to travel space if they had. No˜the only solution is what happened, back then˜balance of power.

McCOY: And if the Klingons give their side even more?

KIRK: Then we arm our side with exactly that much more. A balance of power˜the trickiest, most difficult, dirtiest game of them all˜but the only one that preserves both sides!

Sun., 1 Feb. 2009 16:41:13 PST, 00:41 GMT/ZULU/SUT/CUT/SUT 2 Feb. 2009 – On Feb. 1, 1789, Vietnamese troops drove the forces of their ancient enemies, the Chinese, out of the Vietnamese capital of Thang Long (now Ha Noi); in 1964, without informing the public, the United States started the war in Vietnam by sending U.S. and Saigon on secret offensive raids (Operation Plan 34a) against northern Vietnamese coast and island installations, provoking Vietnamese attacks on a U.S. ship in the Gulf of Tonkin, which in turn were characterized by President Johnson as an attack instead of a retaliation and used as a pretext for an effective declaration of war; in 1968, David Leroy Collins of Carson City, Nevada, died in Vietnam (panel 36e, line 47 of the Vietnam wall).

 

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[[EDITOR'S NOTE: Unless otherwise noted, historical items appear courtesy of longtime Nevada reporter Dennis Myers' Poor Denny's Almanac [PDA]. Items highlighted in blue are of interest to labor in particular and seekers of justice in general. Copyright © 2009 Dennis Myers.]]

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