The Great Depression spawned the Golden Age of Hollywood as oppressed, hopeless 1930s Americans looked for escape. It was worth a nickel at the local cinema.
There is no greater sign of American distress than the ubiquitous superhero fantasies of mass media over the past several decades.
I’m OK with pegging the start as 1981 when King Ronald the Vague ascended the White House throne two years after Superman 1.
Retiring French Ambassador to the US Gérard Araud recognized it.
“I do think the genius — and I’m using the word genius — of Donald Trump is to have felt the crisis,” he recently told Maureen Dowd of The New York Times.
It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.
RENTERS BILL OF RIGHTS presses on. Senate Bill 256 passed the Nevada State Senate along strict party lines, 11-10 on April 23. All Democrats, including co-sponsor Julia Ratti, D-Sparks, voted in favor. It proposes strengthening renters rights including return of personal effects and cleaning deposits. It’s now in the lower house.
EUPHEMISM WATCH. Senate Bill 398, sponsored by Sen. Julia RattI, D-Sparks, would allow local governments more leeway for affordable housing. (It does not mention the words “rent” and “control.”) It passed the senate 13-8 last month. All 11 Democrats were joined by Republicans Ben Kieckhefer of Reno and Pete Goicochea of Eureka. Sens. Heidi Gansert, R-Reno, Ira Hansen, R-Sparks, and James Settelmeyer, R-Douglas County, voted nay.
WTF DEPT. Online genealogical criminal investigation was poo-poohed by cops until it caught Golden State Killer Joseph DeAngelo, a retired cop now charged with (so far) 26 counts of murder, rape and kidnapping. On April 25, The New York Times reported that a week before DeAngelo’s arrest, the dogged group of crime-tracking women at the DNA Doe Project identified a woman found shot to death on a Reno hiking trail in 1982. So why did I read about it in the Times? As of Monday, it had received no coverage by local media.
WTF PART DEUX. Assembly Bill 295 died without a hearing in the Nevada Legislature last month. Maybe the sponsors of the sex education measure should have taken a clue from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and termed it “gender education.”
TOLJASO DEPT. I worked against and warned organized labor about supporting Sharron Angle-endorsed Andrew Caudill who now represents Sparks and Spanish Springs on the Washoe County school board. (See the NevadaLabor.com dossier.)
“He uses Betsy DeVos/Sharron Angle right-wing code throughout his website,” I wrote last year.
“Belief structures are to be taught at home, not in public school,” Caudill stated.
“So much for teaching the U.S. Constitution, civics, worker rights, civil rights and the Civil War. Sex education is taboo and Planned Parenthood (by name) is his enemy,” I warned.
Moonhowlers have been redistributing Caudill’s recent misleading e-mail opposing gender education at the school district. Caudill resorted to outright bigotry in bashing “gender identity because it may differ from the values of some families in our community.” Hmmm.
Caudill was endorsed by Angle’s extreme anti-public education outfit. Its beliefs are formed in twisted, anti-Christian fundamentalist ideology. I can play that game.
Opposition to birth control, gender equality and other hot-button issues is based on “Natural Law,” God’s will as manifest in nature. God hisself (or herself) made transgender people, so Caudill and the Angleites arguably flout the will of God by bashing God’s creations. Go to confession.
“My targets are the faith community, Republican Party, advocates for family values and parental rights, and parents that want the district to focus on education and leave everything else to their own home,” Caudill wrote.
Caudill’s day job is assistant athletic director over academics at UNR. So does he oppose gender ed for all athletes accepting scholarships or any other taxpayer aid?
Oh well, sex is just a distraction to academic pursuits. As I wrote last week, the only way to absolutely end abortion is to make all sex illegal save with government permission under controlled, supervised conditions.
So let Mr. Assistant Athletic Director Over Academics show some leadership and propose to the Board of Regents an absolute ban on student sex of any kind.
“Gotta find a way to keep the young’uns moral after school,” as Prof. Harold Hill The Music Man once advised.
I’m not too worried. Guys like Caudill job-jump and he’ll find greener pastures at another school soon. This sinful state is just too libertine and licentious for true believers.
DOING LESS THAN THE MINIMUM. Minimum wage reform has stalled at the ledge. At best it will go up 75 cents to $8 this year and $12 by 2024. Had the minimum been adjusted for inflation since the US economy peaked in 1968, it would already stand at about $12 today. Shameful.
Be well. Raise hell. Esté bien. Haga infierno.
Andrew Barbano is a 50-year Nevadan is editor of NevadaLabor.com. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since 1988.
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