If you can read this newspaper, you are lucky. The Reno Gazette-Journal may have just nuked the business in northwestern Nevada.
Distribution is make-or-break. The RGJ just killed its Saturday edition. So what? For starters, that means I can’t get the New York Times delivered on Saturday anymore. Apparently a single contractor does the work for everybody.
The week it started, my regular carrier was re-assigned as evidenced by the fact that I have to hunt at nearby driveways for the first time. A disabled neighbor needs to have her paper fetched from her front lawn because the newbies were not told to hang it on her door. My street has not seen a paper four of the past seven days. Much the same in Carson City. (I get the Trib by mail.)
I’d like reports from the streets no matter which paper you expect every ayem including the Chronicle, Wall Street Journal and USA Today. This is serious.
Even weakened, the KazooJournal remains the principal news dissemination source for northern Nevada. Its corporate owners have eviscerated it; fired…er…”retired” longtime better-paid reporters; and sold its former HQ for $7 million in pure profit. (Wall Street raiders have been scooping up struggling newspapers because many owned real estate assets.)
The RGJ still employs some excellent and overworked journalists but any good horse can be run into the ground. Now, they are affecting everyone else, dammit.
I’d like to say write a letter, but I don’t think it would see ink unless it came from a major advertiser like a megalomaniacal car dealer or somesuch.
WHITES ONLY DEPT. “In case you missed it, yesterday we picked up the official endorsement from Douglas County Sherriff (sic) Dan Coverley!” quoth overtly racist Assemblymember Jim (“I’d vote for slavery if my constituents wanted me to”) Wheeler, R-Alabaster Bastion.
Coverley ordered no emergency responses for the county library after the head librarian placed an affirmation of Black Lives Matter on a board of trustees agenda. That’s dereliction of duty, violation of oath to protect and serve and grounds for firing — of Coverley, not the librarian (who has since found a better job in a more civilized state)
All this came soon after the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a now-convicted racist Minneapolis police officer.
I have constructed a whole section about this at NevadaLabor. com/ If you are squeamish about dirty words (not mine but Douglas County white supremacists’), don’t go there.
Wheeler, who can’t even spell sheriff, is running for state senate against current Assembly Minority Leader Dr. Robin Titus, R-Wellington.
Wheeler’s shill, senator for a day Don (“I won’t run if appointed”) Tatro, lied to Washoe and Carson officials who installed him. He is now running for the Carson/Washoe seat against Assemblymember Lisa Krasner, R-Reno.
Wheeler pushed for Tatro to replace the resigned Sen. Ben Kieckhefer, R-Reno.
Guilt by association? Damn straight. Lie down with dogs and get infested with fleas. White dogs and white fleas only, of course.
SPEAKING OF BLACK LIVES DON’T MATTER: Mr. Wisconsin KKK, i.e., Kenosha Killer Kyle Rittenhouse, moved to Nevada as the Barbwire has exclusively reported. All new sightings of the lout welcome.
EVERYONE WELCOME: CESAR CHAVEZ DAY. The great labor leader was born March 31, 1927, near Yuma Arizona. I was honored to produce the annual celebration of his legacy for almost two decades before the plague. (Cross your fingers, toes and eyes for 3-31-2023.)
I just got an e from the Farmworker Resource Council about a Zoom meeting on Wednesday, March 30 from 11:00a.m. to 12noon PDT. It will feature Susana Sanchez from the U.S. Dept. of Labor Wage & Hour Division. I will post Zoom coordinates for onscreen or phone participation with the web edition of this column at NevadaLabor.com and CesarChavezNevada.com/
For more info, contact Lorena Castaneda at 775-284-3491 Ext. 230, e-mail
César Chávez was no stranger to these parts. He came here to fight for workers’ rights as far back as the early 1960s, long before he won international fame.
MUST-SEE TV DEPT. KTVN TV-2’s “Face the State” last weekend featured Dr. Donald Easton Brooks, Dean of the UNR Dept. of Education & Human Development. It is singly the most enlightened exposition about — and torpedoing of — “Critical Race Theory” white supremacy disinformation, a big issue in Douglas County, I’m sure. (See KTVN. com)
WHITE LIVES MATTER, PART DEUX. Dr. Easton Brooks should call Sparks’ Bohach Elementary where a morally obtuse teacher assigned a black kid to trace his ancestry back to the Mayflower. (Barbwire 2-23-2022)
Also, the PBS Newshour on March 28 aired a feature about how non-white women not only suffer eating disorders as bad or worse than the majority, but are more often ignored. It’s killer, figuratively and literally. Look it up at PBS.org/
PBS also reported about how pregnant women in rural Texas just about can’t get any pre-natal medical care at all. Too expensive.
TEXAS TWO-STEP. My spies report that Wal-Marts in the Lone Star State offered masks to forgetful customers for a mere $10 each! Next door in New Mexico, mask mandates were enforced. No wonder that the top 10 vaccination states were all Biden blue, while nine of the 10 worst went Humpty Dumpty for Red Czar Trumpski.
THE ROLLING LOGANS. Sparks transit operator Michael Lansborough survived major heart surgery but is weeks away, if not more, from being cleared to go back to work. Mike is sole support of his wife and son, Logan, who has no lower legs due to a genetic flaw. A GoFundMe page was set up by friends
Be generous. If you would like to help the family by check, make it payable to Michael Lansborough and send to his attention at Teamsters Local 533, 1190 Selmi Drive, Suite 100, Reno NV 89512.
Thanks to all Barbwire readers and union members who have anted in.
Tell your friends.
Take care of each other and be careful out there.
Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno.
Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 53-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com, MississippiWestNV.org, ChantalCoalition. org, CesarChavezNevada.com and SenJoeNeal.org/ Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since 1988.
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