Local governments should do everything on Facebook. Maybe then we would find out what goes on. Things keep happening in Humboldt behind closed doors. I’m the type of person who only wants inside when someone shuts me out. For instance, I was all set to ignore a new multi-agency committee, the Association of Humboldt Harbor […]
Marcy Burstiner
Marcy Burstiner is a professor of journalism and mass communication at Humboldt State University. If there's something about the media that confuses you, e-mail her at mib3@humboldt.edu.
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Defending Singleton
Last month I ate at a restaurant in the French town where Van Gogh once lopped off part of his ear. The bathroom was so small, I could barely squeeze through the door. “This,” I thought, “is what it is like without the Americans With Disabilities Act.” That’s the law most people equate with public […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Fighting Words
In any decent Hollywood action movie, the pivotal scene is a bar fight. Chuck or Arnold or Jean-Claude walks into a bar, says something, and some joker takes offense for no good reason. A few words fly, followed by punches and bottles. Tables splinter in half and someone goes through a plate glass window. Who […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Copy That
Here is the thing about a great speech. The person who gave it probably didn’t write it. There are exceptions. Abe Lincoln, Winston Churchill, maybe Barack Obama in 2004 — “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America.” In another version of my life I […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
This Column is Classified
I am creeped out. No, I didn’t go see “World War Z.” Instead, I read in the New York Times how the guy responsible for protecting the privacy of a billion Facebook users left Facebook in 2010 for the National Security Agency. But that’s only part of what’s creeping me out. And it’s not Edward […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Hum – CPRA
Everything seems topsy turvy. I find myself cheering Humboldt County Supervisor Mark Lovelace and siding with the government over a public records act battle. I haven’t felt this trippy since string theorist Brian Greene convinced me that existence is filled with infinite universes. Lovelace was the one supervisor who held out against a settlement between […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Weather or Not
When journalism students tell me they want to go into TV News, I think of a friend of mine. When I got my first newspaper job, she got her first job as a TV reporter. From there she worked freelance for a station in Los Angeles, then went back to New York and struggled. Finally, […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
The Public’s Beeswax
A jury last week declared guilty of corruption five former councilmembers of the city of Bell in Los Angeles County. For running a town that is a little larger than Eureka, with a similar percentage of people living in poverty, they had each received salaries more than 10 times what Eureka pays its city […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
The Bully Pulpit
If you worship the goddess and end up in prison, you may not need to worry much longer. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals just took a case that will decide if members of the Wiccan faith have the right to a taxpayer-paid chaplain in California prisons. This story in the Times-Standard caught my eye, […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Recoil
The pen is mightier than the sword. But neither can match the firepower of a gun. And when you try to use a pen to combat guns in this country, prepare for backlash. In December, the Journal-News in New York (the current manifestation of my hometown paper) published a map of people issued handgun […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
No News is Bad News
A few weeks ago, emails flew between school board members throughout Humboldt County in response to a story on the Lost Coast Outpost about how much various school bonds in Humboldt County would end up costing future taxpayers. Outpost Editor Hank Sims had plugged our county into a searchable database compiled by the Los […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Funny Business
Clowns are creepy. There is something weird about a grown person who dons a rubber nose, floppy feet and loud clothes. Children don’t know what to think of them. They stare with mouth open and thumb in mouth. Some cry. Clowns terrify my sister. So when I read on Facebook that a police officer […]