Marcy Burstiner

To remind my sister that we had tickets for Elvis Costello at the Van Duzer Theater, I grabbed a photo of Elvis off the web, stuck a word balloon next to his face and inside typed the words “Don’t forget tomorrow night!” Then I took a picture of that with my phone and messaged it […]

I plan to incorporate myself. I can do that for $100 in California. You should do the same. As Burstiner, Inc., I’d have corporate free speech rights. And that seems to be pretty strong protection these days. Last month, an appellate court in D.C. told the federal government it couldn’t force tobacco companies to put […]

In October 2009, KGOE Program Director Tom Sebourn posted to his personal blog a video he took at a Eureka peace rally.  He noted that rain dampened the crowd but not the spirit, and added “Here is local resident Alexander Cockburn addressing the crowd.” I missed that peace rally, probably because of the rain. Most […]

I just found out how insignificant I am. I already knew that living in California meant that my vote in the presidential election was pretty much a foregone conclusion. So no presidential campaign or Superpac would seek to sway it. Depending on which news publication or blog you read, between nine and 11 states are […]

In the movie Norma Rae, Sally Field plays a textile worker who tries to organize a union at her mill. In the movie’s climax, thugs try to throw her out of the factory. She scribbles the word “union,” climbs up on a table and holds it up. For a moment everyone in the factory stares […]

My thoughts don’t go much deeper than the length of this column. Once I think an idea through I’m on to my next thought. But two letters that my March column generated bothered me so much that my brain refuses to move on. In “Take the Money and Run With It” (March 1), I said […]

Any driver with half a brain knows that if you flip the finger to a passing cop he will pull you over. And if you chalk “Fuck the sheriff” in front of a county court, well that’s trouble. Someone did that. And now there’s trouble. You have the right to do both. The First Amendment to […]

My little girl plans to take her savings and buy a gong. That’s because whenever guests come to dinner, the conversation among the adults at the table gets so lively the poor kid can’t get a word in. When she wants to add her pipsqueak voice to the conversation, she figures, she’ll just hit the […]

Back in 1987, I went with a friend to see singer Joan Armatrading play Wolf Trap, an outdoor amphitheater in a national park in Virginia. We went early to stake out a good spot and laid out a big blanket. The closer it came to concert time, the more people packed in and we found […]

My fatal flaw as a journalist was that I never cared if people read my work. That made me more artist than journalist, though talent-wise I was more journalist than artist. For a journalist, publication is everything; there is no point in the creation if it doesn’t get published. The artist takes pleasure in the […]

There is no such thing as a bad question. But how you ask it, well, that’s another matter. A question becomes an accusation if, by asking it, you force people to defend themselves for something you have no evidence they did — more so, when a reporter repeats the question again and again. Did you […]

When does a story have legs? That’s the question the media industry grapples with these days when it reports or fails to cover the “Occupy” demonstrations. The problem is that we, in the news industry, gave ourselves a bad name. We called ourselves the news industry. That seems to promise the public that we will […]