Baratunde Thurston

Baratunde Thurston, the former director of digital at The Onion, talks about humor, politics, and his book How to Be Black, part memoir and part guidebook. He tells stories of his politically inspired Nigerian name, his hippie mother, his drug-abusing father who was murdered, and his wisdom and expertise in how to be black. Baratunde Thurston is participating in "Tell Your Friends!" with Janeane Garofalo and others at the Cornelia Street Café on August 19 at 8:30.

February is Black History Month, and comedian Baratunde Thurston wants you to know that it's the perfect time to buy his new book, "How to Be Black." "The odds are high that you acquired this book during the nationally sanctioned season for purchasing black cultural objects, also known as Black History Month," he writes. "If you're like most people, you buy one piece of black culture per year during this month, and I'm banking on this book jumping out at you from the bookshelf or screen." Baratunde Thurston joins Celeste Headlee to discuss his new book: part-memoir, part-satire, part-political commentary.

Co-founder of Jack & Jill Politics, and director of digital at The Onion, Baratunde Thurston, talks about the complexities of contemporary racial politics in his new book, How To Be Black.  

Dana Stevens, film critic for Slate.com, discusses "The Social Network," the controversial new film about the founding of Facebook by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg; and Baratunde Thurston, comedian and digital director of The Onion, offers his insight into the world of Harvard and social media.

Baratunde Thurston, comedian, blogger, and founder of Jack and Jill Politics, discusses why people want to become mayor on Foursquare and other social networking tools.

May's weekly guest is Baratunde Thurston  - comedian, politics watcher, and web editor for The Onion. He offers his take on the latest news, the media world, and American identity in 2010. This week: Facebook wants to know everything.

May's weekly guest is Baratunde Thurston  - comedian, politics watcher, and web editor for The Onion. He offers his take on the latest news, the media world, and American identity in 2010.   This week: The Rise of the Black Republican.  

May's weekly guest is Baratunde Thurston - comedian, politics watcher, and web editor for The Onion. He offers his take on the latest news, the media world, and American identity in 2010. This week: The Census

Every year, the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas, brings together a mix of musicians, film makers and technologists. This year's gathering starts tomorrow, and the docket includes eye...

As part our week-long look at how our lives have changed over the last decade, we turn to advances in technology. Joining us to weigh in on the most notable tech innovations during th...

Passwords were once the stuff of play, humor and childhood rites of passage.  How did they become the rather boring key to protecting our bank accounts, intimate communications and id...

The US Department of Defense is launching a bizarre experiment in social networking this weekend. They're putting up 10 giant red weather balloons across the country, and they're aski...

Turn off the computer and go outside and play! We've all heard the conventional wisdom that says video games will turn your brain to mush. But a host of new studies show that gaming m...

For approximately eight years, I financed my multi-threaded geek-powered, politico-comedy lifestyle by working as a strategy consultant to the communications and media industries. I w...

Once upon a time, internet-based phone service was "the future"; now tech watchers are wondering about its future survival. Online auction site Ebay announced this week that it's sell...

Baby blocks hardly seem like a technological frontier, but that is in the process of changing. The Takeaway's tech contributor Baratunde Thurston and MIT researcher David Merrill expl...

A strange thing happened yesterday on web megastore Amazon.com: all the gay-themed literature was suddenly recategorized as "adults only" and was removed from the all-important Amazon...

The upcoming issue of the New Yorker that portrays Barack Obama as a terrorist has the media world buzzing. Onion web editor and political blogger Baratunde Thurston talks with New York comedian Jordan Carlos about the racial politics of lampoonery.