PERSON: Baratunde Thurston

Self-employed

Comedian, Author, T.V. Host

Baratunde Rafiq Thurston (September 11, 1977) is an American comedian based in New York City.

Thurston is the author of three self-published books:

Better than Crying: Poking Fun at Politics, the Press & Pop Culture (2004)
Keep Jerry Falwell Away from My Oreo Cookies (2005)
Thank You Congressional Pages (For Being So Damn Sexy!) (2006)

As part of Laughing Liberally, Thurston emceed the YearlyKos convention in 2006 and also appeared in 2007.

Thurston has contributed to the Huffington Post and the Weekly Dig. More recently Thurston has become a semi-regular panelist on the podcast this Week in Tech with Leo Laporte.

Thurston began hosting the Popular Science's Future Of television show on the Science Channel in August 2009.

Thurston was the Director of Digital at The Onion, until May 2012, is an active tweeter, and co-founded the black political blog JackAndJillPolitics.com. The name of the blog builds on the name of the African American children's social organization, Jack and Jill of America.

His fourth book, entitled How to Be Black was released on February 1, 2012, the first day of Black History Month, incorporates "satirical self-help" along with personal memoir, subjects from gardening to computers, and is "a practical guidebook for anyone looking to befriend or work with a black person, become the next black president or challenge anyone who says they speak for all black people".

-- Wikipedia