If you grew up watching Eddie Murphy chomping on a cigar as Gumby or getting gunned down in a hail of bullets as Buckwheat on Saturday Night Live, or better yet, dropping F-bombs as the cool-cat star of 48 Hrs., Trading Places, andBeverly Hills Cop, it’s hard to wrap your head around the fact that there’s a whole [...]

(New York Times) – The current economic downturn has been called a housing crisis, a financial crisis and a debt crisis, but the simplifying logic of the political season has settled on what is really more a result than a cause. We are now, according to nearly everyone running for office, in a jobs crisis. Every [...]

(Black Enterprise) – Religious and spiritual books and every book about success discuss the power of words.  The most effective leaders in our world, past and present, have made changes and moved masses with their words.  What we say and believe will eventually manifest and perpetuate itself over time. Why then do we continue to verbally [...]

(WSJ) — Feeling clammy and short of breath? Heart racing? Is the world spinning? If it happens only while talking to a group of people, it may just be a bad case of glossophobia—the fear of public speaking. Hoping to find a better way to overcome stage fright than our usual take-a-gulp-of-wine method, we decided to [...]

AP) — CNN announced on Thursday it is remaking its morning lineup and will bring Soledad O’Brien back as host of a “conversational ensemble” show beginning next year. O’Brien’s program is set to air on weekdays from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. ET. Ashleigh Banfield and Zoraida Sambolin will be hosts of a news show [...]

(San Jose Mercury News) – Online daily-deals originator Groupon was prepared Friday morning to debut as a public company, offering stock that would value the Chicago company at a total seen only once before in history for a technology company’s initial public offering. Groupon filed Thursday to sell 35 million shares — about 5.5 percent of [...]

(Entrepreneur.com) — For years, professional athletes have traded in their Big Leagues skills to become major players in chains such as Burger King, Dunkin’ Donuts or KFC. Now, the franchise industry is making a move to formalize its relationship with jocks looking to turn franchisee. The International Franchise Association and a newer organization, the Professional Athlete Franchise Initiative, plan to provide [...]

(BET) – North Carolina needs more Black federal judges, the NAACP says. In an effort to secure more African-American officials for positions on the federal bench, North Carolina’s largest civil rights organization is calling on the state’s two senators to nominate them. On Monday, leaders of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, along [...]

(NewsOne) — You know that I must have a lot on the brain if I’m coming out of hiatus from writing. I just wanted to address a few things, mainly because I feel like the potential for overwhelmingly negativity associated with being black in technology (and in silicon valley) is looming. When we were organizing [...]

(Guardian) — Herman Cain, one of the frontrunners in the Republican race for the White House, faces more questions over allegations of sexual harassment after making contradictory comments within the space of just a few hours. He dismissed allegations of sexual harassment against him as a “witch hunt” but failed to quell the clamour that [...]