Postcards

Can Oprah lift OWN's low ratings?

by Patricia Sellers

Will Oprah Winfrey's OWN be a top 10 cable network?

"Technically, I don't think in terms of being in the top 10," Oprah told me in September, before the 1/1/11 launch of her new cable network. "But do I think we will be? Yes."

Fortune's recent cover story, "Oprah's Next Act," detailed her big hopes and just-as-big fears about her new venture. Now it appears that OWN's road to the MORE

Home Depot: Sigoloff's unsung legacy

by Patricia Sellers

If you're old enough to remember the investor Sandy Sigoloff, you were probably surprised to read that he died at 80. 80! Time has flown since the slick, black-maned Ming the Merciless, as he called himself, was storming into down-and-out retailers, slashing operations, and saving some (like Wickes) while flubbing others (like Bonwit Teller and B. Altman).

While Sigoloff's obits attached those retail names to his legacy, it is MORE

Erin Callan, Lehman's ex-CFO, goes public

Lehman's Erin Callan

by Patricia Sellers

Erin Callan is Wall Street's Greta Garbo.

After Lehman Brothers (BCS) fired her as chief financial officer in June 2008 -- four months before the firm filed Chapter 11 -- Callan fled to her home in the Hamptons. She's been holed up in Long Island's affluent beach enclave for the past two years. Former colleagues and friends say she's incommunicado, and she's refused to speak to MORE

Text and drive? Not after you read this

by Patricia Sellers

Do you text and drive?

For her new book, Alone Together, about technology's impact on personal relationships, MIT professor Sherry Turkle asked 150 adults and 300 teens "Why do you text when you drive?"

Her findings: We are addicted to the flashing red light on our BlackBerries (RIMM)--or our iPhone's (AAPL) lit screen--because here is where we find hope.

Hope in a gadget? Indeed.

Turkle's respondents told her, overwhelmingly, that IMs, texts MORE

Warren Buffett's Presidential honor: A family affair

by Patricia Sellers

Even though Warren Buffett (BRKA) has received plenty of rewards in his 80 years, there was something special about yesterday. He traveled to the White House to accept the 2010 Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian honor.

In the East Room ceremony, along with President Obama and Buffett's fellow honorees--including former President George H. W. Bush, poet Maya Angelou, baseball legend Stan Musial, and basketball icon Bill Russell--Buffett MORE

After the revolution: An Egyptian woman's new view

Amany Eid found her voice last week in Cairo's Tahrir Square and here on Postcards as well. Eid, 34, wrote a Guest Post about how she, after never before feeling politically inclined (because, under a repressive regime, what's the point?) joined the protests that toppled the Egyptian government. Eid, a telecom-industry manager in Cairo and also an alum of the Fortune-U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring program, returned MORE

Back in Cairo's Tahrir Square

In Monday's Postcard, Amany Eid, an Egyptian woman who was never politically active before, wrote about joining the demonstrations in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

Now we see that Eid is just one of hundreds of thousands of Egyptians who are finding their voices for the first time in their lives. Yesterday's demonstrations in Tahrir Square were the largest yet and were relatively peaceful, thanks in part to the Egyptian Army.

While it MORE

Beyond AOL: Does Arianna Huffington want to be Oprah?

by Patricia Sellers

The most head-spinning thing about Arianna Huffington's deal to sell the Huffington Post to AOL (AOL)--besides the sweet $315 million price, which is 10 times HuffPo's 2010 revenues and almost all in cash--is her expanded job description.

Once the acquisition closes, Huffington will oversee all of AOL's media content including the recently purchased TechCrunch, Engadget, AOL Daily Finance, and MapQuest and Moviefone as well.

Her new purview--overseeing platforms that reached MORE

Egypt unrest: A brave native woman's view

Last week on Postcards, Kissinger Associates President Jami Miscik, a former senior official at the CIA, shared her take on the unrest in Egypt and her story of being in Cairo when it began.

Over the weekend, I received an email from a woman who has an even more up-close-and-personal view of what's going on in Egypt. Amany Eid lives in Cairo, works in the telecom industry, and spent a month MORE

Egypt uprising: An ex-CIA official's ground view

Former CIA deputy intelligence director Jami Miscik offers her firsthand account of the unrest in the streets of Egypt and explains why we're entering a new era of uncertainty and instability throughout the region.

Cairo, Egypt, February 3

Jami Miscik, president of Kissinger Associates in New York, happened to be in Cairo last week when Egypt's uprising began. She was traveling with a group of policy and business people on a MORE