How Bill Gates And A Media Start Up Made An Ancient Book A Modern Best Seller

Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft and the richest man in the U.S., always had a mouth that moved financial markets. Now he’s showing Oprah-like abilities to drive the book market too.

A few weeks back, on his blog the Gates Notes, he named Business Adventures, a long forgotten, out-of-print collection of stories penned New Yorker’s John Brooks, the best business book he ever read. The book, published in 1971–and until this month, out of print–went viral. (The fact that the mysterious book was given to Gates in 1991 by America’s second richest man,Warren Buffett didn’t hurt). The book profiles now ancient business decisions (and blunders) from the likes of Ford Motors, Xerox and Piggly Wiggly. Those tales might be 45-years old, but right now Business Adventures is the #2 in non-fiction e-book on the New York Times Best Seller List (ahead  Orange is the New Black and Heaven is for Real)  and #7 in non-fiction combined print and electronic (ahead of books like Hard Choices byHillary Clinton and Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell). It’s also the #1 best selling business e-book on Amazon Kindle. The paperback edition won’t ship until August 12th but is already #11 on Amazon’s bestseller list.

“Business Adventures” is now a bestseller more than 40 years after its original publication.

But even with a pitchman as influential as Bill Gates–and indirectly Warren Buffett–an out of print book can’t become a best seller if it’s out of print. EnterOpen Road Media. Open Road founder Jane Friedman knows the book business. She ran both Knopf and later, News Corp NWSA -0.28%’s HarperCollins. She left that CEO role in 2008 and in 2009 she jumped right back in—this time as an entrepreneur—taking advantage of the Amazon Kindle/Apple AAPL +0.24% iBooks digital revelation. Open Road’s strategy is to buy the digital rights to old writers, betting that the works will get a second chance as e-books. Says Friedman: “Our whole model is bringing the great books back to life.” In the case of Business Adventures–roaring back to life. “Good material stands the test of time,” says Friedman. “And here we have a book in the business area where everyone thinks so much has changed—but whatever has changed still stays the same.”

Four months ago Open Road, which has deals with several former New Yorkerwriters, was in talks with John Brook’s agent, Craig Tenney at Harold Ober Associates, to attain the rights for two of his other books, The Go-Go Yearsand Once in Golconda. (Open Road does not pay advances, and instead offers a 50/50 royalty partnership with writers or their estates). Friedman said Tenney mentioned that Gates foundation had showed interest in a third, little-known Brooks book called Business Adventures. “We had no idea about what this would become. We’re not idiots–we knew if Bill Gates was reaching out that he’d do something special , but we saw his blog the same time the public did. We didn’t know that it would be this explosive,” says Friedman. “It was stunning. The second it appeared you could tell people were going right online and ordering it. It was instantaneous. Our job is to keep it going.”

To keep it going Open Road will market Business Adventures heavily into the holiday season. Then there’s custom printing for corporations and potentially heavy demand for business schools. “It reminds me of 1987 when the stock market crashed and we were the publisher of Tom Peters’ Thriving On Chaos– of course that book went through the roof. A friend called me and said, ‘Jane I know you’re a great publisher but to make the stock market crash?’ I’m reliving all that again and it’s really cool.”

(Follow me on Twitter at @StevenBertoni)

C.E.O. Libraries Reveal Keys to Success 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/21/business/21libraries.html 

C.E.O. Libraries Reveal Keys to Success

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Michael Moritz, venture capitalist and owner of a huge library, says he can’t discard books.

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By HARRIET RUBIN

Michael Moritz, the venture capitalist who built a personal $1.5 billion fortune discovering the likes of Google, YouTube, Yahoo and PayPal, and taking them public, may seem preternaturally in tune with new media. But it is the imprint of old media — books by the thousands sprawling through his Bay Area house — that occupies his mind.

“My wife calls me the Imelda Marcos of books,” Mr. Moritz said in an interview. “As soon as a book enters our home it is guaranteed a permanent place in our lives. Because I have never been able to part with even one, they have gradually accumulated like sediment.”
Serious leaders who are serious readers build personallibraries dedicated to how to think, not how to compete. Ken Lopez, a bookseller in Hadley, Mass., says it is impossible to put together a serious library on almost any subject for less than several hundred thousand dollars.
Perhaps that is why — more than their sex lives or bank accounts — chief executives keep their libraries private. Few Nike colleagues, for example, ever saw the personal library of the founder, Phil Knight, a room behind his formal office. To enter, one had to remove one’s shoes and bow: the ceilings were low, the space intimate, the degree of reverence demanded for these volumes on Asian history, art and poetry greater than any the self-effacing Mr. Knight, who is no longer chief executive, demanded for himself.
The Knight collection remains in the Nike headquarters. “Of course the library still exists,” Mr. Knight said in an interview. “I’m always learning.”
Until recently when Steven P. Jobs of Apple sold his collection, he reportedly had an “inexhaustible interest” in the books of William Blake — the mad visionary 18th-century mystic poet and artist. Perhaps future historians will track down Mr. Jobs’s Blake library to trace the inspiration for Pixar and the grail-like appeal of the iPhone.
If there is a C.E.O. canon, its rule is this: “Don’t follow your mentors, follow your mentors’ mentors,” suggests David Leach, chief executive of the American Medical Association’s accreditation division. Mr. Leach has stocked his cabin in the woods of North Carolina with the collected works of Aristotle.
Forget finding the business best-seller list in these libraries. “I try to vary my reading diet and ensure that I read more fiction than nonfiction,” Mr. Moritz said. “I rarely read business books, except for Andy Grove’s ‘Swimming Across,’ which has nothing to do with business but describes the emotional foundation of a remarkable man. I re-read from time to time T. E. Lawrence’s ‘Seven Pillars of Wisdom,’ an exquisite lyric of derring-do, the navigation of strange places and the imaginative ruses of a peculiar character. It has to be the best book ever written about leading people from atop a camel.” Students of power should take note that C.E.O.’s are starting to collect books on climate change and global warming, not Al Gore’s tomes but books from the 15th century about the weather, Egyptian droughts, even replicas of Sumerian tablets recording extraordinary changes in climate, according to John Windle, the owner of John Windle Antiquarian Booksellers in San Francisco.
Darwin’s “Origin of Species” was priced at a few thousand dollars in the 1950s. “Then DNA became the scientific rage,” said Mr. Windle. “Now copies are selling for $250,000. But the desire to own a piece of Darwin’s mind is coming to an end. I have a customer who collects diaries of people of no importance at all. The entries say, ‘It was 63 degrees and raining this morning.’ Once the big boys amass libraries of weather patterns, everyone will want these works.”
C.E.O. libraries typically lack a Dewey Decimal or even org-chart order. “My books are organized by topic and interest but in a manner that would make a librarian weep,” Mr. Moritz said. Is there something “Da Vinci Code”-like about mixing books up in an otherwise ordered life?
Could it be possible to read Phil Knight’s books in the order in which Mr. Knight read them — like following a recipe — and gain the mojo to see a future global entertainment company in something as modest as a sneaker? The great gourmand of libraries, the writer Jorge Luis Borges, analyzed the quest for knowledge that causes people to accumulate books: “There must exist a book which is the formula and perfect compendium of all the rest.”
Personal libraries have always been a biopsy of power. The empire-loving Elizabeth I surrounded herself with the Roman historians, many of whom she translated, and kept one book under lock and key in her bedroom, in a French translation she alone of her court could read: Machiavelli’s treatise on how to overthrow republics, “The Prince.” Churchill retreated to his library to heal his wounds after being voted out of power in 1945 — and after reading for six years came back to power.
Over the years, the philanthropist and junk-bond king Michael R. Milken has collected biographies, plays, novels and papers on Galileo, the renegade who was jailed in his time but redeemed by history.
It took Dee Hock, father of the credit card and founder of Visa, a thousand books to find The One. Mr. Hock walked away from business life in 1984 and looked back only from his library’s walls. He built a dream 2,000-square-foot wing for his books in a pink stucco mansion atop a hill in Pescadero, Calif. He sat among the great philosophers and the novelists of Western life like Steinbeck and Stegner and dreamed up a word for what Visa is: “chaordic” — complex systems that blend order and chaos.
In his library, Mr. Hock found the book that contained the thoughts of all of them. Visitors can see opened on his library table for daily consulting, Omar Khayyam’s “Rubáiyát,” the Persian poem that warns of the dangers of greatness and the instability of fortune.
Poetry speaks to many C.E.O.’s. “I used to tell my senior staff to get me poets as managers,” says Sidney Harman, founder of Harman Industries, a $3 billion producer of sound systems for luxury cars, theaters and airports. Mr. Harman maintains a library in each of his three homes, in Washington, Los Angeles and Aspen, Colo. “Poets are our original systems thinkers,” he said. “They look at our most complex environments and they reduce the complexity to something they begin to understand.”
He never could find a poet who was willing to be a manager. So Mr. Harman became his own de facto poet, quoting from his volumes of Shakespeare, Tennyson, and the poetry he found in Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” and Camus’s “Stranger” to help him define the dignity of working life — a poetry he made real in his worker-friendly factories.
Mr. Harman reads books the way writers write books, methodically over time. For two years Mr. Harman would take down from the shelf “The City of God” by E. L. Doctorow read the novel slowly, return it to the shelves, and then take it down again for his next trip. “Almost everything I have read has been useful to me — science, poetry, politics, novels. I have a lifelong interest in epistemology and learning. My books have helped me develop a way of thinking critically in business and in golf — a fabulous metaphor for the most interesting stuff in life. My library is full of things I might go back to.”
It was the empty library room and its floor-to-ceiling ladder that made Shelly Lazarus, the chairwoman and chief executive of Ogilvy & Mather, fall in love with her house in the Berkshires, which was built in 1740. “When my husband and I moved in, we said, ‘We’re never going to fill this room,’ and just last week I realized we needed to build an addition to the library. Once I’ve read a book I keep it. It becomes a part of me.
“As head of a global company, everything attracts me as a reader, books about different cultures, countries, problems. I read for pleasure and to find other perspectives on how to think or solve a problem, like Jerome Groopman’s ‘How Doctors Think’; John Cornwall’s autobiography, ‘Seminary Boy’; ‘The Wife,’ a novel by Meg Wolitzer; and before that, ‘Team of Rivals.’
“David Ogilvy said advertising is a great field, anything prepares you for it,” she said. “That gives me license to read everything.”

Harriet Rubin is the author of “Dante in Love” and, most recently, “The Mona Lisa Stratagem: The Art of Women, Age and Power.”

Correction: July 24, 2007

An article in Business Day on Saturday about the private library collections of several business executives referred incorrectly to the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, whose chief executive, David Leach, commented on his collection of the works of Aristotle. The accreditation council is an independent, nonprofit organization; it is no longer a division of the American Medical Association. (The two separated in 2003.) The article also included a quotation from Shelly Lazarus, chairwoman and chief executive of Ogilvy & Mather, that misstated the title of a book in her collection. It is “How Doctors Think” by Dr. Jerome Groopman — not “How to Think Like a Doctor.”

The Best Business Book I’ve Ever Read BY BILL GATES

A NEGLECTED CLASSIC 

The Best Business Book I’ve Ever Read

BY BILL GATES 

ON JULY 12, 2014

Not long after I first met Warren Buffett back in 1991, I asked him to recommend his favorite book about business. He didn’t miss a beat: “It’s Business Adventures, by John Brooks,” he said. “I’ll send you my copy.” I was intrigued: I had never heard of Business Adventures or John Brooks.

Today, more than two decades after Warren lent it to me—and more than four decades after it was first published—Business Adventures remains the best business book I’ve ever read. John Brooks is still my favorite business writer. (And Warren, if you’re reading this, I still have your copy.)

A skeptic might wonder how this out-of-print collection of New Yorker articles from the 1960s could have anything to say about business today. After all, in 1966, when Brooks profiled Xerox, the company’s top-of-the-line copier weighed 650 pounds, cost $27,500, required a full-time operator, and came with a fire extinguisher because of its tendency to overheat. A lot has changed since then.

It’s certainly true that many of the particulars of business have changed. But the fundamentals have not. Brooks’s deeper insights about business are just as relevant today as they were back then. In terms of its longevity, Business Adventures stands alongside Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor, the 1949 book that Warren says is the best book on investing that he has ever read.

Brooks grew up in New Jersey during the Depression, attended Princeton University (where he roomed with future Secretary of State George Shultz), and, after serving in World War II, turned to journalism with dreams of becoming a novelist. In addition to his magazine work, he published a handful of books, only some of which are still in print. He died in 1993.

As the journalist Michael Lewis wrote in his foreword to Brooks’s book The Go-Go Years, even when Brooks got things wrong, “at least he got them wrong in an interesting way.” Unlike a lot of today’s business writers, Brooks didn’t boil his work down into pat how-to lessons or simplistic explanations for success. (How many times have you read that some company is taking off because they give their employees free lunch?) You won’t find any listicles in his work. Brooks wrote long articles that frame an issue, explore it in depth, introduce a few compelling characters, and show how things went for them.

In one called “The Impacted Philosophers,” he uses a case of price-fixing at General Electric to explore miscommunication—sometimes intentional miscommunication—up and down the corporate ladder. It was, he writes, “a breakdown in intramural communication so drastic as to make the building of the Tower of Babel seem a triumph of organizational rapport.”

In “The Fate of the Edsel,” he refutes the popular explanations for why Ford’s flagship car was such a historic flop. It wasn’t because the car was overly poll-tested; it was because Ford’s executives only pretended to be acting on what the polls said. “Although the Edsel was supposed to be advertised, and otherwise promoted, strictly on the basis of preferences expressed in polls, some old-fashioned snake-oil selling methods, intuitive rather than scientific, crept in.” It certainly didn’t help that the first Edsels “were delivered with oil leaks, sticking hoods, trunks that wouldn’t open, and push buttons that…couldn’t be budged with a hammer.”

One of Brooks’s most instructive stories is “Xerox Xerox Xerox Xerox.” (The headline alone belongs in the Journalism Hall of Fame.) The example of Xerox is one that everyone in the tech industry should study. Starting in the early ’70s, the company funded a huge amount of R&D that wasn’t directly related to copiers, including research that led to Ethernet networks and the first graphical user interface (the look you know today as Windows or OS X).

But because Xerox executives didn’t think these ideas fit their core business, they chose not to turn them into marketable products. Others stepped in and went to market with products based on the research that Xerox had done. Both Apple and Microsoft, for example, drew on Xerox’s work on graphical user interfaces.

I know I’m not alone in seeing this decision as a mistake on Xerox’s part. I was certainly determined to avoid it at Microsoft. I pushed hard to make sure that we kept thinking big about the opportunities created by our research in areas like computer vision and speech recognition. Many other journalists have written about Xerox, but Brooks’s article tells an important part of the company’s early story. He shows how it was built on original, outside-the-box thinking, which makes it all the more surprising that as Xerox matured, it would miss out on unconventional ideas developed by its own researchers.

Brooks was also a masterful storyteller. He could craft a page-turner like “The Last Great Corner,” about the man who founded the Piggly Wiggly grocery chain and his attempt to foil investors intent on shorting his company’s stock. I couldn’t wait to see how things turned out for him. (Here’s a spoiler: Not well.) Other times you can almost hear Brooks chuckling as he tells some absurd story. There’s a passage in “The Fate of the Edsel” in which a PR man for Ford organizes a fashion show for the wives of newspaper reporters. The host of the fashion show turns out to be a female impersonator, which might seem edgy today but would have been scandalous for a major American corporation in 1957. Brooks notes that the reporters’ wives “were able to give their husbands an extra paragraph or two for their stories.”

Brooks’s work is a great reminder that the rules for running a strong business and creating value haven’t changed. For one thing, there’s an essential human factor in every business endeavor. It doesn’t matter if you have a perfect product, production plan, and marketing pitch; you’ll still need the right people to lead and implement those plans.

That is a lesson you learn quickly in business, and I’ve been reminded of it at every step of my career, first at Microsoft and now at the foundation. Which people are you going to back? Do their roles fit their abilities? Do they have both the IQ and EQ to succeed? Warren is famous for this approach at Berkshire Hathaway, where he buys great businesses run by wonderful managers and then gets out of the way.

Business Adventures is as much about the strengths and weaknesses of leaders in challenging circumstances as it is about the particulars of one business or another. In that sense, it is still relevant not despite its age but because of it. John Brooks’s work is really about human nature, which is why it has stood the test of time.

http://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Business-Adventures?WT.mc_id=07_17_2014_BizBook_Out&WT.tsrc=Out 

Saving Women's Lives: NOT AGAIN CAMPAIGN

Saving Women's Lives: Civil Society Organisations Launch NOTAGAIN Campaign to END Needless Maternal Deaths

No fewer than 75 media practitioners from print, broadcast and online media in Nigeria agreed to prioritize maternal health accountability issues in their reports to safeguard the lives of Nigerian women who die needless deaths in the process of pregnancy and child birth.  The commitment was given during a series of one-day sensitization and launch of NOTAGAIN campaign held in Lagos, Jigawa and Kaduna States recently.

The sensitizations, which aimed at increasing media coverage of maternal health issues in Nigeria was organized by Development Communications (DevComs) Network, as part of a broader initiative supported by MacArthur Foundation to address accountability in maternal health in Nigeria.  The sensitization pulled resource persons from civil society groups and health experts, including practicing gynaecologists and obstetricians in the three states.  The final NOTAGAIN sensitizations, will be launched in Abuja by May 2014.

Other organizations supported by MacArthur Foundation under the Maternal health Accountability initiative include: Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Community Health and Research Initiative (CHR), Society of Gynaecology and Obstetrics of Nigeria (SOGON), Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre (WARDC) , Women’s Health and Action Research Centre (WHARC), and Advocacy Nigeria. 

According to the Coordinator, NOTAGAIN campaign, Ayodele Adesanmi, NOTAGAIN campaign is a National Campaign slogan initiated by a number of MacArthur Foundation’s grantees in a bid to work towards achieving the overall goal of bringing maternal mortality ratio in Nigeria to its barest minimum.

In addition, Ayodele unveiled the NOTAGAIN campaign website (www.notagaincampaign.org) which according to him was developed to assist the journalists in sourcing materials for maternal and child health stories.  Other online platforms for NOTAGAIN CAMPAIGN include -- Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Google plus

Speaking on topical issues in maternal and child health in Nigeria, the President of Maternal and Child Health Partnership in Kaduna State, Mrs. Dorcas Adeyemi identified low access to maternal health care, low emergency obstetric care and inadequate skilled personnel at health facilities as key issues that need urgent interventions. Speaking on the same issue, the Deputy Director, Women Advocates Research & Documentation Center (WARDC), Mrs. Grace Ketefe, who was speaking on behalf of Dr. Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi (Director) during the sensitization in Lagos State,  said the risk of maternal deaths in delivery is significantly greater for women in the northern regions of the country, in rural areas, in low-income groups, and without formal education, than for those in the southern regions, in urban areas, in middle-to-high income groups, and with formal education.

While sharing a report of Independent Assessment of Lagos State Primary Health Care facilities, the Executive Director of Innovation Matter and member of Lagos State Civil Society Partnership, Ms. Dede Kadiri, said 30 PHCs were surveyed in Lagos State, out of which 12 PHCs complained of inadequate staffing and of being overworked, 10 PHCs do not have any supplies to handle emergency conditions at all, and 10 out of 29 PHCs claimed they do not have power supply back up.

A consultant gynaecologist, RSSH Specialist Hospital, Dutse, Dr. Abba Ahmad, while speaking on ‘Reducing Maternal Deaths: Where we are and the way forward’ said the disparity in maternal mortality ratio in north-east, north-west and south-west was due to education and socio-cultural beliefs. He decried practices where men prevent their wives from accessing maternal care because they do not want male doctors to see their wives’ nakedness.

Dr. Abba recommends an integration of TBAs in health system as a way forward to reducing maternal deaths. According to him, it will be difficult to discard them immediately, stressing that they lack expertise and skills to detect signs of complications before labour and adequately prepare for them.

The gynaecologist also emphasize on the need to empower women with information since more children contribute to more poverty and less likelihood of accessing health care.

Speaking about maternal mortality in Nigeria, a professor of gynaecologist and obstetrics at the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Oladapo Shittu, said Nigeria ranks 10th amongst countries with worst MMR alongside countries recently faced with war and poverty. According to him, insecurity in the country is worsening maternal mortality ratio. ‘’Women die about 10 times more in the North-East than South-West in the same country’’ he said. The professor explained further that factors responsible for maternal mortality ratio were close to socio-cultural issues peculiar to the people and region. He called on stakeholders to learn from one another to reduce maternal deaths.

Describing maternal mortality in Nigeria and the way forward, a consultant gynaecologist, Randle General Hospital, Surulere, Dr. Adeleke Kaka, said ‘’maternal mortality is a disaster, worse than Boko Haram or missing Malaysian airplane’’.  He emphasized the saying of Prof. Mahmoud Fathalla who said ‘’women are not dying because of diseases we cannot treat. They are dying because societies have yet to make the decision that their lives are worth saving.’’
 

Dr. Kaka, while suggesting the way forward urged government to demonstrate the will and courage to provide basic and comprehensive emergency obstetric care services in health facilities, increase access to effective methods of contraception, strengthen the PHCs. However, the gynecologist refused to put all blames on the government as everybody has a role to play; ''reducing maternal deaths requires concerted efforts by all. It is beyond mere statement of intention or the rat race to achieving MDGs 2015’’ he said.

Other speakers at the sensitizations included DevComs Network Consultant in Lagos, Bolaji Adepegba and Iliya Kure of JOBETH Kaduna, who charged the journalists on quality and balanced reportage of maternal health issues.

culled from http://devcomsnetwork.org/index.php/en/37-saving-women-s-lives-civil-society-organizations-launch-notagain-campaign-to-end-needless-maternal-deaths 

---

Chidinma  Onuoha

Cooordinator, Cornucopia E-books

08066656255

www.cornucopiaebooks.com

Rape Joke: Basketmouth Still in Troubled Waters 

 

6th January, 2014

In spite of an apology and an explanation, Bright Okpocha, popular Nigerian comedian, better known as Basketmouth, has continued to receive flaks from his fans for what they considered to be an offensive rape joke he posted on his Facebook wall.

On Sunday, the humour merchant posted a comment on his wall in which he portrayed dating scenarios involving white girls on the one hand and African girls on the other and how both scenarios could lead to sex.

In the controversial joke, he wrote, “White girls: 1st date: Coffee, 2nd date: Kiss, 3rd date: sex.” For the second scenario he wrote, “African girls: 1st date: Fast food, 2nd date: Hug, 3rd date: Chinese restaurant, 4th date: kiss, 5th date: Attempted sex but failed, 6th date: Shopping, 7th date: Cinema, new phone, more shopping, 8th date: Attempted sex but failed, 9th date: RAPE.”

Shortly after he made the joke public, it went viral on the internet, with many criticizing Basketmouth for encouraging rape.

Ostensibly stunned by the torrent of comments, the joke generated, Basketmouth later apologized, saying that it was misunderstood. The comedian also said he would never encourage any act of violence against women. “I would never in a thousand lifetimes encourage rape, I broadcasted a joke that many clearly misunderstood and have found offensive and I sincerely apologize, the intention however was to highlight an unfortunate trend and the ridiculously flawed comparison between money & the worth of a woman,” he wrote.

Rather placate them, the comedian’s apology further drew the ire of those who considered it belated. Barbara Mhangami, a Zimbabwean gender activist, writer and blogger based in the United States said the issue was not whether a joke was misunderstood or not but that it existed. “An apology that blames me for being at fault because I did not get the joke with rape as the punchline is not an apology but rather a paternalistic slap on the face. I don't like being slapped. Neither do I like non-apologies that are designed to mollify me. Mr. Basketmouth that non- apology stings and it hurts. Because you are telling me that you are only sorry that I misunderstood your joke, you are not sorry for telling it,” she explained. Mhangami’s reaction was a sequel to a long letter he had written to Basketmouth entitled, Mister Basketmouth, Rape is NOT a Joke!

Ikhide Ikheloa, literary critic and essayist, however called for a stiff punishment. “If anyone knows of any and all of the companies that Basketmouth does endorsement deals with, share on Twitter and on Facebook. Let them explain to us why they are feeding someone who believes it is cool to rape our sisters and mothers. He is about to get paid! Nonsense,” he averred.  Abimbola Adelakun, a United States-based Nigerian writer and journalist, noted that it was not an original joke.

Chika Unigwe, a Belgium-based writer and winner of the Nigerian Prize for Literature, said Basketmouth had a predilection for cracking sexist jokes. “Basket mouth is a repeat offender. First and last time I watched him, he told a ‘joke' about a woman begging to be raped like the others had been because no one had slept with her in a long time for whatever reason. There were women in the audience laughing at that very offensive joke.’ Being a comedian isn't about every topic being fair game. It's about talent and discernment,” she noted.

Evelyn Ukamaka Olisakwe, a writer, said Basketmouth’s apology did not only smack of arrogance but was also appalling. “I read the 'joke' and I am left shaken. Here is a celebrity, a 'model' who has almost become a household name. He has over a million followers. So who says he won't negatively influence some naive minds out there?! There are young boys wanting to be like him, talk like him, dress like him and walk like him. And we think they won't also swallow this shit?” she asked rather rhetorically.

However, as the joke continues to generate vitriolic reactions, there are fears that Basketmouth, an A-list comedian who had performed in local and international concerts alongside acts such as Sean Paul, Wyclef Jean, Akon, Jay-Z, Beyonce and Chris Brown may lose his multimillion naira Globacom deal as a result of his controversial joke.

culled from http://www.tellng.com/entelltainment/rape-joke-basketmouth-still-troubled-waters

 

Pope tightens penalties for Child Sexual Abuse

Pope Francis on Thursday announced a reform of the Vatican penal code, introducing tighter penalties for child abuse, financial crimes and official leaks, while abolishing life sentences.
The move comes in the wake of: paedophilia scandals that rocked the Catholic Church in recent years; allegations of wrongdoing at its bank, the Institute of Religious Works; and the embarrassment of the VatiLeaks affair.
Child trafficking, prostitution and sex abuse, as well as possession of child pornography, were specifically mentioned as crimes punishable with 5-12 years in prison, according to reforms due to enter into force on Sept. 1.
Under the old system, child abuse was covered by crimes against “good customs,’’ warranting jail sentences ranging from three to 10 years.
Francis made the penal code changes applicable not just to employees of the Curia, the Church’s governing body, but also to Vatican diplomatic staff posted abroad and lay people and clergy working in other Holy See institutions.
That makes such people “indictable” by Vatican justice even when they commit crimes “outside the borders of the state,” Monsignor Dominique Mamberti, the Vatican’s “foreign minister,” told reporters.
The Vatican’s handling of paedophilia cases in its ranks has been put under observation by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva.

A UN spokesman said on Thursday the panel hoped to hold a session on the issue in January.
In view of that discussion, the committee has asked for “detailed information on all cases of child sexual abuse committed by members of the clergy, brothers and nuns or brought to the attention of the Holy See,” to be submitted by November.
In addition, the committee’s 18 experts had specific questions about allegations of forced labour and taking away of babies in Catholic-run laundries in Ireland.
Francis’ legal reforms also gave Vatican authorities the power to seize assets from officials suspected of corruption and jurisdiction over “crimes committed against the security, the fundamental interests or the patrimony of the Holy See”.

Help! Rate of incest, child sexual abuse rises in Nigeria

Nigerians forbid incest because of cultural, traditional and religious beliefs. But pedophiles with their abnormal sexual preference for teenagers are on the rise. LEONARD OKACHIE reports that more fathers are also being charged for having sex with their daughters.
Janet (not real name) has an unforgivable hatred for her brother. In fact, she wishes not to see him again in her life. Why? Her brother has traumatised her. Now a grown up lady, Janet is haunted by past ugly experience when she was a child.
According to her, when she was seven years old, she was sleeping in the same room with her elder brother then 20. After each night prayer, her elder brother prodded her to watch pornographic videos together, caressing her breasts and other parts of the body during the show. Eventually, he started having sex with her.
Even as the incestuous relationship became a regular affair, he warned her not to tell their parents or any other person. Till their parents died, Janet said they had no idea what went on between her and the brother.






Now, a grown up, Janet can no longer control her libido, as she sleeps around with different men. She believes the elder brother is responsible for her predicament and vows never to set her eyes on him again.
Like Janet, another 10-year- old boy, in an orphanage said, “Whenever I see my brother, I feel like killing him. I hate him; I don’t care where he is.”
The boy, whose parents are now dead, reacted angrily when asked about his elder brother. Giving reason for his reaction, he said, “When I was younger, my brother would put his penis in my mouth and force me to suck it.”
Pedophiles are everywhere; fathers and sons now indulge in the bestial act of defiling their daughters and sisters.
In 2008, the world was shocked when news broke in Amstetten, Austria, a rural town about 150 km (93 miles) west of Vienna, that a 73-year-old man, Josef Fritzl, held his daughter, Elisabeth Fritzl, 42, hostage in an underground cellar for 24 years, during which time he raped his daughter and fathered seven children with her there.
Fritzl explained Elisabeth’s disappearance by saying she had run away from home, a story backed up by letters he forced Elisabeth to write, including one that begged her parents not to look for her.
Studies have shown a rising increase in incestuous relationships between fathers and their daughters, between mothers and their sons and even between other close relations.
Those involved are from different strata of the society, the wealthy, rich, middle class and even flotsam and jetsam.
Pedophiles and their ilk involved in incestuous affairs device different ways of making the victims to do their bidding. Sometimes, they threaten to kill them. Others pretend they really love and have the interest of their victims at heart, lavishing gifts, money and attention on them.
The Lagos State Police Command recently paraded a man, who defiled his two daughters and granddaughter, which shows the extent to which family values have degenerated in the country. The suspect, Sylvester Ehijere, 48, was said to have had carnal knowledge of his first daughter, Favour, when she was 17 years old.
A native of Ohuode, Edo State, Ehijere also molested his seven-year-old daughter, Chidinma, and his 15-month old granddaughter, Treaga.
The seven-year-old girl told the police that her father had sex with her on several occasions and had promised to buy her gifts but never did.
“Whenever my mum is not at home, he grabs me, forces his hand over my mouth and then inserts his penis into my private part. He promised to buy me a car, cake and biscuit, but he did not buy anything for me. He also threatens to use a knife to gouge out my eyes anytime I threaten to tell my mother,” she told the police.
The wife, Mrs. Margaret Ehijere, also made startling revelations, saying they have four children- two males and two females – and the husband has had carnal knowledge of her daughters including the infant grand-daughter.
She said, “I am a caterer. In 2006, I went to Abuja where I spent five days. But at about 1am, my first daughter, who was 17 years old at the time, called on the phone crying that she was raped by her father.
“Because my oldest daughter is working, we decided to put her baby at a daycare in Ejigbo. I have always been the one bringing her back every day. But on that particular day, my husband went to the daycare and after an altercation with the teacher, took the baby home.
“When I got home, the baby was crying uncontrallably and I wondered what was wrong. When I finally took off her diapers, I noticed she was bleeding in her private part. When I raised alarm, my husband was unnerved. That was when I suspected him. I rushed down to the Ejigbo Police Station and reported the matter.”
What is that status of the case while the bubble is yet to settle on Ehijere’s saga, another 58-year-old man from Agbura, Yenagoa Local Government in Bayelsa State was recently arrested by the police for allegedly impregnating his two daughters and attempting to rape the third. One of his daughters was said to have been pregnant for him twice but lost them during labour. The second daughter had to relocate from the community out of shame.
The 14-year-old daughter who is a student of the Community Secondary School, Agbura, was said to have revealed her father’s sexual escapades to the school counsellor.
The counsellor who is her class teacher, subsequently reported the matter to the Special Adviser to the Governor on Women Affairs, Mrs. Pulu Zifawei, who called in the police.
In March, a 10-year-old girl disclosed how her step-father, Alabi Ibrahim, 62, had been sleeping with her in their residence at Opara Estate, Aiyetoro Road, Abeokuta.
The man was said to have indulged in the act on countless occasions and threatened to kill her if she told anyone. But the girl told her siblings what had been going on between them. The latter told their mother, Mrs. Adiat Ibrahim, who then reported the matter to the police. The suspect fled when the police came after him.
Similarly, in 2010, Philip Ben, 40, from Akwa Ibom State impregnated his 12-yearold daughter, confessing that he was tempted by the ‘seductive’ dress she was putting on. But the daughter countered that her father drugged and molested her.
She told the police that her father had been having sex with her for two years at their Yaba, Lagos residence.
While making a confession at the Criminal Investigations Department CID, at Panti, Yaba, Lagos, Ben said: “One day, I came back from work and met my daughter naked. As I was admiring her, I could not control myself anymore. I started caressing her, and she did not resist, so we had sex.”
The girl also told the police that her father divorced her mother and married another woman who died later after giving birth to twins. “I was staying in the village before my father came and picked me at the age of seven to take care of the twins. It was when I came and started staying with him that he began being intimate with me,” she added.
Many people who spoke with National Mirror on the rising incident of incest in Nigeria were very forthright.
A bus driver, Mr. Francis Ojo, said: “Such incidents are as result of frustration. It is the reason why some men no longer sleep with their wives but with their daughters. Also, some daughters are not biological children of their supposed fathers. Some children are the products of adultery, and naturally, the affection from their fathers are lacking. People no longer respect the marriage institution any longer. For a father to sleep with his daughter is abominable. Such a man is cursed.”
A teacher at Ikorodu, Lagos, Mr. Vincent Egudah, said, “Do we have Child Rights in this country? Daily we are bombarded with rape cases and the government does nothing about them. Men rape their daughters and mothers are afraid to speak out because of cultural and religious inhibitions. Most of them say they want to protect their marriage. Which marriage do you protect, when your husband is sleeping with your daughter? The law is clear on such offence but we hardly hear of anyone being jailed for committing such heinous crime. Until our judges begin to jail offenders, the crime will not stop.”
For Mrs. Yemisi Balogun, a retailer at Ketu, Lagos, such abominable act has become a regular occurrence in the society.
“It is sad that we are now witnessing a similar thing that happened in Sodom and Gomorrah. Any man who sleeps with his daughters is an animal. In my community it is taboo, and anyone caught would be publicly disgraced by making him walk round the village naked. After, he will be required to appease the gods. If he resists, he will be excommunicated.
“However, I advise mothers to always monitor the activities of their daughters. Some mothers are so busy running after money that they don’t have time for their children. Some are either ashamed or afraid to report their husbands or sons. Until mothers begin to speak out, the evil will continue to live with us,” Balogun said.
On the legal implication of the abuse, Principal Partner, Abiye Tam-George & Co., and Child Protection/Parenting Skills expert, Mrs. Abiye Tam-George, explained that when a child is sexually abused, that child may likely suffer from emotional and physical trauma, thereby compounding the legal consequences of sexually abusing a child.
She said: “Cases of fathers abusing their children have become very worrisome, as more cases are reported every day. The reason is that fathers are hardly convicted of these abuses. The legal implications are very explicit as provided for in the Child Rights Act of 2003. Section 31 subsections (1) provides that ‘No person shall have intercourse with a child’ and section 31 subsection (2) declares that ‘A person who contravenes the provision of subsection (1) of this section commits an offence of rape and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for life.
“Fathers who are guilty of raping their children as clearly stated by the Child Rights Act of 2003 may be committed to life imprisonment.”
A counsellor on child sexual abuse and Founder/ Executive Director, Christianah Fate Foundation, Mrs. Christianah Akindolie, said during the group’s campaign in April at Eti- Osa Local Governement Area of Lagos State, a middle aged man asked why they were always campaigning against child sexual abuse.
“He actually said, he does not see anything wrong in sleeping with a child, after all, it is a ‘way of refreshing a man’s blood,” Akindolie said.
Advising against child sexual abuse, she said, “If a child is sexually abused, he or she should talk about it to a trusted adult who is ready to help. They should not keep quiet because the abuser must have threatened them. It is just a threat, they should not be afraid.
“Children should not allow anyone touch their private parts. They have a right to refuse, especially for the girls. They have a right to refuse a hug, even from an uncle. I tell children, ‘you have private part, you have public part. Private parts should not be touched.’ When we empower our children with those words, it is going to help them.
“In this society, people do not know child’s sexual abuse is everybody’s concern. As it affects a child, it is going to affect the next because children are influenced by their peers. Research has shown that a sexually abused child would abuse others. It is a chain reaction. A child who is sexually abused could abuse 10 others.”
A psychiatrist at the Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital, Yaba, Lagos, Dr. Adebusola Adekoya, explained that people abusing children is one of several sides of disorders associated with sexual preferences.
“They are called pedophiles, that is, people with sexual preference for children not of legal age. They take undue advantage of them. Like any other illness, it is an abnormal sexual preference. You can’t say there is a particular cause. Pedophile is just one of several others. There are at least eight other abnormal sexual preferences.
“In psychiatry, we talk of multiple causes; that is multi-factorial. It could be a problem with the person’s system; the society or environment. Until we see the person and interview him, we cannot safely hazard the cause. The cause for one person could be different from another. So we can’t say there is a general cause for it. Some people could have been abused when they were young. When they grew up as adults they do similar things to other children,” he explained.
Adekoya stated that one of the consequences of child abuse is that the child could grow up to be a child abuser, even as she stressed that the child may also develop behavioural problems.
“The child could have a personality problem. A lot of things could happen to the child. The child might not be able to cope in school due to trauma. Some experience it and might not have anyone to confide in. They either manifest as a child or as adults. As a child, they are withdrawn, and won’t play like others. Some become over-exposed; that is when you see a fiveyear- old being over-friendly with people; people then will say she is too loose. When sexually abused children grow up, they develop personality disorder and finding it difficult to stay in a relationship. They have low self-esteem of themselves and could be tempted to commit suicide since they won’t see themselves as worthy of anything.”
She, however, disclosed that there is treatment for both the abused and abuser. “Ideally the treatment will involve the entire family because something could have happened between the husband and wife which caused the man to sleep with his daughter. Anything to do with children must involve the entire family. There are different psychological treatments. Unfortunately, most people do not recognise it as a problem that is treatable. In this environment, everything is termed an abomination,” she said.



Culled from National Mirror Newspaper- June 20th, 2013

 

 

 

 

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