Local family company Berwicks, shouted local business owners and managers breakfast on March 27, to catch up on the latest trends in social media. Speaker, Simon Dell is an implant from the UK and runs a full service marketing agency known as Two Cents.

He emphasised the importance of content as the tool for engaging your customers and deepening the relationship.

“It is not just about communication, it is also about building trust, he said.

He believes that content is the key to a successful marketing strategy in this always on age.

“If you don’t have a content expert in your team, then outsource it to a company that does.”

He also pointed out the role of friends and strangers in providing recommendations for business.

“People trust social media because they are getting information from their friends. If your customers don’t trust you, social media is not going to work for you.”

CEO Kayleen Leitch said that she loves being able to give back to the community.

“We have recently begun working closely with Micah Project and are delignted to have them present their 500 Homes 500 Lives program to our customers and business partners,” she said.

Berwicks also offers a free efficiency analysis to local businesses, walking business owners through the costings associated with document handling and processing.

“This is our core expertise, and if we can share it around, it deepens our relationship with our neighbours,” Kayleen said.

Berwicks is an eighty three year old Brisbane company, still in the hands of the family who founded it. The office, warehouse and workshop at 355 Montague Rd has been a fixture at that address for over a decade when it moved from South Brisbane.

Find out more about Berwicks and their Free Office Efficiency Analysis on their website.

Nutritionist and researcher, Rachel Arthur says that fish oils may be more use in treating mental health current individual clinical research trials suggest, especially if you do your homework.

In a recent piece, published on her web-site, she queries the findings of many literature reviews, including the highly regarded 2012Cochrane review into the use of fish oils in bipolar disorder, that inevitably find the use of fish oil is ineffective. The Cochrane Review based their negative conclusion on the results of one study (Frangou et al 2006), while more than 23 others failed to meet their inclusion criteria (Montgomery & Richardson 2008). She writes that the more correct conclusion is that “based on this terrible mish-mosh of evidence, no firm conclusions can be reached”.

One of the biggest problems in fish oil research is the use of different doses, different ratios of the key ingredients (EPA and DHA) and different administration forms. The big take home message should actually be: Fish oils ain’t fish oils!

So according to Rachel we need to get reading and get clearer about which specific omega 3 fatty acid or blend (and in what ratios) works for which mental health problem – it’s definitely not a case of one-size-fits-all – do your homework and pick your products well and most importantly let’s not throw the fish out with all that fishy research!

Read the full article on Rachel’s web-site

Socrates was in West End last Friday, at the Greek Club reminding us all that originally democracy was the government of peers, in which officials were regularly and randomly selected, not by voting, but by lot. Random chance selected the leader among equals, in the army, the executive, in the judiciary, for the jury that condemned Socrates to death.

Think about that for a while and you will begin to understand the significance of this performance and why it has played in over 300 theatres in 15 countries across five continents.

The apology of Socrates

Convincingly channelled by by Yannis Simonides, Socrates defends himself against charges of sedition: Specifically, “corrupting the young, and by not believing in the gods in whom the city believes, but in other demons that are novel”.

His defence was recorded at the time by Xenophon and others and then later by Plato as The Apology of Socrates, first performed six years after Socrates execution.

Socrates argues against his charges on the basis that he claims no special knowledge, he simply punctures the self-importance of those who do. He acknowledges that this is annoying and frustrating for those in power but claims this is fundamental to the operation of a democratic society.

He points out that if he is to be executed for corrupting the youth then he must be a uniquely corrupting influence, otherwise all the other corrupters would need to be executed as well. This cannot be the case, he argues because there is nothing special or unique about him, he does not teach a philosophy or ask them to follow a creed, he simply discusses, one on one, with individuals what the principles of Greek society mean to each and every one of them.

In the one excursion into sophistry, or rhetorical flourish, he argues that the accusation that he does not believe in gods is annulled by the accusation that he believes in demons who are in fact themselves demi-gods. While entertaining, I found it the least useful of the arguments put forward as it goes nowhere and teaches us nothing. That is a characteristic of all arguments about faith, however.

Socrates is found guilty and we get to enjoy his sentencing plea and then his response to the sentence of death.

During the plea, he proclaims that it is dishonourable to beg for a reduced sentence, or to appeal against the judgement of his peers. It is better to die than beg, as it is in the interest of the state and democracy itself that we should all defend our beliefs to the death, rather than desert them to protect ourselves, our wealth or status. It is good for democracy that those who challenge its principles are hauled before the court and forced to choose between their principles and death.

It is in the final act that he goes all the way to argue that we must not fear death, which may be wonderful or may be nothing, because it is that fear that enables the state to reduce us to slaves rather than operate as free men.

Socrates in West End

By the time Socrates is hauled off to death row, a cave where he must wait a month for the sacred ship to return to Athens, we are totally captivated. Most of the audience at West End’s Greek Club had fallen completely in love with the character spun so charmingly by Yanni (Yannis Simonides).

Even those who like their politics simplified by the clarity of might and money, expressed admiration and awe that one man could hold hundreds of people spell bound and delighted for eighty minutes. Yanni presents a very human, very funny and quite irreverent Socrates who is at once a man of the people and a character of great wisdom.

Emmy Award winner Yannis Simonides channels the eccentric and magnetic personality of Socrates and offers a profoundly social, political, but above all human work which captivates the audience with its immediacy and simplicity.

The wisdom of the Ancient Greek philosopher is, in an ever-changing world, and in the search for a life of meaning, more relevant now than ever before.

Yannis is a Yale Drama School trained actor/writer and Emmy winning producer. He was professor and chair of the NYU Tisch Drama Department, producer of GOTelecom and director of Hellenic Public Radio in New York. He is the founder and director of the Greek Theater Foundation (Elliniko Theatro) of the U.S.A. and Greece, in its 35th successful year. His performance work ranges from Euripides to Shakespeare to pieces adapted from the writings of Cavafy, Makriyannis, and Gogol. Among his patrons are the National Endowment for the Arts, The Greek Ministries of Culture and Foreign Affairs, The A. S. Onassis, Time Warner and Mobil Foundation.

He has embodied the role of the great philosopher for Socrates Now, in 300 performances in 15 countries at theatres, festivals, schools, organisations and universities. He has staged marathon audience-participation Readings-Celebrations of the Iliad and Odyssey at the Library of Alexandria, the Dahesh Museum and the 92nd Street Y in New York, and in Troy, Chios, Kos, Delos, Pylos, Malta, Sicily and Ithaca, at the Getty Villa in Malibu, at the Halles de Schaerbeek in Brussels and at the Hellenic Centre in London for the 2012 Olympic Games.

In 2009 Yannis Simonides was honoured by the city of Athens as Ambassador of Hellenism for his lifelong service to Greek culture worldwide. He was invited to speak at TEDx ACADEMY in 2012 and performed for the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 2013.

The title, The Apology of Socrates, appears ironic as Socrates does not apologise, in fact, he damns the pompousness of the accusers and their rich and powerful backers and argues for the rational rather than emotional support of his peers, the jurors who will decide his fate. In reality, though, it is a simple shift in the meaning of the word apology from its ancient meaning of “explanation” to our current emphasis on the expression of sorrow or regret in the acknowledgement of wrongdoing.

I am not a student of philosophy, I cannot comment on what is most important in Socrates’ philosophical framework and how that has influenced thought over the last two and a half millennia. His argument that mingling philosophy and politics is bad for integrity, sincerity and longevity, though, drove home like a knife. A veteran of four federal election campaigns, all fought on the basis that we need integrity at the core of our political system or democracy is doomed, I have been forced to deeply examine my core belief that politics can change the world for the better.

I was all ears, then, when after a short break, the discussion began. This, Yanni told us, has been a feature of all 300+ performances since the Socrates, Now project began.

Largely employing the Socratic technique of asking questions to develop the audience’s own response to the material, Yanni stepped lightly through

• the practical – how was he executed? (hemlock)
• and the interrogative – if reflection on what makes us better is the key to a better future from whence does action spring? (reflection leads to knowledge of what is right that guides us to correct action)
• to the speculative – does the increased awareness of Eastern philosopy render Socrates less relevant? (all philosophies have a handful of core principles that overlap and complement each other).

Taking Socrates home

As with Socrates dialogues, however, a clear agenda emerged from the apparently open questioning.

The key difference between enlightened government by rational reflection and the tribal belief in power of gods and kings, is that we are responsible for our own destiny. That we each must stand up and take responsibility for our actions and the potentially negative impact they have on others. Athenian democracy was codified by Solon in 594BC specifically to refine the operational democracy that had evolved in military Sparta.

The selection of officials by lottery, for a single term, which could never be repeated, meant that all members of an assembly had to be ready to lead, and accept that they might be led by any one of their number.

The corruption of democracy begins not with the role of the military or the influence of money, it begins with the replacement of the selection by lot, with the selection by the vote. As soon as citizens vie with each other for the vote, then the vote is sold. It is no longer the interests of the state that are at stake, it is the interest of the voter: that selfish individual who appoints representatives of their own interests.

My fifteen years active engagement in the political process has only heightened my awareness of how perceptive and powerful this observation is.

We argue on a daily basis about the value of democracy, the role of government and the means whereby we may correct the excesses of the oligarchy that rules us. All that discussion takes place, though, on the assumption that the vote is at the core of democracy. It is not.

For thirty short years, until the first dictatorship around 560BC, the experiment worked. It was an experiment that changed the world, but we have lost sight of the key precept that underpinned it.

Perhaps it is time we tried again.

 

Urban Voices, a celebration of poetry organised by Westender’s Kerrod Trott was held at the Boundary Hotel last Friday and was a resounding success. A dozen poets entertained, challenged and moved about thirty Westenders in the upstairs front room at the Hotel. The hotel, along with other Westend businesses provided $50 gift vouchers to the winning poets for their efforts.

The overall winner on the night was Ash the Poet with “Knockout  Blow” a poem that lived up to its name, taking out the popular prize, the overall winner and the prize for the most “form”. Prizes were also awarded for power, grace and joy.

A good mixture of traditional Aussie doggerel, more intellectual word play and dark theatrical works were presented on the night.

A notable feature of the evening was that all the performers were male. One female poet registered on the website but did not show. A number of female poets attended just to watch. Westender invites any women with ideas about developing poetry by women to put them to us,

Perhaps the greatest irony of the evening was that I waxed lyrical (I wish) about violence toward women in our community and invited women to submit articles to Westender in an effort to shift the culture immediately prior to the performance of a piece about a stalker who murders the girl in Room 22. The disturbingly realistic portrayal of the stalking and murder won no prize on the night but was certainly the talk of the town for the rest of the evening. Sasha can rest easy that he made an impression: His performance realistic enough that the domestic violence workers in the room invite his girlfriend to call them anytime she needs help.

The evening was the culmination of a poetry extravaganza in West End celebrating World Poetry Day. Kurilpa Poets took to the streets under the guidance of editor, Kerrod Trott. The Poet Police were called in to drag the Reverend Hellfire from off the tables in the Archive after he offended punters with a rant about religion. A great initiative by Kerrod to unleash Kurilpa Kulture in the community and keep West End weird.

Thousands of Queenslander marched from Queens Park in Brisbane yesterday to protest against the extremism of the Abbot Government despite the heat, and the rail closures across Brisbane’s South. The March was part of a nationwide movement that brought thousands onto the street.

Despite the large numbers, the march was completely ignored in the mainstream media, the Courier Mail did not mention it at all, the network television stations did not cover it and the  Brisbane Times simply ran stories from other capitals.

This concerted effort at a media boycott of the event highlights the importance of independent media outlets, such as Westender. It also highlights the urgency of the debate about the tactics we employ to build an effective opposition to the forces representing the one percent with their monopoly on media, retail and resources.

As mainstream politics slips more into corporate feudalism it is critical that we explore the tactics to maintain the liberties won so painstakingly over the last millenia by our forebearers. Read more articles about this on the Westender

.

Writing in the Guardian last week, Simon Copland’s piece March in March does not offer credible alternatives has attracted howls of derision from left and right alike.

Copland has set out to crticise the left for not building an alternative but has failed to outline how that alternative might emerge. Some of his critics point out that this is stating the bleeding obvious, others point out the simple truth that protests can build and that most revolutions have started with a population protesting that enough is enough.

In that context what Copland appears to be trying to say is that the left in Australia has not connected with a comfortably well-off Australian middle-class. Again, say some of the 400 people criticising the article, this is hardly in-depth commentary.

The real challenge is how to build a political movement that does engage the middle class, or accelerate the sense of dispossession so that the middle class is activated. The return of an active left in Europe is an example of the latter and raises the far more interesting question as to how and whether the Greens and the Socialists/Anarchists might work together in the future. Given the imminence of the G20 in Brisbane and the Abbot Goverments first counter-reformation budget that issue has some urgency.

In hindsight, the scale of the March in March simply reveals in hindsight that Copland was out of touch with the scale of dissatisfaction amoung voters. That is hardly a crime, we all misread the tea leaves some days. Given the media’s deliberate ignoring of the march, anyone with influence in the media should have been using it to increase awareness of the march and reasons for the protest.

What is more important, though, is that we dedicate our energies to building an alternative vision of the future. We have to establish not only that that future is possible and desirable, but that the counter-reformationists are out to destroy it, so that the majority of people will fight for it.

Copland is right that change is going to be partially driven by investors making decisions that influence corporate behaviour and partly by redefining the debate, but fails completely to recognise that the March in March is an important step to build a determined and cooperative effort between activists, protestors, community groups, welfare providers and political parties.

As became clear at the recent Cloudstreet forum on civil-liberties at Jaegara Hall simply shouting at people who are shouting with megaphones that they do not have the answers is not an answer in itself. That discussion highighted the need to create forums that allow these alternative visions to flourish. In addition to protesting against the G20 summit, we need to build an alternative vision by hosting a summit that develops and promotes that alternative view.