Culture

Australian sport, particularly Australian rules football, has enjoyed a positive place in the public psyche. It has managed to perpetuate an image of an all-encompassing and all-welcoming environment, a world away from hooliganism and violent crowds often associated in the popular imagination with “soccer”. The AFL has messages recorded by the captains of each club played before games encouraging their supporters to be passionate, but reminding them that the football arena should be a welcoming one for all supporters and indeed the players.

Briggs is 598 kilometres from his hometown of Shepparton - and he's missing his bed. "When I'm at home I don't have people ringing me up telling me I've got to get out of the house," says the rapper, sitting on his hotel room's balcony in Sydney.

Tom Waits once said that writing songs against war was like throwing peanuts at a gorilla. Which may be true, but no one said gorillas liked peanuts in their face.

Cesar Chavez Directed by Diego Luna Written by Keir Pearson Australian release TBA The 1936 National Labor Relations Act in the United States recognised the rights of US workers to organise and collectively bargain -- but excluded farm workers. Cesar Chavez tells the story of the heroic struggle of super-expoited farm workers -- frequently immigrants -- and their leader Cesar Chavez for their rights to organise for a dignified living.

Forgotten War By Henry Reynolds New South, 2013 In August, Prime Minister Tony Abbott attended a ceremony in Sydney to mark the 100 years since the Australian Naval and Military Expedition Force sailed out of Sydney Harbour to German New Guinea shortly after Britain declared war on Germany in 1914. The occasion was the official start of a four-year-long Anzac centenary of jingoism. Abbott was anxious that we “should know all our great war stories better” by the time the centenary commemorations come to an end.

The Political Bubble: Why Australians Don’t Trust Politics Mark Latham Macmillan, 2014 291 pages, $32.99 (pb) The only thing surprising about the 4% of Australians who a poll last year said “almost always” trusted the federal government is that the figure is that high. Further evidence of the many failures of Australian politics comes in The Political Bubble via an angry Mark Latham, the former leader of the federal Labor Party.

Mira Canning Stock Route Project http://mira.canningstockrouteproject.com In the early part of the 20th century, the “Kings in Grass Castle” ― the cattle barons of northern Western Australia ― were profit-gouging the beef trade through controlling transport. The WA government decided to break their monopoly by mapping a stock route from the Kimberley down through the state’s semi-arid interior to the southern markets.

Stasi Hell or Workers’ Paradise? Socialism in the German Democratic Republic ― What Can We Learn From It? John Green & Bruni de la Motte Artery Publications, 2009 50 pp., $7.25 Red Love: The Story of an East German Family Maxim Leo Pushkin Press, 2013 272 pp., $31.60 The German Democratic Republic (GDR) disappeared a quarter of a century ago after 41 years’ existence. The East German state is mostly remembered as “Stasiland”, as Anna Funder’s history of its secret police is called.

Going round in circles Like the fans overhead His mind can’t get the words out And the spirit weighs like lead Join the team, Recurring dream, Kill Team, Kill Team The heat it has no ending And the isolation stings Is this what they call ‘R&R’, A bird with shattered wings? Join the team, Recurring dream, Kill Team, Kill Team The face of that civilian Lurks in fragile fits of sleep They murdered him for sport And laughed to hear his widow weep Join the team, Recurring dream, Kill Team, Kill Team Routine operation, Chopper dust-off, village street,

The Greatest Traitor: The Secret Lives of Agent George Blake Roger Hermiston Aurum, 2013 362 pages, $39.99 (hb) George Blake was smart, resourceful and committed. A teenage courier with the Dutch anti-Nazi resistance during the war and a British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) spy after it, Blake then picked the wrong cause, says Roger Hermiston in The Greatest Traitor, converting to Marxism and becoming a Soviet mole in the SIS.

Pride Directed by Matthew Warchus Written by Stephen Beresford Starring Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, Dominic West & Ben Schnetzer In Australian cinemas now If you haven't seen the recently released Pride yet, you need to get to a cinema. It'll moisten your eyes, swell your heart, make you tap your feet and inspire you to join the next pride parade.

Here's this month's roundup of left-leaning music, with a strong contingent from Melbourne. What album, or albums, would you suggest?