Art & poetry

DC Entertainment, Warner Bros Animation, Warner Bros Consumer Products and Mattel - forming a veritable Hollywood marketing Axis of Evil - issued a joint press release on April 22 saying they were releasing a tsunami of marketing targeted at six-to-12 year-old girls. The product they will be pushing will be “DC Superhero Girls” - including Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Batgirl and more - during their formative years.

Samba Co-written & directed by Olivier Nakache & Eric Toledano In cinemas now Nobody could say that French film makers Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano — and their actor of choice, Omar Sy — shy away from heavy subjects. In their 2012 international hit The Intouchables, they dived straight into questions of disability, racism and class. Now in Samba they have tackled the question of illegal migrants struggling to survive without papers in contemporary France.

ADELAIDE Come to Voices of Dissent on Thursday May 14 at 7pm. A Fundraiser for Green Left Weekly. Featuring The Tangled Bank; Kyle Landman, The Young Offenders; Steve O’Malley; Where Was I?; Brendan de Paor. Entry $7. The Jade Monkey, 160 Flinders St, Adelaide. Ph Claudia 0435 108 439. BRISBANE

Tony Abbott’s government is gearing up for another budget, and much has been made about how to raise revenue and what to cut. The government has toned down its previous rhetoric about a budget emergency, which appears to have disappeared despite the government failing to pass most of last year’s budget measures, but it still looks as if they will make the most disadvantaged pay while keeping things sweet for their mates in the big end of town.

White City, Black City: Architecture & War in Tel Aviv & Jaffa By Sharon Rotbard Pluto Press, £14.99 In July 2003, Unesco put the “White City” of Tel Aviv on its list of World Heritage Sites. It took almost 20 years of incessant campaigning by the Israeli state to secure this recommendation that, de facto, legitimised far-reaching aspects of Zionist ideology. But was there any merit to the Tel Aviv case in the first place? In fact, the building of Tel Aviv began adjacently to Jaffa — one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities of the world — only from about 1909.

Grrl Fest is an independent multi-platform music and arts event, celebrating and empowering women-identified artists. This year, the Melbourne event will be celebrating its third year. Grrl Fest will be held on March 21 at the Northcote Town Hall. There will be an outdoor venue, markets, music, workshops, cocktails and cabaret. The venue is a change up from the dusty warehouse beginnings of Grrl Fest.

Selma Directed by Ava DuVernay Starring David Oyelowo, Carmen Ejogo & Common In cinemas now The release of Selma could not be better suited to the current US political climate. Following the events in Ferguson last year, and many other tragic instances of police murdering and brutalising African American youth, a large anti-police brutality and anti-racism movement has arisen that is shaking the US.

Jonathan Sri, Greens candidate for the seat of South Brisbane, joined Evan Verner to talk about the state of politics in Queensland and Australia, what made him run as a politician and his views on different political issues. In this interview, Sri discusses his views on politics and how music has influenced his view of the world. * * * The first time I saw Jonathan Sri was at a rally where he was on stage delivering one of his slam poems. "This is Queensland, where no man is carried we like our blacks in jail and our gays unmarried

His cattle didn’t get a bid, they were fairly bloody poor, What was he going to do? He couldn’t feed them anymore, The dams were all but dry, hay was thirteen bucks a bale, And last month’s talk of rain was just a fairytale, His credit had run out, no chance to pay what’s owed, Bad thoughts ran through his head as he drove down Gully Road. “Geez, great grandad bought the place back in 1898, “Now I’m such a useless bastard, I’ll have to shut the gate. “I can’t feed my wife and kids, not like dad and those before, “Crikeys, Grandma kept it going while Pop fought in the war.”

Activist Arts Festival The Bella Union, Carlton South November 15, 12.30pm Sea Shepherd, Amnesty and Refugee Action Collective are among a range of activist groups involved in the Activist Arts Festival, an initiative set to connect local communities with activist groups across Melbourne in a non-protest environment.

The summer sun beat down on August 21 as thousands of Palestinians set out on a silent march in al-Rama, a Palestinian town in the northern Galilee region of present-day Israel, honouring the recently deceased poet and activist Samih al-Qasim. The 76-year-old al-Qasim, who battled cancer for three years, died late on August 19. Placards bearing verses of al-Qasim’s poetry and Palestinian flags bobbed above the marching crowd, which eventually arrived at the town’s main amphitheater. Al-Qasim’s relatives, prominent religious figures and politicians all spoke.

A dove that flew off just after the fall of Afghan Buddha Didn’t have enough Unoccupied airspace Unoccupied skies To flap its wings to restart the heart beats gone numb Of zillions resting in Graves Segregated apart as For the occupant and by the ccupied. The names on the tombstones of the graves of the occupied Could later become undecipherable, Though they Far outnumber that of the occupants. Hope the dead never wake up, to scrutinize their underrepresented statistics, to check the word limit of reports from Gaza,