The Gruffalo lives here.

It’s story time at Kingston Library in Canberra. Something about a Gruffalo and an elephant who was frightened of a mouse. That Gruffalo should really be called Noisymofo, and lemme-tell-ya and the elephant isn’t much better. But the little ones are digging it and who the hell am I to begrudge anyone a story.

I’m working out of the library because I’m travelling today and rather than put everything off until Monday I figured we’d switch it up a little. I got a couple of thing I’d like to chew over, including libraries, but first we gotta get through the week.

And what a week.

This fucking guy, right? It feels like there might finally be a reckoning for Tangerine Mussolini, except, of course, for the millions of tiny tangelo fascists who just don’t seem to care that he is a more of a clear and present danger to what’s left of American democracy than a rampaging throupletastic horror squid stitched together from the gigantic trouser noodles of Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Rupert Murdoch. Because I think we can take Trump at his word on one thing. He could totally murder somebody in cold blood in the middle of Fifth Avenue and his army of darkness wouldn’t just ignore the homicide, they’d celebrate it.

Quinta Jurecic at The Atlantic sees America’s final showdown with Trump as a sort of boss battle between the Rule of Law and the Divine Right of Kings. “In court,” she writes, “Trump is no longer on his home turf. In that sense, the Mar-a-Lago indictment represents the latest collision between the legal system and Trump’s insistence on defining the terms of his own reality…”

But I don’t know. He’s been indicted more times than he’s been elected, and it doesn’t seem to have affected his chances of being nominated again by the Republicans. They genuinely seem to have unplugged themselves from reality.

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Reality, of course, can be fugly. Rarely does it get fuglier than the grotesque spectacle of the Opposition and the Murdoch hivemind conspiring to make bank off Brittany Higgins. It was legitimately sick-making, watching Dutton’s spear carriers pantomime a Who-Knew-What-And-When-Did-She-Know-It attack in Question Time after so many of them had worked so hard to bury the case originally, lest it interfere with their soon-to-be-doomed re-election bid.

But worse has been the Murdoch goons just going fuck it and piling on to subject Higgins to the sort of 24/7 beatdown they’d normally reserve for one of their favourite Culture War victims.

This is the part where I’d normally schaden my freude to the max, rolling in Dutton’s massive self-own after someone decided that the once widely unknown Senator Van was the right sort of chap to prosecute a bit of concern-trolling. His is, of course, now somewhat better known as an accused groper and the latest loss to the coalition party rooms.

It would be funny, except it’s not.

Not even close.

These people know what they’re doing. They understand only too well the mediated violence they’ve been visiting upon Higgins.

They know the damage it’s doing to her and to thousands of other survivors. They know how it could end.

And they just don’t care.

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Deep breath, now.

Letting my rage go here.

To be honest, the Gruffalo is helping. These kids are really digging on Story Hour. It’s a joy to watch while I hunker down over my keyboard, snarling at everything.

I wanted to circle back to libraries because there was a small kerfuffle on the very small social media site to which I’ve evacuated from Twitter.

Somebody bagged on libraries, and we all took to the shield wall. Sitting in a library, writing for you this morning; this is a fight I’m happy to have. It comes around every couple of years when some idiot troll suggests closing libraries and giving the space to Elon or Rupert to do something ‘useful’ with.

The usual argument these days is that online resources make libraries redundant, that the information can be had anywhere for free. This ignores the fact that most of the information online now is blazing hot garbage and the even bigger fact that libraries aren’t just information dumps. They are safe, comfortable and welcoming places for everyone, not just gated enclaves for those who can afford the membership.

Also, the Gruffalo lives here.

Back to normal posting next week. And hopefully a Reading Club on Wednesday.