The Austin City Council recently decided to reject a 750k settlement for the shooting death of an African-American, eastside teenager, Nathaniel Sanders, by Austin police. I happened to see a local news piece of the council meeting, with aggrieved members of NAACP stomping out of the room, calling mayor a snake, etc. I proceeded to follow the shit storm online, reading news articles and the dozens of bigoted comments I knew I'd find. People calling the teenager's family trash, calling Sanders a thug, calling the NAACP racist. Never mind that the thug is dead and cannot be punished further, people need to applaud the death, castigate everyone who might have been affected by it, and dismiss that APD did *anything* wrong.

It's ugly and somehow so engrossing.

I object, yet I understand the compulsion to post. It satisfies the ego, yet you can remain at home in the easy chair. The Internet and modern conveniences should be drawing us together, making it easier to understand the facts of a story and reach common ground. But really this common ground--the most sensible response--is a part of the objective reality we are trying to escape.