Don't Get Me Wrong...

I'm truly sorry, but I just don't know if I can go through Megan's gift garbage again. She has gotten extremely verbose, lately (or else my patience for her continues to diminish... somehow) and I just don't fucking care anymore. Especially so since I've come to the opinion that all the other morons are only a hair behind in their immoral, side-cheering and self-centered stupidity.

Matty Y, on the other hand, can keep it short and sweet and has the decency to make large block quotes of articles I've already read. I just can't thank the man enough for making my job easier that way:

So as best I can tell Manning is, in fact, guilty of serious crimes. And unlike the nutty and dangerous effort to legally sanction Julian Assange for publishing leaks, I have no problem with the government punishing people who violate the terms of their classification status. But Manning hasn’t had a trial and hasn’t been convicted. Somewhat punitive post-arrest pre-trial measures are kind of a necessary evil, but the prolonged confinement of Manning under cruel conditions go well beyond the necessary into the straightforward evil.

Matty boy isn't quite ready to go so crazy and say that EVERYONE should be considered innocent (and thus treated with respect) until proven guilty, but he's willing to make the bold moral claim that horrible torture should at least be reserved for those who've had their trial. Wouldn't want to drive the wrong man insane for the crime of letting the public know what horrible things his government was doing and lying about.

Incidentally, I assume the majority of humanity, including many of the officials responsible for the conditions of Manning’s detention, haven’t read Atul Gawande’s brilliant March 2009 article on solitary confinement. But absolutely everybody should. It utterly transformed my conception of what it meant to hold someone in isolation like this, and makes the idea of doing it to someone who hasn’t even had his day in court seem completely outrageous.

Actually, Matt, I was way into Atul before he got all big and sold out, but I'm glad his words are speaking to you. I, too, had to be told it was excruciating to be locked in a box without human contact for months. Thankfully, now that we know how horrible and soul destroying a torture solitary confinement really is, our conscience will only allow us to use it on the worst of citizens... like soldiers who use their conscience.

But this is all incidental. We wouldn't want to let it distract from the bigger issue, such as Matt's hip neighborhood that he's totally loving ever since he got famous on the blog boy scene! UH!