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Cake day: June 10th, 2023

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  • It’s also very worth noting that disabled people (many also Jewish, of course) were the first group systematically exterminated en masse by the Nazis. Disabled people were legally required to be sterilized starting already in 1933 when the Nazis came into power, and mass euthanasia started in 1939 (called Aktion T4). Mass killings of other victims in concentration camps began in 1941.

    The people who were considered disabled was subject to interpretation. Alcoholism, epilepsy, paralysis, blindness, and “work shyness” were all conditions considered unworthy of life.

    Autistic people, then believed to have a form of schizophrenia, were also a main target. In fact, the term Asperger’s syndrome was coined by Hans Asperger as a means of determining which autistics were bound for work camps versus death camps. This is part of the reason why Asperger’s is no longer considered its own syndrome but is considered part of the larger autism spectrum. The delineations between the former autistic subtypes were too vague and subjective to be accurate.

    Unfortunately, disabled victims of the Holocaust receive little recognition to this day, but it’s not surprising when disabled people still have reduced status under the law in most countries.

    Few countries offer enough welfare benefits to ensure a decent standard of living. Even then, you lose access to those benefits if you manage to build assets worth more than a few thousand dollars/euros. We cannot get married without reduced benefits in many countries. Few countries have sufficient accessibility laws. Things like obtaining a driver’s licence can cost much more with certain disabilities. Many countries prohibit immigration with certain disabilities.

    Disabled activists have been sounding the alarm on all this for decades, because we are historically first on the chopping block when shit gets real. Keep that in mind when RFK Jr. starts talking about an autism registry or work camps for psychiatric patients.


  • Accessibility is sorely needed everywhere but it’s pretty wild that they’re tackling it online before tackling it in the real world.

    One of my close friends here in NL can’t use the train station in their neighborhood because they use a wheelchair and the platform can only be reached by stairs. They would need to go to the station in the city center, but busses aren’t wheelchair accessible, so they would need to call an expensive and extremely inconvenient transportation service. So they pretty much never travel.

    There are almost no bathrooms in public and the ones that do exist are not free and are usually not accessible to people with many kinds of physical disabilities. In my city center the only bathroom is in a mall, which does have an elevator between the parking garage and the ground floor, but not to the bathrooms, which are one floor higher.

    Old cities are hard to retrofit! But if this super rich country, world-renowned for amazing infrastructure and creative architecture, hasn’t tackled this problem yet, we have a bigger problem. It’s a cultural issue.

    Every person will become disabled at some point, unless they suddenly and tragically die early.









  • Amen. As a millennial I’ve lost count of the times I’ve heard that WW3 is starting. Every time shit pops off in the Middle East (almost always thanks to the good ol’ US of A) the media starts handwringing and people start panicking.

    But even if we do end up in a world war, the world won’t stop turning. People with bombs raining down on them still need to go to work and cook dinner and pay their bills.

    War has always been a reality for someone somewhere in the world. But if/when it’s our turn, we’re so self-centered we think that it’s the actual apocalypse.

    All we can do is keep working to make life better for each other. Even though shit is pretty bleak for everyone with late stage capitalism and climate change, it’s not nearly the worst thing any group of people have ever experienced.

    So you can give up, or you can embrace radical nihilism and choose to cling to any scrap of joy you can find while working to make things better, even if it’s just the tiniest bit.

    In the grand scheme of human history, western civilization as we know it is a tiny blip. It’s incredible that we’re here to witness this moment. If nothing else, let sheer curiosity and spite drive you to keep going.




  • Chickens will eat almost anything. I once saw a chicken grab a frog and swallow it whole. One of its legs was hanging out of her mouth the rest of the day. She was fine afterwards.

    Eggs are also especially tasty to them. You can feed them cooked eggs (very nutritious), but if they ever get ahold of a broken egg and realize how tasty they are, they can start eating their freshly laid eggs before you can collect them.