#National Down Syndrome Society

[thepastisalreadywritten]

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive

By Rob Wallace

From summer into fall, SARS-CoV-2, the COVID-19 virus, ran up another epidemiological spike just as the feds sunset their pandemic control program.

While the virus continues along a loop of boom and bust repeatedly reset by its capacity for evolutionary escape, putting people in the hospital and out of work at a steady clip, U.S. officials and well-connected epidemiologists have abandoned public health in both practice and concept.

Alongside entrapping millions of Americans in a Long COVID vortex, such dereliction of duty places the U.S. in danger should other diseases arise, including, but not limited to, an avian influenza strain that even now is moving beyond cow herds and poultry flocks and beginning to spread in humans.

The COVID-19 pandemic that some of our most august epidemiologists pretend is over portends a broader decline in the very notion of the public commons upon which any functional society depends.

The State of the COVID Nation What’s the present state of the U.S.’s COVID-19 outbreak?

The National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS) reports a large majority of its data set of viral load in sewage plants tracked from September 9 to 23 to be in the orange and red zone of 60 percent or more of all the samples taken nationally since December 2021. That is, all those hot points on the NWSS map tell us the viral load in populations across the U.S. is now as high (and widespread) as any previous COVID peak.

On the other hand, the more acute NWSS measure of changes in SARS-2 sewage loads over the 15 days leading up to September 23 shows a mosaic of declines and increases, indicating differences at the sewershed level we still don’t understand.

NWSS tracks only 1,479 of the 16,000 publicly owned wastewater plants, which together serve at best 80 percent of the U.S. population. So, consider the NWSS map of SARS-CoV-2 loads just a snapshot.

The Walgreens COVID-19 Index of national test positivity covers both rapid tests and the more gold-standard polymerase chain reaction tests little available at this point. As of September 29, we see a decline to 21.8 percent of all tests Walgreens processes nationally from 40 percent earlier in the summer, but still as high as most points in the pandemic. The number of tests remains comparatively high, which at this late date in the pandemic may in itself serve as a measure of incidence. People are getting tested because they’re feeling sick.

There’s a geography to this. For late September, we see increases in test positivity in order of sizes of increase, in New Hampshire, Idaho, Oklahoma, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Connecticut, among other states, with New York presently hovering at 35.9 percent positive. These numbers were once available down to the county level until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) abandoned such mapping.

Syndromic surveillance offers another view of the pandemic. We see from Epic Research hospital reports of ICD-10 codes mapped between August 25 and September 7 for COVID infections per 100,000 hospital tests, states in the South and Appalachia are getting hit relatively hard, with the national hospital positivity rate at 16 percent. Hospitals across the U.S. were once required to report in such incidences on a weekly basis. Now only a few voluntarily report.

With such reporting now blacked out, infectious disease modeler J.P. Weiland is using wastewater data from Biobot Analytics and available CDC seropositivities to project COVID cases per day in the U.S. He reports we were at over 589,000 new COVID infections for the single day of September 19.

This summer’s peak isn’t the 5 million infections a day of the first Omicron wave that Weiland estimated in late 2021, but nearly a million infections a day in early August is well within the range of nearly every other COVID peak so far. COVID isn’t tailing off one peak to the next.

Weiland hasn’t released a detailed methodology, which makes the projection’s validity unconfirmed, although the general gestalt of his time series is probably on point. If these estimates are anywhere close to reality, much more forgiving global and U.S. data should now be rated “junk” and the pandemic considered still at strength — especially, as we previously described, as the virus has been given the public health green light to continue to explore its evolutionary possibilities.

Indeed, we see the outbreak stateside continuing to evolve, with a broad mix of 22 sublineages in play, and, as projected September 28, varieties of global variant of concern KP.3 and LB.1 leading the way.

Molecular biologist Raj Rajnarayanan’s 30-day mosaic shows all the genetic sequences of detected sublineages in the U.S. as of September 27, including their geographic origins. We see the near entirety of the country hosting variant JN and its infectious FLiRT offspring, the LBs and KPs 1, 2 and 3. We see the arrival of yet another new lineage, the highly transmissible XEC.

The Real Damage of Long COVID Remains A pandemic’s outcome is a matter of pathogen and host alike. So, while we see the SARS-CoV-2 virus still chugging along, the host population it infects has largely chosen to drop out of the pandemic fight.

While COVID death rates aren’t approaching those of 2020, we are nowhere near a 2019 world as the near entirety of the U.S. establishment pretends. The Swiss Re Institute reports U.S. and U.K. excess mortality rates still at 3 percent and 2.5 percent above pre-pandemic levels.

But here we have both U.S. political parties — and both presidential candidates — placing the ongoing pandemic behind us for good, save for scoring electoral points. The feds are sunsetting bridge funding for COVID antivirals and vaccines, the latter suddenly costing $200 for the uninsured. No wonder, as Science Communications Director Lucky Tran posts, half the Americans in a recent Ipsos poll incredibly expect never to get infected again.

The mass leap away from the reality of a still deadly infection is more from a push from a government that ostensibly holds the monopoly on national health intervention. The U.S. population would likely respond otherwise if signaled so from its elected leadership. Tran reminds us that a 2022 CDC report showed people are more likely to mask when alerted about local outbreaks by public health authorities. Without alerts, on the other hand, Americans are erring on the side of little to no masking.

The resulting health toll continues to beat up the population. Health analyst Mike Hoerger of the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative — whose models for daily COVID incidences typically run hotter than Weiland’s at 669,000 as of September 30 — projects 1 million to 4 million new Long COVID cases coming out of infections this past month alone.

Previous work showed and estimated that between 5 percent and 30 percent of people infected enter the whirlpool of a Long COVID syndrome for which few tests are available for diagnosis, and there are few prophylaxes available or in development to treat current patients.

A Patient-Led Collaborative Group preprint reporting the results of a survey of 3,300 participants found that increasing the number of SARS-CoV-2 infections a person gets increases the risks of Long COVID, worse Long COVID symptoms and greater overall impairment. Reinfections also appear to diminish the protective effects that vaccination may offer against Long COVID. Few of the surveyed reported Long COVID remission.

The damage extends beyond bodily health. The Wall Street Journal, focusing on the professional-managerial class, ran a story headlined “Long Covid Knocked a Million Americans Off Their Career Paths.”

Understandably, the article was widely retweeted by professionals who lamented their previous 60-hour work weeks and personal bests and marked how far they had fallen. Their work ethic proved no prevention against Long COVID’s siege of microclots, brain damage, cognitive collapse and post-exertional malaise that made some unable to get out of bed for weeks.

Long COVID also impacts many on the other end of the socioeconomic spectrum. A new survey of 7,000-plus adults found low-income Long COVID patients suffered greater food insecurity, especially those who didn’t participate in public food assistance programs.

It isn’t just adults suffering. New research out of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) RECOVER program found similar but distinguishable differences in symptoms between children and adolescents among the 5,300 youth it studied, leading RECOVER to declare Long COVID “a public health crisis” for a population some epidemiologists expediently presented as little affected by the infection.

Acknowledging Failures to Keep Them Going Noting that recent COVID deaths in the U.S. were double those of last spring, this New York Times piece from August took a meta view of the failure to see, observing that we no longer observe: “We Have Largely Moved on From Covid, but Covid Isn’t Done With Us” reads the print edition.

But such a gesture at the gap in reality that the newspaper itself helped condition offers the ruling class that effectively ended the COVID campaign permission to continue to ignore the duly noted failure.

The Times interviewed epidemiologists at the highest professional levels about the gap:

"Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said the newfound complacency can as much be attributed to confusion as to fatigue. The virus remains remarkably unpredictable: Covid variants are still evolving much faster than influenza variants, and officials who want to “pigeonhole” Covid into having a well-defined seasonality will be unnerved to discover that the 10 surges in the United States so far have been evenly distributed throughout all four seasons, he said. Those factors, combined with waning immunity, point to a virus that still evades our collective understanding — in the context of a collective psychology that is ready to move on. Even at a meeting of 200 infectious disease experts in Washington earlier this month — a number of whom were over 65 and had not been vaccinated in four to six months — hardly anybody donned a mask."

And how did officials and the public arrive at such a confusion? After all, other scientists and practitioners standing outside the establishment’s umbrella of respectability debunked the notion that all was well and repeatedly alerted the world to the broader system’s complicit silence.

I wrote in August 2022 that Osterholm himself helped inculcate the confusion:

"Mike Osterholm, who the Times failed to identify as part of the administration’s COVID Advisory Board, converged on this courageous line: “I think [the CDC] are attempting to meet up with the reality that everyone in the public is pretty much done with this pandemic.” A reality the administration worked hard to help manufacture by deft incompetence."

The Times also interviewed epidemiologist Bill Hanage to the effect scientists were themselves confused and that allowed him the freedom of an argument by ex falso quodlibet, a principle from which any proposition can be derived from a contradiction:

"Epidemiologists have long predicted that Covid would eventually become an endemic disease, rather than a pandemic. “If you ask six epidemiologists what ‘endemic’ means, exactly, you’ll probably get about 12 answers,” said Bill Hanage, associate director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. “But it certainly has a sort of social definition – a virus that’s around us all the time – and if you want to take that one, then we’re definitely there.”"

Ugly sophistry. In actuality, the time series of COVID outbreaks stateside in no way represent the kind of evolutionarily predictable seasonal variants we find in endemic influenza.

And the “socially defined” endemicity to which Hanage alludes was in part of his own making. In one CNN report, we find Hanage alongside Osterholm providing Biden’s CDC cover for dropping recommendations for quarantining at home and testing people without symptoms, brandishing another fallacy:

"Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, agrees that the new guidance shows that the CDC is trying to meet people where they are. “I think that this is a point where you actually have to sort of get real and start giving people tools they can use to do something or not. Because otherwise, people will just not take you seriously,” Hanage said."

An appeal to popularity is no epidemiological principle on which to base a response to a pandemic that’s killed anywhere from 1.2 to 1.5 million Americans.

Public Health Rebellion From Below In other words, Osterholm and Hanage and others aren’t the neutral observers they pretend to be, along with the Times.

Rather, they track disease only up to the point the political class can bear, helping bury the problem when it’s inconvenient. Liberals who are upset that science is met with public distrust might ask whether anyone concerned about outbreaks would listen to these brilliant scientists without suspicions they’re catering to other (well-funded) objectives.

How many times will these “men who stare at vaccines” ask us to run into our epidemiological walls — to reference the George Clooney movie about the Pentagon’s First Earth Battalion — as if our reductionist atoms can just pass through those of SARS-CoV-2, avian influenza, mpox, and the queue of other pathogens emerging out of an alienated nature and expropriated circuits of global production?

Vaccines are always only a part of any public health campaign, and their successful deployment depends on the very nonpharmaceutical interventions and structural changes the feds have insisted we abandon.

Figures of authority across local jurisdictions have similarly blanched. Political leaders — turning now to punishing people who continue to mask — are feeding their own health into the COVID maw held agape by establishment epidemiologists.

The best way to contact the dead in the data, these scientist “seancists” signal, is to help usher a public of biased optimists they’ve cultivated to their graves. The CDC continue to invite Americans “just this way, please,” once again adjusting down its color code scheme for its maps to imply we’re in less danger than we are.

Bipartisan rounds of strategic obfuscation follow each new COVID wave as if set as an algorithm. At this end of the U.S. cycle of accumulation, when capital cashes out and disinvests from the public commons, it’s only such manipulation that’s now endemic.

As the Pandemic ThinkTank described early in the pandemic, abandoned by the feds, we need to pursue a revolt from below. Community groups and local public health departments need to work together to reconstruct our public commons to handle the diseases and other disasters already here or on their way.

This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

[downsyndromeday]

5 recommendations for the global community to improve the lives of people with Down syndrome by addressing stereotypes and misconceptions.

The international community, led by the United Nations, can continue to improve the lives of people with Down syndrome by addressing stereotypes and misconceptions. Here are five recommendations for the global community:

Work with people with Down syndrome and their representative organizations to raise awareness about Down syndrome, in line with Article 8 of CRPD. In particular, there is a need in many countries to raise understanding of the cause of Down syndrome so that families are not faced with discrimination and shame arising from a false belief that they or their ancestors in some way caused the genetic variation.

Adopt best practices in life contexts through the implementation of evidence-informed guidelines, such as Down Syndrome International’s International Guidelines for the Education of Learners with Down Syndrome.

Provide opportunities for people with Down syndrome to take part in projects, advocacy campaigns and events. Down Syndrome International, in collaboration with Inclusion International, has developed guidelines to assist organizations with inclusive participation.

Provide employment opportunities for people with Down syndrome. Employers, from small organizations to large corporations to civil society groups, need to make workplaces accessible and welcoming.

Use easy-to-understand communication options for all information, ensuring accessibility for people with Down syndrome and intellectual disabilities, as well as for people with limited literacy or those who are reading in a different language, in line with General Assembly resolution 77/240, adopted on 16 December 2022.

All people deserve the opportunity to live life to the fullest. For people with Down syndrome to do so, it is past time to dispense with the myths and stereotypes that for too long have led to low expectations and diminished quality of life.  

[weirdpolis]

Since July is the Disability Pride Month and the Barbie Movie Month, here's my collection of Barbie dolls with disabilities.

Mattel has been adding disability representation to their doll series since 2019. So far we've had at least 6 Barbie dolls in wheelchairs, along with 2 Kens and 2 Chelsea dolls (little kid sized dolls).

There are 4 Barbie dolls and 1 Ken with prosthetic legs.

There's a doll with hearing aids, and a doll with Down Syndrome designed in association with National Down Syndrome Society.

There are also dolls with conditions like Alopecia and Vitiglio.

Mostly they come out in the Fashionistas line, but sometimes they also crop up in other thematic series, like "You can be anything", and so we had a Para-alpine skiier and an Interior Designer with a prosthetic leg.

There's also a doll honoring Helen Keller from "the Inspiring Women" series.

And in the clips from the "Barbie" movie, you can spot a Barbie in the wheelchair dancing along with others at Barbie's party.

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

Do other autistic women get 10x more emotional during PMS & their period? Any tips for coping?

Hi there,

I found an article from the National Autistic Society that talks about this. Here is an excerpt:

Research suggests that autistic people who menstruate may be more likely to experience: 

* increased sensory sensitivities, including:

      -  sensitivity to the smell and sight of menstrual blood 

      -  the body or skin feeling more sensitive in general 

      -  sensory overload occurring more frequently just before and during menstruation 

* increased emotions and challenges with emotional self-regulation (the ability to calm yourself down) 

* increased executive function difficulties (finding it difficult to focus, for example)

* excessive menstruation symptoms, including unusually painful periods and heavy menstrual bleeding. 

It is important to consult your doctor if your periods are excessively heavy, long and/or are accompanied by PMS (premenstrual syndrome) symptoms, such as mood swings and difficulty sleeping, that are affecting your daily life. 

The article will be below if you want to read more:

I hope this helps. Thank you for the inbox. I hope you have a wonderful day/night. ♥️

[there-was-never-a-door-there]

hello michael shelley nation may i interest you in some michael with marfan syndrome headcanons?

you get them either way sorry

I was brainrotting today to my sibling @alice-dyers-spouse so I figured I’d compile ALL my thoughts here

Starting off strong with the Give Michael Shelley The Right To Call Things That Inconvenience Him Abelist Campaign 2024. Every time his legs give out and he falls down the stairs to the archives just cursing the abelist society he lives in

Also bro can’t S E E so if he forgets his glasses he’s gotta look at all the files with his nose practically touching the shelves cos Marfan can affect eyesight too

AND I just KNOW he has a wheelchair for when he’s walking long distances (amusement parks/work trips/the like) that he has named and decorated

But also he’s like REALLY Fuckin Tall™️ so the other archival crew are always like mIcAeL! CaN yOu rEacH tHiS bOx????

and he does it cos he’s NICE but he’s closet so sick of it

And, of course, his nice leg brace and forearm crutches he has usually for day to day movement so his joints and ligaments don’t d i e

That’s all I have for now and I did my research BUT IF ANY OF THIS IS INSENSITIVE/INACCURATE PLS LET ME KNOW!! I don’t have marfan syndrome, I don’t know anyone who does, so the internet was my only connection to it so if it needs editing feel free to tell me :)

[mariacallous]

It's even more grotesque because Mar Galcerán has been an activist and official working on inclusiveness and disability policy for a while now in Spain.

For decades she battled to ensure that people with intellectual disabilities were part of the conversation. The extent of the progress she had made, however, was laid bare recently when Mar Galcerán became Spain’s first parliamentarian with Down’s syndrome.

“It’s unprecedented,” the 45-year-old told the Guardian. “Society is starting to see that people with Down’s syndrome have a lot to contribute. But it’s a very long road.”

Her feat has been decades in the making. When Galcerán was 18 years old, she joined the conservative People’s party (PP) after being attracted to what she described as its embrace of tradition.

Slowly she worked her way up the party apparatus. Her commitment paid off last May when she was added as the 20th name on the list of candidates the PP was fielding in Valencia’s regional elections.

News that Galcerán had obtained a seat in the regional parliament came soon after. “Welcome Mar,” the region’s PP leader, Carlos Mazón, wrote on social media. “Great news for politics, overcoming barriers.”

The achievement catapults Galcerán to the top of the ranks of the handful of people with Down’s syndrome who have crashed through barriers to enter the world of politics. In 2020, Éléonore Laloux became the first person with the genetic disorder in France to be elected to public office, as a city council member in the northern town of Arras, while Ireland’s Fintan Bray was hailed for making history after he was elected to a political position in the country in 2022.

In Spain, Galcerán’s path into politics was blazed by Ángela Bachiller, who in 2013 became Spain’s first city councillor with Down’s syndrome in the northern city of Valladolid.

Galcerán may be the first in Europe, however, to join a regional or national parliament, according to Spain’s Down’s syndrome federation.

“We haven’t heard of anyone else,” said Agustín Matía Amor of Down España. “It’s a huge step forward and an example of real inclusion.”

He was quick to point out that the achievement was also a reflection of the decades Galcerán had spent working to advance the status of people with Down’s syndrome in Spain. For more than 20 years Galcerán had worked as a civil servant in Valencia, most recently helping to carve out inclusive policy, adding to the four years she spent at the helm of Asindown, a Valencian organisation dedicated to helping families with children that have Down’s syndrome.

“It’s both great news and a recognition of her work and the many initiatives she was involved in,” said Matía Amor. “It’s a good example of what is possible.”

While Galcerán’s September swearing in was hailed by Spanish media, she said the reaction online had been mixed. “You find all sorts on social media,” she said. “There are people who support me. But there are also others who think I’m not capable. But these are people who don’t know me or my background.”

As she gets acquainted with her new role, she described it as a tremendous responsibility. “I want to learn how to do it well, for Valencianos, and more importantly, for those of us who have different abilities.”

Ultimately she hoped her presence in the regional parliament would help to dismantle the many prejudices that continue to linger in society, particularly when it comes to people with Down’s syndrome. “I want people to see me as a person, not just for my disability.”

[wisdomfish]

In Ukraine, many people consider disabled children taboo and their families can bear significant social stigma simply for having them or exposing them to the public eye. Instead of being integrated into family and society, people with disabilities are often relegated to institutions where they are left ignored and untreated, and where they bear an increased risk of assault or being trafficked for labor, sex, or pornography. Ukraine bears the ignominious distinction of being one of the least disability-friendly nations in the world. Thankfully, it seems as though the nation is slowly beginning to display a greater acceptance of disabilities and the responsibility to help the disabled flourish.

In Canada we murder babies—especially disabled babies. Some similar nations are celebrating the fact that they are preparing to be entirely free from Down’s syndrome, but this comes only at the cost of universal testing and widespread preventative abortion. As actress Patricia Heaton has said, these nations aren’t “actually eliminating Down syndrome. They’re just killing everybody that has it. Big difference.” Big difference, indeed. Aborting a disabled child is now considered an act of mercy to the individual, the family, and the wider society. It’s considered a mark of our social progress that we’ve nearly eradicated this disability (by eradicating all the people who have it). ~ Tim Challies

[dollshobby]

Review of "sunny" girls Barbie Fashionistas 208 and 229, Mattel ☀️

☀️ Today we have a special look at the particularly adorable dolls - girls with Down Syndrome (Barbie Fashionistas 208 & 229), created by Mattel in partnership with the National Down Syndrome Society (NDSS).

Full review on our blog at DollsHobby.club! Enjoy!

[the-al-pals]

Meet the Als

(screencap redraw done by me!)

NAME: Alastor Calloway Guillory NICKNAME(S): Calloway, Cal DATE OF BIRTH: April 10, 1898 DATE OF DEATH: Novermber 6, 1933 AGE: 35 (at death), 126 (chronologically) NATIONALITY: American ETHNICITY: mixed (haitian creole & some form of white that he isn’t sure of) HEIGHT: 7’ / 213 cm WEIGHT: 110 pounds /  50 kg OCCUPATION: overlord, radio host, facilities manager of the hazbin hotel, serial killer (in life

Alastor was born on April 10th, 1898, on the outskirts of Cut Off, Louisiana. Sometime in 1916, he made the move to New Orleans before being picked up as a protégé by a man that, at the time, specialized in military radio. In 1922, the first Louisiana commercial station opened up, and as radio began booming in popularity, Alastor became one of its local stars, which allowed him to live his best life.

On the side, however, he was also a budding serial killer. He did’t go after just anyone; instead, he followed an odd moral code that, in essence, told him he could only kill those that were guilty of muder, and only after finding conclusive evidence of this fact. In his eyes, he was righting society’s wrongs, and more often than not he was also the one delivering news of his killings to the public, with no one ever being the wiser for it.

His luck—and, consequently, his life—came to an end on November 6th, 1933, when he was tracked down and shot by deer hunters and their hounds. It was a terrible misunderstanding in which the dogs picked up on the blood trail left behind by Alastor’s victim as he dragged it into the bayou for disposal—and the hunters, seeing their hounds tackling and tearing away at something, assumed it was a deer and took their shot.

When Alastor arrived in Hell, he possessed unimaginable raw power, which was never before seen in a human soul. After getting a handle on this power, he trampled and killed powerful demons who had been in charge for centuries, all while broadcasting his carnage on the radio for everyone in Hell to hear. Other denizens began referring to Alastor as “The Radio Demon”, and he eventually grew powerful enough to rival the Overlords of Hell, but never officially took up the title for himself.

After several decades of “lacking inspiration” and feeling rather aimless, Alastor happened to come across Charlie’s announcement of the up-and-coming Happy Hotel on TV. Finding the idea of a rehabilitated demon absurd (yet entertaining at the same time), he decided to help Charlie run her hotel, if only to watch sinners try and fail to better themselves for his own amusement.

(screencap redraw done by me!)

NAME: Alastor Doucet NICKNAME(S): Frosty DATE OF BIRTH: January 26, 1912 DATE OF DEATH: February 15, 1933 AGE: 21 (at death), 112 (chronologically) NATIONALITY: American ETHNICITY: Unknown HEIGHT: 7’ / 213 cm WEIGHT: 110 pounds /  50 kg OCCUPATION: assistant manager at rosie’s emporium

Alastor, more commonly known as Frosty due to his very blue appearance, grew up in Louisiana with his mother, Audrey Florence Billiot; his father is unknown to him due to being absent for as long as he can remember. The only thing he knows about him is his surname, which he’s taken for himself. 

His mother suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSP), and as a result she often made Frosty sick so she could garner money, sympathy, and attention. As a result, Frosty spent most of his life at home with his mother, due to being too weak and sickly to leave. Much of that time was spent in his room, where he would listen to the radio he kept on his windowsill. This was one of his only sources of comfort and entertainment.

Once he became “too old to control,” his mother decided to send him out for firewood during the winter, specifically instructing that he go a certain distance to ensure that he wouldn’t make it back before freezing to death. She got what she wanted.

When Frosty fell into Hell, he panicked. Since he had no control over his newly-found ice magic, he wound up creating a blizzard that spanned the entirety of Pride and wreaked absolute havoc. It was Rosie that found him first, and she managed to calm him down before too much damage was done. After that, she took him under her wing, and he sees her as the mother he never truly had.

(artwork done by me!)

NAME: Alastor  NICKNAME(S): Naasháłiini (pronounced nash-a-lee-i-nai) DATE OF BIRTH: Unknown AGE: Unknown; legend claims he’s lived for over 10,000 years NATIONALITY: N/A ETHNICITY: N/A HEIGHT: 12’ / ~366 cm WEIGHT: 500 pounds /  ~227 kg OCCUPATION: N/A

The legend of the Wendigo is well-known to the Native American tribes inhabiting North America: a creature born from starvation and greed. Some say these legends were inspired by Alastor. 

No one knows where this entity came from, or even how long he’s lived. The Clovis people, who are thought to have arrived in North America between 13,500 and 13,000 years ago, were the first ones to tell tales about Naasháłiini (the word for ‘murderer’ in their language): a being, half man, half deer, that stalked the forests and killed anyone that tread too deep into his territory. They also claimed that, in leaner years, he would even eat those he killed in order to sustain himself, letting his hunger overpower his respect for human life.

In addition, whenever a life is believed to have been claimed by the beast, it’s said that he does so in gruesome ways. He wouldn’t just kill them outright, but instead, he’s thought to have toyed with them: resetting their traps and putting them in paths he knew they would walk, then waiting for them to be caught before gutting them and letting them bleed out so the local wolves would find them, or caving their heads in with a few strong stomps of his hoof. Their screams would be joined in by his cackling laughter, making it clear that he didn’t just kill them for trespassing, but also for sport.

There have only been a handful of sightings, but all of them say the same thing. Alastor is tall and imposing, with blood soaked into his fur and hooves and hands. His human body is littered with scars from the lucky few that have managed to land a hit, but their bones adorn the leather strap he keeps slung around his waist.

What’s most unnerving, however, is not his height, or the blood, or the bones—but his smile. He’s never been seen without one…especially not when he’s in the middle of a new kill.

(artwork done by my friend ckret2!)

NAME: Alastor Baudin NICKNAME(S): Gremlin DATE OF BIRTH: June 9, 1894 DATE OF DEATH: September 22, 1933 AGE: 39 (at death), 130 (chronologically) NATIONALITY: American ETHNICITY: Mixed (Haitian Creole and English) HEIGHT: 5’4" / 164 cm WEIGHT: 90 pounds /  41 kg OCCUPATION: owner of a butcher shop called ‘chop devils’

Not much is known about Alastor’s past, considering he doesn’t talk about it much. What is known is how mischievous and deranged he is, hence his nickname of Gremlin. While he does carry normal cuts of meat such as beef, pork, and chicken, he also highly prizes his cannibalistic cuts, obtained from other demons that have either wronged him, or simply crossed his path at the wrong time.

He also seems to get great enjoyment out of his work, especially when it involves making the cuts themselves. He always keeps his cleaver handy and sharp, ready for chopping at a moment’s notice. His apron, which he wears over his suit most of the time, is permanently stained red with blood.

Despite his murderous appearance and crazy behavior, he can still be sociable.

Sometimes.

(artwork done by borossir!)

NAME: Alastor NICKNAME(S): N/A DATE OF BIRTH: Unknown DATE OF DEATH: ?? ?? 1933 AGE: Unknown NATIONALITY: American ETHNICITY: Mixed (Haitian Creole and English) HEIGHT: 7’ / 213 cm WEIGHT: 110 pounds /  50 kg OCCUPATION: overlord, director and head of a porn studio

This version of Alastor essentially takes over Valentino's place in his universe, leading the porn studio and having many demons working under him through porn movies and/or sex working on the streets. Unlike Valentino, Alastor cares about his workers, paying them fairly and ensuring that they're well protected from abuse.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Rosemary Neill

Published: Dec 2, 2022

In his bestseller The God Delusion, published in 2006, author Richard Dawkins famously wrote that the god of the Old Testament is “a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser” and “a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal … capriciously malevolent bully’’.

Not for nothing has Dawkins been described as “a poster boy for militant atheism”.

The former Oxford University professor and evolutionary biologist is also regarded as a brilliant and passionate science communicator: His 1976 book, The Selfish Gene, reframed our understanding of evolution and has been named by the Royal Society as the most inspiring science book of all time, while his latest volume, Flights of Fancy – a surprisingly lyrical work aimed at the over 12s – looks at how animals and humans have “learned to overcome the pull of gravity and take to the skies’’.

In 2013, Dawkins was voted the world’s top thinker in a Prospect magazine poll. Yet in recent years, his controversial tweets and remarks about everything from aborting Down’s syndrome foetuses to Islamic fundamentalism have provoked sharp criticism and threats of cancellation.

Now aged 81, the career controversialist will conduct a national speaking tour in Australia in February, addressing topics including the wonders of science, the importance of reason and his scepticism about religion. Ahead of his tour, which starts in Melbourne, the British author gave a typically forthright, sometimes combative interview to Review.

During this encounter, conducted over Zoom from his Oxford home, Dawkins oscillates between donnish erudition and a kind of pugnacious rationalism, as he argues that parents should not have the right to “indoctrinate” their children with their chosen religion; that human foetuses are “no more a person” than animal foetuses; that anti-vaxxers are selfish; and that transgenderism has become “a mimetic epidemic” among schoolchildren. He also warns that human beings could one day be obliterated by the same kind of meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs.

You have been called a militant atheist, and you’ve argued that religion causes wars and entrenches bigotry. Yet you use the borrowed phrase “tooth fairy agnostic” to describe yourself. Tooth fairy agnostic – that’s right. We are all actually agnostic about anything you can’t actually disprove. You can’t disprove the tooth fairy; it’s trivial to bother about it, so that’s the way I am about gods.

Why do you oppose faith schools? I am not against education in religion. I think that’s important and that children should be taught about religion because it’s such an important part of history, politics, art and music. I’m against educating in a particular religion – I’m against a child being told, “You are a member of this church and therefore this is what you believe”. I like the child to be told, “There are people who call themselves Catholics and they believe this, and there are people who call themselves Muslims and they believe that” and so on. That’s important, but children should not be told what to believe.

Would banning faith schools amount to erosion of parental choice and authority? I think children have rights, and the right of a child not to be indoctrinated is important.

You get hate mail from evangelical Christians and you are also a trenchant critic of Islamic fundamentalism. As an outspoken public intellectual, what did you think of the recent attack on The Satanic Verses author Sir Salman Rushdie? It’s horrible. It’s irrational. It’s vicious. It was allegedly perpetrated by a very foolish person who doesn’t know what he’s doing. He has been indoctrinated by his Islamic upbringing and that’s one kind of reason why I find indoctrination so bad. (The suspect, Hadi Matar, has said that Ayatollah Khomeini, who issued a fatwa against Rushdie, is, “a great person”. Matar has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and assault charges brought against him in the US.)

Many Christian fundamentalists in the US oppose abortion. What is your view of the US Supreme Court ruling that overturned the historic Roe v Wade decision? I deplore that.

You maintain that pro-choice activists in America are using the wrong tactics. Why? I think the pro-abortion lobby is tactically unsound when they say something like, “A woman’s body is her own to do what she likes with”. I happen to think that’s right, but that’s not going to cut any ice with somebody who thinks that an embryo is a baby, and they think therefore that abortion is murder. They’ll say, “Ah, but she contains another body which is not her own.” I think we should tackle that assumption. We should say, “A foetus is no more a person than, and no more has personal feelings … than the foetus of a cow or a pig, let alone an adult cow or pig.”

You dedicate your latest book, Flights of Fancy, to the billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk. Why does he impress you? He certainly is a high flyer and he certainly is a hero of our times. I do admire him and I think that he’s an appropriate dedicatee for a book about flight. He’s a man with immense imagination and he is a genius as an engineer, a genius as an entrepreneur.

In Flights of Fancy, you note how, just decades after the Wright brothers’ historic flight, we were in the era of supersonic and space flight. Does this constitute an extraordinary burst of progress within a short time? It is rather remarkable, isn’t it? I think it’s a very good century to have lived in for that reason. In a way it’s rather sad that things (to do with space flight) are only just taking off now after the 1960s, when men first stepped on the moon, and nothing much has happened since then, until quite recently. I’m glad things are getting going again.

In 2021, the American Humanist Society withdrew an award they had given you because of an old tweet. In that tweet, you called for a discussion about the vilification of those who deny transgender people “literally are what they identify as”. How did you feel about the award being cancelled? To be honest, I had actually forgotten that I ever had that award, but it is upsetting when your own side turn against you, of course. I’d never worried about religious fundamentalists disliking me, but when it’s your own team, it’s upsetting. It’s a remarkably foolish thing for them to do, because all I did was to raise a subject for discussion.

Has academe changed for the worse in terms of restrictions on freedom of speech since you first worked at the University of California, Berkeley, and Oxford University in the 1960s and ’70s? It’s not possible to imagine that we’re going to go on with this nonsense where you can’t even discuss something.

Why is the transgender debate so heated, and such a no-go area for many commentators? You’d have to ask a psychologist or a sociologist about that. It (the debate) seems to me to be utter nonsense. Of course, there are people who suffer from gender dysphoria, and one has to be sympathetic to them. But there clearly is a mimetic epidemic, especially among schoolchildren who get persuaded that somehow the cool thing to do is to be trans, and this is a very disturbing by-product of a very genuine phenomenon, which is gender dysphoria. That is quite a rare thing, but it’s being blown up into a kind of false, common thing.

With the recent closure of the Tavistock child gender clinic, it appears the UK is adopting a more cautious approach to hormonal and surgical treatments for trans-identifying children. How do you view this development? I think we’re seeing the beginnings of a very appropriate reversal of this trend.

You have 2.9 million followers on Twitter. Do your more contentious tweets scare your publishers? Possibly, but I’m not here to talk about Twitter.

Even so, why are you drawn to Twitter, given the nasty pile-ons that are a feature of the platform? I suppose, misguidedly, I thought it was rather a good way of raising discussion. That’s why I put “discuss” at the end of so many tweets, (as) a follow-on of the Oxford tutorials. I am afraid I rather over-estimated the intelligence of the Twitter audience.

You’ve said it would be fun to fly like a bird or go hang-gliding. Does your fear of heights hold you back? I certainly wouldn’t want to jump off a cliff.

No bungy-jumping for Richard Dawkins then? I might run down a hill, maybe.

Why do you believe there is merit in people establishing a colony on another planet? This, I think, is one of the motives of Elon Musk wanting to go to Mars. It’s interesting, by the way, that NASA has just succeeded in diverting or changing the orbit of a small asteroid. They need to do it for a much bigger asteroid in order to save us from the sort of catastrophe that hit the dinosaurs. But (the recent NASA diversion) is a very important first step. It’s a magnificent feat of engineering and science and mathematics.

During the Covid lockdowns, you wrote two nonfiction books and failed to complete a novel about bringing back Homo erectus, our ancient ancestor. Have you given up on writing fiction? I abandoned that, at least temporarily. It turned out to be much more difficult than I thought.

Why do you argue the Covid pandemic has been good for science? As soon as the genetic code sequence of the virus was decoded, which nowadays can be done very swiftly, several different teams of scientists got to work on making a vaccine, and they did it in double quick time; astonishingly quickly. I think that’s a great tribute to the genius of our species.

What about the rise of the anti-vaxxers? Has that surprised you? Tragically, really stupid opposition to vaccination has been whipped up, mostly in America, but it spread to other countries as well. A lot of people don’t understand that vaccination is not just about protecting yourself, it’s about protecting society as a whole, to get herd immunity so the epidemic doesn’t spread.

Is there a selfishness inherent in the anti-vaccination movement? Yes, they just think it’s a matter of individual liberty. They don’t realise that refraining from vaccination for no very good reason is rather like driving on the wrong side of the road …. We do owe a certain curtailment of individual liberty in the interests of society.

You invented the word “meme” (an idea or behaviour that spreads from person to person within a society.) We’ve seen Donald Trump turn memes into a political art form. Were you dismayed by that? He just lies and lies all the time, and unfortunately, I think it was Goebbels who said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Huge numbers of Americans actually believe Trump’s lies and it’s a tragedy.

You live in Oxford and drive a Tesla. Are we all going to be driving electric cars in future? It looks like it, doesn’t it? I think that’s a very good thing.

Some detractors say your reputation as a fierce supporter of atheism is in danger of eclipsing your insights as a visionary evolutionary biologist. I hope not. I’ve only written two books about atheism and about 17 about science, so really science is by far the more important part of my life.

The God Delusion has sold millions of copies, but what do you regard as your most significant book? Probably The Extended Phenotype, which is one book that I wrote for my professional colleagues, although I like to think it’s readable by nonscientists as well. It’s the main book in which I propose something which I suppose is original; something that is all my own.

Scientists don’t know how the universe started. Isn’t that an argument in itself that a god or creator must have kicked things off? That’s a terrible idea! The idea that just because you don’t know what the answer to a question is, therefore god did it. I mean, that’s a ridiculous argument. By all means say we don’t know – that’s true, we don’t know – therefore it’s better to try to find out. We don’t just lie down and say, “Oh, god must have done it”.

Across the globe millions of people, including those without a financial safety net, find comfort in religion. Can you see how rubbishing their spiritual beliefs can be perceived as arrogance? Not arrogance. I mean, if they don’t want to read my books, they don’t have to. My books are about what I believe to be true and what evidence is. I’m not going to refrain from writing books for fear that it might upset people. I write books about what is supported by scientific evidence. That is what I try to do, and if the evidence changes, of course I change my mind. That’s about it, really. I’m a scientist who writes books about science.

[ Via: https://archive.vn/Se49o ]

[richardnixonlibrary]

October is Down Syndrome Awareness Month. According to the National Down Syndrome Society (ndss.org), “Approximately one in every 775 babies in the United States is born with Down syndrome, making Down syndrome the most common chromosomal condition.” By learning more about Down syndrome, we can all help overcome stereotypes and misconceptions about the genetic condition.

On March 6, 1974, First Lady Pat Nixon met National Association for Retarded Children poster children Mike and Mark Hembd of Cypress, California. This was the first time in the organization’s history that twins were selected as poster children. The five-year-old brothers, both born with Down Syndrome, visited the White House with their parents and seven-year-old brother Scott.

Mark and Mike, born ten minutes apart, grew up to be athletic students who swam competitively and lifted weights. In 1987, the twins trained for weightlifting competition at the California Special Olympics Summer Games. Their coach was none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The twins inspired their parents, Sandy and Jim, to spend more than ten years fundraising and building a nonprofit housing development for adults with developmental disabilities in Broomfield, Colorado.

(Image: WHPO-E2332-10)

[thelittlekinghelios]

I found a new friend at Walmart! Meet my new Barbie! ☆*:.｡.o(≧▽≦)o.｡.:*☆

She's the first Barbie with Downs Syndrome! The people who makes Barbies worked with the National Down Syndrome Society to make this one!

I love her already, but I need a name for her! Any ideas would be appreciated! (´• ω •`) ♡

[snazzymolasses]

The new doll is part of Mattel Barbie Fashionistas line, which aims to offer kids more diverse representations of beauty and fight the stigma around physical disabilities.

For the newest Barbie Fashionista, Mattel (MAT) said it closely worked with the National Down Syndrome Society on the doll’s shape, features, clothing, accessory and packaging to ensure that it accurately represents a person with Down syndrome.

“This means so much for our community, who for the first time, can play with a Barbie doll that looks like them,” Kandi Pickard, NDSS president and CEO said in a statement. “This Barbie serves as a reminder that we should never underestimate the power of representation. It is a huge step forward for inclusion and a moment that we are celebrating.”

“Our goal is to enable all children to see themselves in Barbie, while also encouraging children to play with dolls who do not look like themselves,” Lisa McKnight, Mattel’s executive vice president and global head of Barbie & Dolls, said in a statement.

[ausetkmt]

Mattel Inc. announced a new Barbie doll with Down syndrome. It was created to give more children an opportunity to see themselves in Barbie, the company said.

Mattel

The first Barbie doll representing a person with Down syndrome was released by Mattel "to allow even more children to see themselves in Barbie," the company said.

"We are proud to introduce a Barbie doll with Down syndrome to better reflect the world around us and further our commitment to celebrating inclusion through play," Lisa McKnight, the executive vice president and global head of Barbie & dolls at Mattel, said in a statement.

In the past, Mattel's Barbie has been criticized for spreading unrealistic beauty standards for the children who play with the doll. In recent years, the company has moved to deviate from that reputation by offering more diverse dolls. It started making Barbie and Ken dolls with wheelchairs, vitiligo, hearing aids, and prosthetic limbs. The company unveiled its "most diverse doll line" in its 2023 Fashionistas lineup, which includes the doll with Down syndrome.

"Our goal is to enable all children to see themselves in Barbie, while also encouraging children to play with dolls who do not look like themselves. Doll play outside of a child's own lived experience can teach understanding and build a greater sense of empathy, leading to a more accepting world," McKnight said.

Barbie worked with the National Down Syndrome Society in order to accurately represent a person with Down syndrome. That included shaping the doll's body to include a shorter frame and longer torso and a round face that features smaller earsand almond-shaped, slanted eyes, the NDSS said in their announcement.

The doll wears a yellow and blue dress with butterflies, all symbols associated with Down syndrome awareness, according to NDSS.

Even the doll's pink necklace has special meaning. Its three upward chevrons are meant to represent "the three copies of the 21st chromosome, which is the genetic material that causes the characteristics associated with Down syndrome," according to the organization.

NDSS President and CEO Kandi Pickard said in the group's statement, "This Barbie serves as a reminder that we should never underestimate the power of representation. It is a huge step forward for inclusion and a moment that we are celebrating."

Ellie Goldstein, a British model with Down Syndrome, took to Instagram in a partnership with Mattel to share how important seeing the doll was to her.

"When I saw the doll I felt so emotional, and proud. It means a lot to me that children will be able to play with the doll and learn that everyone is different. I am proud that Barbie chose me to show the dolls to the world," she wrote on Instagram. "Diversity is important as people need to see more people like me out there in the world and not be hidden away, Barbie will help make this happen."

The Barbie doll with Down syndrome will be available at major retailers this summer and fall for $10.99.

[awideplace]

Posting this as it is akin to the Ask I received last night on here

Eugenics is a social movement that supports the supposed improvement of the human population via selective breeding and other means. It was originally developed by Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, and based upon Darwin’s theory of evolution. The word eugenics literally means “good birth” and comes from a Greek word meaning “well-born, of good stock, of noble race.” The goal of eugenics is to make the world (or at least a country) a better place by guiding the course of human reproduction and “purifying” the gene pool.

Eugenicists advocate genetic screening, birth control, segregation, transhumanism, euthanasia, compulsory sterilization, forced pregnancies, and abortion. Eugenics was practiced openly in the early decades of the 20th century in many countries, including the United States. Several state laws were passed allowing for the forced sterilization of institutionalized people. Such a law in Virginia survived a court challenge, with Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., writing in the decision, “It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind” (Buck v. Bell, Supreme Court, 274 U.S. 200, decided May 2, 1927). After WWII, eugenics by that name fell into disfavor when the extent of Nazi atrocities became known.

Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion provider, was also a proponent of eugenics. Sanger railed against the “reckless breeding” of the “unfit.” In her book Woman and the New Race, she wrote, “The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it” (Chapter V, “The Wickedness of Creating Large Families,” 1920). She desired “to breed a race of human thoroughbreds” and would rather a society “produce a thousand thoroughbreds than a million runts” (Radio WFAB Syracuse, February 29, 1924, transcripted in “The Meaning of Radio Birth Control,” April 1924, p. 111).

The Bible does not specifically mention eugenics, but the idea behind eugenics—that man can better himself by ridding the world of “undesirable” people—is definitely not biblical. And the methods promoted by eugenicists, including abortion, euthanasia, and racial segregation, are wicked practices. God told mankind to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28; 9:1, 7). No exception to that command is given in Scripture, and there is certainly no racial modification to that command suggested anywhere in the Bible. For social engineers to usurp God’s authority over life and death in order to create a self-defined “master race” is evil. Biblically, there is only one race—the human race—with everyone having descended from Adam and Eve. Racial discrimination and ethnic superiority go against God’s very nature: “God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right” (Acts 10:34–35).

English theologian G. K. Chesterton wrote in his 1922 book Eugenics and Other Evils, “There is no reason in Eugenics, but there is plenty of motive. Its supporters are highly vague about its theory, but they will be painfully practical about its practice” (from Chapter VIII, “A Summary of a False Theory”). Since that practice involves abortion and euthanasia, eugenics is simply murder.

Eugenics is not commonly called by that name today, but the underlying philosophy is still evident in medical genetics. Today’s genetic screening and fetal gene manipulation are vestiges of eugenics. When a possible genetic defect is diagnosed in an unborn child, some couples choose to abort the baby. Unborn children with Down syndrome are one example: in the United States, an estimated 67 percent of the unborn diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted; in France, 77 percent; in Denmark, 98 percent; and in Iceland nearly 100 percent (“‘What kind of society do you want to live in?’: Inside the country where Down syndrome is disappearing,” cbsnews.com/news/down-syndrome-iceland, accessed 6/22/20). It’s eugenics by a different name, as people continue to attempt to identify and eliminate genetic material they consider “unfit” or undesirable.

Eugenics is a meritless and immoral social engineering experiment. It is a slippery slope in which Chesterton’s scientific madmen abrogate the authority of God and seek to create their own utopia on Earth. Centuries ago, Job lamented the evil of his day: “When daylight is gone, the murderer rises up, kills the poor and needy, and in the night steals forth like a thief” (Job 24:14). This is the role of eugenicist: killing the poor and needy and those he deems “unworthy,” preventing a “poor quality of life” (in his estimation) by taking life, denying men’s liberty, and playing God.

One day as Jesus and His disciples were walking in Jerusalem, His disciples asked about a man born blind. They wanted to know “who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2). Jesus replied, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, . . . but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him” (verse 3). Who are we to decide who does or does not display the works of God?

In direct contrast to eugenics, the Bible tells us to defend the weak and disadvantaged: “Uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. . . . Rescue the weak and the needy” (Psalm 82:4); “Blessed are those who have regard for the weak” (Psalm 41:1; see also Matthew 25:35–36; Acts 20:35). Killing the disadvantaged, culling those whom the more fortunate determine to be “unfit” for life, or weeding out the weak is ungodly to the core.

Source: https://www.gotquestions.org/eugenics-Bible.html