A member of the famous circus family, the Flying Wallendas, was paralyzed from the waist down in a fall way back in 1962. Now, after retiring from a different career and trying several sedentary pastimes with no luck, Mario Wallenda has designed a special wheelchair that allows him to do aerial acts on a high wire. Pretty cool, huh?

Except that he’s having a hard time convincing organizations to let him perform. They are afraid that audiences will think the act is making fun of the disabled. The Wallendas find this notion “unfathomable,” as do I, but it shows the extent to which the victimology implicit in modern disability policy serves to harm the very people it is supposed to help.