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b'Billed now as the Pennhurst Haunted Asylum, Pennhurst was never an asylum. It wasn\'t a home for the mentally ill when it first opened its doors in 1908. It was a home for epileptics and the intellectually disabled, then called "idiotic" and "feeble-minded". And then it became a home for basically everyone society either didn\'t want to take care of or didn\'t know how to take care of. And it soon became severely overcrowded. And then it became both overcrowded and underfunded. And then it became a nightmare for it\'s "children" (the term its patients were given, whether they were six months old or sixty). Understaffing lead to squalid conditions where people were living and dying covered in their own feces and in wounds given to them by either themselves, other patients, or, in some cases, staff members.\\n\\nThe government, after numerous lawsuits, shut Pennhurst down for good in 1987. And today, we look at why things got so bad they felt compelled to do so. And, we examine life for the mentally handicapped today in America. Have things gotten any better? What, as a society and culture, are we supposed to do for and with those who can do for themselves? How do we take care of each other? A lot of hard questions are asked in a thought-provoking edition of Timesuck.\\n\\nMy new\\xa0free Behind the Bit Pandora station\\xa0with Chad Daniels talking about our favorite bits!\\xa0https://www.pandora.com/station/play/3978690913982414208?ag=17920720304261509\\n\\nTimesuck is brought to you today by\\xa0The Great Courses Plus!\\xa0Do yourself a HUGE favor and get a month of SO MUCH amazing, interesting, and informative content for FREE:\\xa0https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/timesuck\\n\\nTimesuck is also brought to you be\\xa0Leesa!\\xa0We love Leesa!\\xa0Get $160 off when you go to\\xa0Leesa.com/timesuck\\n\\nMerch\\xa0\\xa0- https://badmagicmerch.com/\\n\\nWant to try out\\xa0Discord!?!\\xa0https://discord.gg/tqzH89v\\n\\nWant to join the Cult of the Curious private\\xa0Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn\'t been put in FB Jail :)\\n\\nFor all merch related questions: https://badmagicmerch.com/pages/contact\\n\\nPlease rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!!\\xa0@timesuckpodcast\\xa0on IG,\\xa0@timesuckpodcast\\xa0on Twitter, and\\xa0www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast\\n\\nWanna be a Space Lizard? We\'re over 2500 strong!\\xa0Click here:\\xa0https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast\\xa0\\n\\nSign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You\'ll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album,\\xa0Feel the Heat.\\xa0Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits.\\n\\nAnd, thank you for supporting the show by doing your Amazon shopping after clicking on my Amazon link at\\xa0www.timesuckpodcast.com'