Broadcast of December 29, 2008 - Size simply does matter -- doesn't it? Part II  (text below)

The second article I’m going to mention here is the real doozy.  It’s title is ‘Pedophiles tend to be short men, study finds’ www.thestar.com/News/article/269404 written by Joseph Hall, Health Reporter.  Now I’m not going to read the entirety of this article I’m just going to quote snippets of it.  But the first two paragraphs of the article sum up the conclusions of the researchers quite nicely.  Here we go:

Pedophiles are significantly shorter on average than men who are attracted to adults, according to a new study out of Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

Similar height differences can be found in men who crave sex with pubescent teenagers, say study researchers, who speculate the link between stature and pedophilia might be traced to conditions in the womb.

 Okay.  That’s the first two paragraphs, and I’m going to conceal my anger here, or at least I’m going to try to.  The article quotes James Cantor, a CAMH psychologist as saying, “There are still a great many people who believe that this is purely learned, or (a psychological) reaction to something that happened in childhood.”  And fairly apparent to me that what he’s really trying to say is this:  There are still some people who are behind the times on this.  This is really a genetic trait, inborn in short men.  Still another quote from the article, “What’s important about this entire branch of research is that it demonstrates pretty conclusively that it is indeed about how the body grows and how the brain develops,” Cantor said.  Well this is just the pseudo-scientific way of saying, ‘Short People got no reason to live’.  Most people who read a quote like this will just naturally dislike short men even more than they do now, and make no mistake, short men are convenient targets all around.  Reading these quotes are likely to fuel the fires of dislike of the short – in this case specifically short men.  And really this kind of a conclusion is the medical equivalent of Randy Newman’s infamous song – ‘Short People’.   It’s fairly obvious that he’s attempting to demonstrate that short men are natural predators of young girls simply because they’re born that way.  Short men have a proclivity for young girls and it’s genetic.  Short men’s bodies didn’t get out of adolescence and neither did their minds.  That’s what this bastard is really saying. It’s like this:  We already know we don’t like short men, so hey we’ve found in one study that pedophiles just happen to be a little shorter than men who are attracted to adults, so why not put another nail in the little ones’ coffins – shall we?  Who’s gonna care?

Now listen to this, the article states, “ . . . Cantor said it is a uniquely male condition . . .”  I guess the distinguished psychologist James Cantor never heard of female teachers seducing young teenage male students.  They highlight them in the news every so often.  You’ll see a few links in the text of this broadcast by the way.  I guess the distinguished Mr. Cantor never heard of these. 

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,147179,00.html
 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,307845,00.html
http://news.aol.com/story/_a/fugitive-teacher-arrested-in-mexico/20071101175909990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3615820,00.html

Incidentally all defendants are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, but there’s no question that the phenomenon of female pedophilia exists.  So why would this psychologist state that it is a uniquely male condition when there is more than ample evidence of female pedophilia?  Don’t you wonder?

I wonder what would have happened to James Cantor if he had announced that the results of the study indicated that people of a given race, or religion, or sexual orientation, or any other group under the sun were more likely to be pedophiles?  Well I think we know the answer to that question don’t we?  James Cantor would no longer have a job or maybe even a career.

By the way there was no deluge of e-mails from angry short men bombarding Toronto’s Center for Addiction and Mental Health as far as we know.

There were no protests by righteous short men picketing in front of CAMH headquarters.

There were no media outcries by the usual suspects who like to call anyone that they can on the carpet for even the tiniest bit of political incorrectness as long as it doesn’t involve short people, that is.

There wasn’t even a protest as far as we know from the prestigious group that calls itself  NOSSA.

Sometimes people quote statistics that are available and come to conclusions about some subjects that are-shall we say- politically incorrect.   It seems that when any researcher or even the most distinguished of researchers make statements in reference to some groups the way psychologist James Cantor made his statements in reference to short men, those researchers, doctors, psychologists-whatever they may be-are lambasted from one end of the earth to the other.  And the conclusions can involve topics like crime or even intelligence.

To give you an example, In 2007 seventy-nine year old Dr. James Watson, was quoted as saying that Black Africans were not as intelligent as Europeans.  Many of us learned about Dr. James Watson back in high school biology class.  He was the guy along with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins way back in 1953 who discovered the “double helix” structure of the DNA molecule.  The group of men were later awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 for their achievements - and they were great achievements.  Dr. James Watson is as distinguished a scientist and researcher as can be found anywhere.  According to the BBC, The Science Museum in London cancelled his scheduled lecture there.  The Bristol Festival of Ideas also cancelled an appearance by Dr. Watson.  Dr. Craig Venter, a scientist/businessman who led the private effort to decode the human genome, was also visiting the UK at about the same time to promote a book.  According to the BBC, Dr. Venter stated, “Skin colour as a surrogate for race is a social concept not a scientific one.”  “There is no basis in scientific fact or in the human genetic code for the notion that skin colour will be predictive of intelligence.”

Here’s another article out of the UK, and it’s strange that all of the material that I’m speaking about in this broadcast and also in the last one seems to involve the UK in some way.  It wasn’t chosen that way by the way.  This article is from the http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article3067222.ece.   Here’s the title:  ‘Fury at DNA pioneer’s theory:  Africans are less intelligent than Westerners.’  Okay.  I thought it was Europeans?  Hmmph.  The article quotes Keith Vaz, the Labour Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee as saying:  “It is sad to see a scientist of such achievement making such baseless, unscientific and extremely offensive comments.  I am sure the scientific community will roundly reject what appears to be Dr. Watson’s personal prejudices.  “These comments serve as a reminder of the attitudes which can still exist at the highest professional levels.”

You know when I mentioned in a broadcast of mine not too long ago about Dr. John Money’s quote about short people being in charge or working for short people and the prestigious doctor saying words to the effect of, “No I haven’t worked with short people.  I’ve worked under them, but not with them.  I’ve never had a great admiration for Napoleon.”*  And that’s basically what the good doctor said, all according to ‘The Height of Your Life’ written by Ralph Keyes, but unfortunately nobody appeared to come out of the woodwork to condemn the great Dr. John Money.  That’s strange isn’t it?  Hmm.

But anyway, to get back to what I was talking about.  Another distinguished professor of biological sciences at the Open University and a founder member of the Society for Social Responsibility in Science, said: “This is Watson at his most scandalous . . .”  Which is a statement that tends to make one think that Dr. Watson has made ‘scandalous’ comments before.  By the way, the board of directors of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Suffolk County New York, (not to be confused by the way with any airport policemen or building inspectors from Suffolk County, New York or Pensacola Florida now) suspended Dr. Watson after he made his comments that appeared in the Times of London on October 14^th of 2007.   Dr. Watson also resigned his position as chancellor of the laboratory.   Dr. James Watson, pioneer in human genetics was talking about intelligence - IQ.  Can you imagine what would have happened to him if he had said that another group – ANY GROUP – was more likely to be pedophiles?

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Broadcast of November 25, 2008 - Size simply does matter -- doesn't it?    (text below)

This is Joe Mangano.  I just happened to see a few articles in the recent past and one caught my eye and that one was on yorkpress.co.uk, and the title of that article is, “Size simply does matter”, by Jo Haywood.  And Jo Haywood is a woman in the UK and I’m going to read this.  Some of it I think some of the listeners will find to be surprising, but I find it rather run-of-the-mill.  I’m going to read it and I’d like people listening to the broadcast to e-mail me with your opinion on it if you could.  Just let me know what you think of it.   This is, “Size simply does matter”, by Jo Haywood.  Here we go:

AS a right-thinking, right-on, left-leaning woolly liberal - which is what I like to think I am, despite reams of evidence to the contrary - I am obviously an incredibly tolerant person.

I welcome people of all nations, especially that nice Polish shopkeeper on Walmgate with all his imported beer, and believe people have a right to air their views - even David Cameron and Davina McCall - no matter how stupid they are.

But I'm afraid I do have one teeny, tiny prejudice. It's not something I'm proud of, but I feel I'm among friends here and able to share my innermost demons without fear of retribution.

Much as it pains me, I have to admit I would find it very difficult, if not impossible, to have a meaningful relationship with a man shorter than me (not that anyone is offering). I realise this makes me a shallow, heightist, female chauvinist pig, but at least I'm an honest old snorter.

When I see photographs of Sophie Dahl - six-foot in her Versace, diamond-encrusted, cotton socks - with her latest beau, the diminutive ivory-tickler Jamie Cullum, who, at 5ft 4in, needs a booster seat to reach the keys of his piano, I can't help but stare in wonder.

She is a striking woman and, bar a slightly duff haircut, he is not a bad looking little fella, but that is not what draws my gaze. All I can see is the physical oddity of them as a couple, and all I can think is that she must be a much bigger woman than me in more than just inches.

This isn't to imply that I think small men are some sort of dating charity case, who only saintly women are big enough to tackle. It's just a graphic reminder of my own shortcomings (it's difficult to avoid the puns once you start). [These are her words]

I have only once been out with a chap who was shorter than me. I reckon he was about 5ft 3in to my 5ft 8in. He was very good looking, all blonde hair, blue eyes and bulging biceps, he was attentive and fun and, as if he hadn't ticked enough boxes already, he was younger too. But I just couldn't get past the height difference.

It probably didn't help that my previous boyfriend had been 6ft 3in and the one before that 6ft 5in (his nickname was Moose, but maybe, to quote TV's Kath & Kim, that was more to do with him being a complete hornbag).

If my gorgeous, funny, good natured, 5ft 3in fella had been a few inches taller, I'm sure our relationship would have lasted longer. Not forever - his mother was a neurotic nightmare - but a while.

I think it's safe to say that little episode sums up the murky depths of my own shallowness quite nicely. But I'm pretty sure I'm not the only woman not big enough to handle a short man. Why a great many of us still feel the need to be physically overshadowed by men is a tricky one, especially as we (or most of us, at least) live in a modern world where equality between the sexes is such a driving force.

I imagine it is partly a genetic throwback to times when women needed to hook up with ginormous hunter-gatherer types so they didn't fall foul of passing sabre-tooth tigers.

But I think today it is more to do with not wanting to stand out from the crowd which, as a 6ft woman, Sophie Dahl most certainly does, and wanting to retain, and indeed relish, our femininity. We don't want to be overshadowed by men in the workplace or at home, but sometimes it is nice to feel like "the little woman".

Tall men make us feel relatively dainty, while small men make us feel like heffalumps. I know that going out with my dinky toy boy made me feel like a rugby prop-forward in drag, which is hardly what a woman wants from a relationship, is it?

I know some of you might be thinking that I would soon change my tune on this whole heightist thing if I found out that George Clooney was only 5ft 2in on his tippy-toes. But I honestly don't think even he could help me overcome my prejudice. 'd let him have a damn good go though, especially if he brought Brad Pitt along to give him a leg-up.

I might be heightist, but I'm not completely insane.

 
Okay.  That was the lovely Jo Haywood’s article.  I think I’ll just comment on her piece, if I might.  Some of those words and phrases were quite British, but I think you gather her meaning.  She claims she’s 5’8”.  Now 5’8” for a woman is equivalent to approximately 6’1” or so for a man.  So she’s a relatively tall woman.  When she’s wearing high heels she’s 5’11” or 6’0” or even taller.  She freely admits she’s prejudiced against short men, and I thank her, I really do for her candor.  I happen to be a short man-as you know-and so are most of you.  I really don’t expect her to be interested in men of my height.  I really don’t.  As I said, I appreciate her candor in admitting it.  But I can’t help but wonder about some things.  I notice in the beginning of her article she writes that she’s a “right thinking, right-on, left leaning wooly liberal”, which seems to me to be a contradiction in terms, but nevertheless she sounds like a puppet of sorts.  What the heck does she mean by “right-thinking”?  How can you be right-thinking and left-leaning??  I guess right-thinking is correct thinking and correct thinking is left-leaning in her view.  I’m assuming.  Maybe she means that a man of another race, religion, creed, nationality, weight, eye color, hair color, bald, or totally uneducated is dating material?  I wonder if she would dare admit that if she had one teeny, tiny prejudice and that prejudice was based on, uh, oh, any of the above that I just mentioned, she would admit it?  I wonder.  Don’t you?

She does have one teeny, tiny prejudice.  Well put Jo. Well put.  It’s not something she’s proud of, but she feels she’s among friends here and able to share her innermost demons without fear of retribution.  I wonder if she would feel she was among friends if she expressed dislike of a man based on any of the characteristics that I just mentioned?  You know if she were referring to almost any other group of people on the face of the earth that she was prejudiced against I wonder if she would have “no fear of retribution” as she likes to put it?  But of course, she only has little shrimps to worry about here.  What can they do?

She was out with a guy of 5’3” once, but she just couldn’t get past the height difference she said.  How willing would she be to admit her preference for just her own skin color I ask myself?  Or just her own religion?  Or just her own nationality?  Or just her own anything else for that matter?

It’s so wonderful that she thinks, “it's safe to say that little episode sums up the murky depths of my own shallowness quite nicely”.  She’s actually proud of it.  Oh!  It’s so wonderful that there is one group of individuals that we can express our prejudice towards.  Isn’t it?  Oh c’mon listeners get over it will you?!  Miss Haywood just wants to be overshadowed by a ginormous hunter-gatherer type.  Is there anything wrong with that?  Oh by the way, this was the first time I’ve ever heard of the word ginormous.  I looked it up in an online dictionary and I understand now that it’s actually a real word; it’s a combination of the word giant + enormous giving you ginormous - as if either one of those words expressed alone is not enough.  I’ll bet nobody listening to this broadcast ever heard the word either.  (Mrs. Tallman:  I’ve heard the word ginormous and that’s what my husband is!)  Well I know you’ve heard it Mrs. Tallman.  Oh see how it is, the more you hate short men and admire tall men, the more you know about these things.  Okay. Got it.  Oh those big men and the words we use to make them even bigger!

She states at the end of the article, “I might be heightist, but I’m not completely insane”.  I guess it’s good to be only partly insane.  As long as the part that you’re insane about is disliking the short.  I guess that’s what she really means by “right-thinking”.  How acceptable would it be for her to admit she was racist?  How acceptable would it be for her to admit that she was a homophobe?  How acceptable would it be for her to admit that she was against any other group in all of God’s creation?  This is the prejudice against short-stature my friends.  A prejudice unlike all of the others.  A prejudice all its own.  It’s very simple.  It really is.  It’s like this; they can, therefore they do.  The short of stature are a group with no identity and people know it – subliminally.  The short of stature are a group without a voice and people know it.  The short are a non-group to put it simply.  People know it.  They don’t have to have 160 IQ’s.  They don’t have to be PhD’s.  They don’t even have to be rocket scientists.  All they have to have is natural predatory instincts, nothing else.  Show an animal in the wild weakness and he attacks.  He doesn’t have to have the intelligence of a human being to know when he has his prey where he wants it.  They don’t even have to think about what they do – they ‘just do it’ like the old Nike commercials used to say.

There was only one post about this and that one post was-ironically-from a tall woman.  Oh those poor tall women!  Look at what they go through.  You know Gandhi supposedly said, and I’m sure most of you have heard this quote at one time or another, and I think I’ve mentioned that quote before, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”.  I say about the problems of the short of stature, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they defend their tallers, and then – unfortunately - the Tallers are the ones who usually win”.  And this is true, really, because I’ve found, and I’m sure a handful of those listening have also found that others will ignore you first, and then their next reaction is to laugh at you.  The next step if they’ve gone through the first two or if they take you even half-seriously, or are forced to take you seriously by circumstances, is to automatically, instinctively, almost reflexively defend tall people.  They’ll say something like, ‘What about tall people?’, and then go into a ridiculous list of some minor inconveniences like walking through doorways or sitting in a car or buying clothes or standing out in a crowd.  Even more often they’ll mention the problems of the tall woman.  A very tall woman or man will often fight you for top complaining rights.  This is Standard Operating Procedure (SOP).  I’m going to read that one post there-from a tall woman, because I think short people will get an idea of what I’m talking about.  The grammar and spelling here isn’t 100%, which is a bit of an understatement by the way, but here it is:

I would like to firstly say that everyone is entittled to their own views about different people and aspects of society but this article and its way of thinking is why many girls of above average height face years of bullying and resulting in low self esteem.
It is fine for people of "normal" height to comment on matter such as this but speaking from experince of 6ft1" then this article is very hurtful.
I cant understand why it was seen ok to state that tall women may feel like heffalumps or write that it made you feel like a women in drag or a prop forward. After years of bullying through school because i was too "odd" to hang out with the girlie crowd and therefore had to either spend 5 years of loneliness or spend my time acting as one of the boys, the later was a better choice. This making my school and accademic life a miseery and i left school as soon as i could to try to escape this, only to find that a day doesnt go by without someone saying "arent you tall" (as if i hadnt noticed!!) or is it cold up there?? And by the time ive got to the age of 32 it is still happening and it gets pretty depressing.
As for Sophie and Jamie why not, least he doesnt mind being seen with her, i have been in relentionships where i can not where heels as the fella feels im too much taller than him.. and his own inadquances kick in. It is only now that i am with someone who after all this time doesnt care if i put on my 3 inch heels and i tower above him making me 6ft 4" compared to his 5ft9" he has been the only person who has said to me he doesnt find it a problem and has given me the confidence to walk tall.
It is hard enough in this day and age for people to find a partner without peoples prejudices and stereotypes coming into play. Tall women and girls are not all confident outgoing people many are very shy about there height and the last thing they want is to stand out in the crowd but when two people are really happy doesnt size really matter??

 
Okay that’s her post.  And again, I’m going to comment on this post.  Now she states that all this time he doesn’t care if she puts her 3 inch heels on and she towers above her current boyfriend making her 6’4” compared to his 5’9” and she says, “ . . . tall women and girls are not all confident outgoing people, many are shy about their height and the last thing they want to do is stand out in the crowd”.  Well if she doesn’t want to “stand out in the crowd”, why does she put the 3-inch heels on that make her “tower above him” in making her 6’4”?  Doesn’t that sound a little bit strange?  Now she also states, “It is fine for people of "normal" height to comment on ‘matter’ such as this but speaking from ‘experince’ of 6ft1" then this article is very hurtful.”

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Broadcast of October 9, 2008 - 'Unusual things - Part II'  (test below)

I make observations of people occasionally.  I make observations of things like their body language for example; what they wear, how they walk, how they talk, and of course how short people including myself get treated by others and how those others treat people who are taller.  I mentioned something along these lines in my essay.  I wrote, and this is to paraphrase, ‘Observe how taller others are treated in comparison to you, words, tone of voice, body language, etc’.  You should be doing this all the time and verbalizing it too, so that you can explain it.  Did you ever see the body language of some short people?  I see short people walking on their toes a lot so-to-speak, and you know when they do that it looks almost as if they’re doing a calf raise on a step or on an exercise machine and they usually have over-developed calves when they’ve done this for a long period of time.  Virtually all of the short people that I see doing this are kids or adolescents.  I do however, see some short adults doing it too.  They’re virtually always men.  And they don’t realize what they’re doing or why.  Try mentioning this to them and they’ll probably either blow you off, or have some ham-handed reason, if they do give you a reason, which they probably won’t, or ignore you or even attempt to attack you.  Because you’re in the process of revealing or almost revealing an unconscious deep-seated need to be taller. This will happen if you mention this even if you’re short too.  As a matter of fact they’re more likely to attack you because you’re short too.  These are the guys who will deny with their last breath that their short stature poses any kind of a problem for them.  I was in an elevator once and I gave another short guy my “elevator pitch” so-to-speak.  And he must have been about 5 or 6 inches shorter than me, maybe about 4’11” or so.  I told him about my website.   He said his height didn’t bother him.  This is the phenomenon called ‘Denial’.  By the way, he was pushing a cart, obviously he had some sort of menial position or at least it appeared that way.  It probably didn’t pay too much money I would imagine.  This was a man in his 40’s I guess.  When I gave him my website, he said he didn’t have a computer.   

You know, the Richlee Shoe Company, you know the guys who make elevator shoes for men, this same company doesn’t make elevator shoes for women.  Why? You might wonder.  Well the simple reason is every woman’s shoe store makes them, or uh, excuse me, every woman’s shoe store sells them and there’s lots of companies that make them, only they don’t call them elevator shoes.  They call them ‘high heels’ or ‘platforms’.  And they’ve been around for many a year.  This is why girls or women don’t have to walk on their toes; they just wear their high heels or platforms.  Ain’t that nice?  I know one little lady about 5 feet in height who, in the five years or so that I’ve seen her has NEVER not worn them, not even a day, as far as I can see, at least not a work day.  I’ve never seen her without high heels on.  I don’t know how her feet can take it.  And she wears her hair up slightly sometimes to make herself appear taller from the top up.  She also likes to associate with very tall women.  By the way this is a phenomenon that is characteristic of some very self-protective very short women.  The association with very tall women is for self-protective purposes, to deter would-be predators, both social and otherwise.  You’ll also notice that very short women usually have boyfriends or husbands that are considerably proportionately taller in reference to their height than the average woman.  But I believe that the reason women like to wear high heels so much is one reason and one reason only and you know what I’m gonna say don’t you?  The reason is it makes them taller, pure and simple.  It also conveys the image of their legs as being longer, which of course contributes to the illusion of greater height or taller stature.  The ‘leggy’ look is a look women like, that is, where a woman’s legs appear longer in relation to her torso.  And of course a woman doesn’t have to be short to like to wear them-you know that.  You see very tall women wearing them.  One would think that a tall woman would have no need for 3 ½ inch or 4 inch heels, but alas they can’t get enough – of tall height.  Once you start noticing some of these things and verbalizing them to yourself, they will no longer seem to be unusual to you.

You short folks who listen to my broadcasts should try some unusual things.  Now you’re gonna go through the gamut of emotions; you’ve probably already been through the gamut of emotions and you’ve probably already run the gauntlet.  Well you’re going to continue running the gauntlet no matter what you do but,  I’ve said in other broadcasts that you shouldn’t bring up the topic of heightism, but I’ve got the feeling that some of you – mostly adolescents – adolescent males mostly, are going to do it anyway occasionally.  Here’s my suggestion:  try bringing it up gently, and look and see the reaction you get and remember that reaction.  Try playing on a baseball team for example, although it doesn’t have to be a baseball team, it can be a football team, basketball team whatever, that is, if you’re athletic and you play sports and I used to play on baseball teams when I was a youngster and an adolescent and I can remember receiving some cat-calls from people occasionally, not too often, things like  “Come-on little guy”, “Come-on little-man”,  “Come-on shorty”, etc. and I never heard comments directed at any over-weight kids that made reference in any way to their weight.  Basically, they have large size on their side.  They get attention, respect and whatever else comes along with large size.  Even if it’s obesity, they get respect – strange as that may seem. Obviously these larger kids were not severely overweight otherwise they wouldn’t be able to play to begin with, but you see my point.  I certainly never heard any cat-calls based on anyone’s race, or religion, or ethnicity.  You know when I was in 8^th grade I was playing on my 8^th grade baseball team and my teacher came out to watch one of the school’s games and the next day she said to me, at school this was, “Mangano, you’re quite a little ballplayer out there!”

You have to start doing some unusual things.  Make a little protest now and then.  See the reaction that you get and remember back to some of the statements I’ve made on my broadcasts and you’re gonna say to yourself something like, ‘Yes, it happened the way he described.  If you’re going to bring up the topic of heightism bring it up very gently, don’t try to convert people over to your point of view, just bring it up very, very, gently, little by little.  If you try to argue with them and get very arrogant they’re going to really try to put you down. If you bring it up gently and you battle back just a little bit, you’re going to get the reactions that I’ve mentioned previously.  You’re going to get the reactions of them ignoring you, laughing at you or trivializing it.  If you persist they’re going to fight you.  You don’t have to get into an argument with someone, but just battle back just a little bit and see the reaction or reactions you get.  If they don’t ignore you, they’ll laugh at you.  You know sometimes when they laugh at you they try to recruit others as allies against you.  And they do this simply because they’re about 99.9% sure others are going to agree with them and take their side. They wouldn’t do that if they didn’t believe and know in their hearts that others were going to take their position.  They might say something like, ‘Hey, did you hear what this little guy over here just said?  You should try being too tall.  This utter guy ova hea is 6’8”  He hits his head every freakin’ time he walk tru a doorway, and dis liddle guys’ ova hea’s complainin’.  Or maybe you’ll get another stupi-uh-I mean another individual who’s in need of education saying something like, “What’s your problem?! Hey man have you got a problem?  Take it somewhere else.  There’s people starving in Bangladesh man. Get over it.”  And then he’ll get on to more important matters, like hitting on that 5’6” hottie that wants nothing to do with you, even though you’re better looking than this intellectually challenged person.

Go to groups.  Make comments.  They’re going to ignore you, then laugh at you, dismiss you, and then if you persist they may have to fight you.  Now they don’t want to hurt you, but you’re so small you’ll probably just dry up and blow away.  So why don’t you just go away little man.  Can’t you see you’re annoying us with your petty problems?  My tall friend has so many problems, she can’t find clothes, men are threatened by her and don’t want to date her, and when she goes out she always sticks out in the crowd – and you’re complaining.  How dare you?!  How dare you you little man?!  Who are you that you can annoy me?! What are you?!  Okay.  Okay.  Enough of that, but you get the idea.  This is the way some people will react to you if you complain.  And you have to understand too, one of the very common retorts that you get from people if you mention the fact that you’re discriminated against based on your height – especially if you’re a short-statured male, is a response talking about the ‘problems’ of tall people - especially women.  It’s a very common rebuttal.  Tall women are usually given a great deal of sympathy; they’re given a great deal of sympathy and your situation is mocked and dismissed and laughed at.  It’s really quite incredible when you listen to some stories.  As a matter of fact I’ll tell you one.  I was on a talk radio show in Philadelphia a few years ago and the broadcast just happens to be on this website.  And it’s on the audio-visual page.  A six-foot tall woman called in to say that she was set up for a date with a 5’7” man and she wore high heels on that date.  Now you have to ask yourself why a 6 foot in height woman would wear high heels on a date with a man 5 inches shorter than her.  What possible reason or reasons could she have?  She was already 5 inches taller than the man.  Is it possible she just liked the ‘look’ of high heels on herself?  Did she have some sort of need to appear 9 inches taller than this man I wonder?  And if she did have a need to appear even taller than she was or even taller than her date, I wonder why?  And the call itself to the radio station, it was as if she was trying to trivialize the problems of the short and maximize people’s understanding for taller women, even though the broadcast, the show that I was on was about the problems of short people.  It was as if she couldn’t stand to see a little shrimp get sympathy, she wanted to get some for herself.  It was like – ‘Don’t feel sorry for him, feel sorry for big old me’

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Broadcast of September 17, 2008 - 'Unusual things - Part I'  (text below)

This is Joe Mangano.  The short of stature have to deal with all kinds of unusual things.  And unusual things can be very positive or they can be very negative.  In the case of the short-of-stature, obviously they’re usually very negative.  Go into companies, I guess in every state, I haven’t been in every state, but in New York City they’ve got all this stuff hanging on the wall – information about discrimination based on race, religion, color, sex, sexual orientation, creed, national origin, disability, etc.  Everything but height.  And you know people trivialize short-stature as mostly everyone listening to this broadcast knows well.  But yet, and uh, if you’ve listened to my broadcasts, you know, and if you’re a short-statured person, you probably realize that height is not a trivial physical trait.  It’s a very important trait in the minds of other people that they use to judge you and they use against you if you happen to be short-of-stature.

There are lots of unusual things and the short-of-stature usually get the worst unusual things.  Discrimination that people would not tolerate if they were a member of any one of the groups that I just mentioned.  Nobody would tolerate what the short-statured tolerate.  Nobody.  Nobody on earth would tolerate these things; at least no member of any group that’s recognized as a group would tolerate some of the indignities that the short-of-stature tolerate.  And I hope you’ve listened to other broadcasts of mine, because I go into all of this stuff.  The short-of-stature are a group of victims that just keep their mouths shut perpetually.  They say nothing.  They do nothing.  And this is how unusual their situation is.  You know, your size is a very, very important factor in the world in determining your fate and your destiny on this earth.  I could go into some unusual things.  One unusual thing involves an insect.  That’s right an insect.  Now I don’t mean to laugh at you and call you a little insect.  So don’t misunderstand me now.  Did you ever see an insect crawling across your living room floor?  I’m sure everyone has seen insects in their house at one time or another, right?  You know what your living room probably looks like to that insect?  It looks like 2 or 3 consecutive football fields, if it’s an average sized living room.  The ceiling is about as high as a 30 or a 40-story building would be to you or I.  That’s pretty big in relation to that insect.  Now, I know what you’re thinking, ‘You don’t propose to compare we short people to insects do you?’  Well, that’s not my purpose here.  Obviously the difference in perception of the world between the short and the average heighted or taller person is not anywhere near as great as the disparity between the perceptions of the world between an insect and a human being but you see my point though, don’t you?  The tall look at the world from a completely different perspective than you – the short person.  The short-of-stature don’t realize this, and of course the tall don’t realize this either.  The world looks slightly different to them as opposed to you.  They don’t care either, even if I point it out on my broadcasts.  You see, the tall-of-stature used to be in your position.  Right?  They were as tall as you once.  But they don’t care to remember the height aspect.  But if you think back to those days when you were a small boy or girl you have to admit that everything seemed bigger to you then, and I mean everything.  Now it wasn’t because of your age that everything seemed larger, it was due to the fact that YOU, yourself, your body was smaller or shorter.  But most of you don’t think about that now.  Just like you don’t think of that, the tallers don’t think about when they were your height either.

You’re 5’0” or 5’1” or 5’2” or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 or 4’11”, 10, 9, 8, 7 6 and down and these taller people, 5’10”, 11, 6’0”, 6’1”, 2, 3, 4, etc.  They were in your shoes at one time, but you were NEVER in their shoes.  Have you ever thought of it that way as a short person?  Probably not.  God forbid a taller got reinstated in a short person’s body, you know what they’d do?  What’s that?  You don’t know?  Oh yes you do.  Some of them would commit suicide.  That’s what some of them would do.  They’d kill themselves – very, very quick.  They would jump off the nearest roof.  They would grab the nearest gun and put a bullet through their head.  Now the ones that didn’t kill themselves might lose their minds or at the very least they’d become very, very depressed.  They would become very depressed in the sense that people who have suddenly become disabled get depressed.  They’d find the nearest psychiatrist.  And you know what, if all tall or taller people found themselves in a short person’s body the psychiatrist’s couches would be chock full of patients, and that would be a wonderful thing for the psychiatrists’ bank accounts.  And you know something else, your nearest two-bit shrink would finally take the issue of heightism seriously.

Imagine your local 6’4” guy being reinstated in a 5’4” body.  Imagine.  Imagine the reaction of his 5’10” wife.  “What?  You’re 5’4” now? Only as tall as that little shrimp Joe Mangano?  I was married to a man.  Now I’m married to, to, I don’t know what I’m married to.  I want to get a divorce.  We have to get a divorce.”  Of course she won’t be so candid about the real reason WHY she wants to get a divorce.  She’ll make up some excuse or excuses otherwise.  Anything but the real reason.

But you know something, you don’t know what it’s like to be their height.  Mmm hmm.  The tall have a completely different perspective of the world than you do, the short-of-stature.  And I’m going to explain what I mean by that.  Every object on earth, no matter what it is – it can be a chair, a table, a computer station, a computer, a television, a bookcase, doorframe, ceiling, kitchen cabinets, a car, SUV, bus, train, a tree, a bush, a building even.  Every single object whether it is natural or man-made, the taller man or woman is bigger in relation to than you the short person.  Now what does that mean for you, the short person?  Well I’m going to tell you what it means.  I believe that the larger you are in relation to any natural or man-made object results in a greater sense of competency, a greater sense of mastery and a greater sense of control over that person’s environment – within limits of course.  The tallest man in the world who’s 8’5” who lives in the Ukraine; he has great logistical difficulties obviously because the world’s man-made objects are not made for someone so large because he’s so far out of the normal range.  (In woman’s voice – ‘You see, tall people do have it worse than short people’)  At least they don’t have to worry about getting stepped on Mrs. Tallman but I won’t go into that right now.  They’re usually the ones doing the stepping on, but I won’t go into that right now either.  But the short-statured person views the world in a different way from the tall person and vice-versa.

If you’re bigger within certain limits, you have a greater sense of competency, mastery and control if you’re larger in relation to both natural and man-made objects.  But those natural and man-made objects are not the only objects that you have to deal with, there’s one more class of objects – and that’s other human beings.  And again, the larger you are in relation to those other people – again, within limits – the greater your sense of mastery, control and competency.  I don’t think anyone has ever said this, anywhere at any time.  None of your masterful psychologists.  None of your masterful sociologists who don’t give a Scotch Farthing about this topic.  None of your learned professors in college, none of your endocrinologists, and certainly no unscrupulous building inspectors running to Pensacola to hide.  Anyone who says this in the future will be imitating this speaker.  By the way, you people, the short-of-stature don’t know this.  The tall-of-stature I think, sense this, but they can’t verbalize it, and even if they could, wouldn’t tell you, after all it benefits them not you.  Remember Tallers have to work at not getting a superiority complex over you.  They literally have to work at it.  You think they care about working at it?  I don’t think so.  You the short person though are forced to work to overcome an inferiority complex.  (In a little Napoleon’s voice)  ‘What?  Look kid, get me a grown-up, I need some help.’

Most tallers know at some level that their tall stature benefits them.  The ones who know this usually keep it to themselves because they know it benefits them.  You don’t know what it’s like to be in their shoes, but they were once in your shoes.  They don’t ever want to be in your shoes again.  They wouldn’t tell you that though.  Stand on a chair and see how the world looks, see how the room looks.  It looks better to you doesn’t it?  You know it does.  You know as well as I do that it looks better.  Now get on your knees, and you know I wrote this in my original essay, “Heightism:  The Last Bastion of Discrimination”.  It doesn’t feel too good when you’re on your knees.  It doesn’t feel too good when you’re looking up at other human beings.

You start off on an even keel.  When you are shorter than others you are at a psychological disadvantage usually because when we’re babies, toddlers, little children, early adolescents – all we do is look up and when we look up, the people we look up to are usually more intelligent (sometimes), more knowledgeable, (occasionally) more experienced, have more money, and of course have more physical power for the most part, so tall height is associated with these things.  The experience of looking up is a childhood one and when you look up at others you feel exactly that.  It is a re-creation of the childhood experience.  Of course you as a short person might not admit it to yourself because after all, you’ve always been short so it’s virtually a part of you.  And if you’re a short-statured man or woman you don’t like that, but you’ve done that all your life.  It’s always there and you don’t admit it so I’m admitting it for you.   And you know it works both ways.  That’s right.  Now let’s view it from the perspective of the taller person, shall we?  When they look at you the short person, they tend to get a sense of superiority over you, yeah – they do.  They have a sense of physical, emotional and psychological superiority over you, and it’s collective because they’re the majority.  When the tallers look down on you, they look down on someone they feel superior to the way an adult feels superior to a child in a way.  You’re very short and you’re the minority.  Everything in life is more difficult for you; everything in life – or at least most things - are easier for them.  Of course they don’t look at it that way.  If you were to get the idea in your head that you’re part of a disadvantaged group, you know, like racial groups, ethnic groups, etc. they don’t like that.    Of course if your height is in the normal range of short, in other words, just a little below the mean in a bell-curve, there’s not much awareness although I’ve personally been contacted by men as tall as 5’9” or 5’10 telling me they were having problems in the workplace or with the opposite sex.  That’s how bad it can get sometimes even for a person in the average range.  You don’t have the same sense of power, competency, mastery and control that they do.  You never will have it, at least not most short people at this point in time, unless you achieve some sort of position of power.  They know this on the subliminal level, and they don’t have to be Sigmund Freud either to know this.  “Gentlemen and Kings, Captains all” except for you.

If you’ve ever brought this topic up, you’ll get the most ridiculous arguments opposing you like Danny Devito being successful and Napoleon being successful or your short uncle who even owns his own house and actually has a wife.  Imagine that.

Broadcast of August 23, 2008 - Olympic heights

This is Joe Mangano.  I titled this broadcast Olympic heights, because as you’re probably aware, the Olympics are currently taking place in Beijing China, which by the way is very coincidental because one of the people who took part in the documentary, ‘S&M:  Short and Male’ was Chinese and a resident I believe of Beijing.  Some of the scenes in the documentary were shot in Beijing.  I don’t know much about that person, but it’s my understanding that he does have his own website and the website is in Chinese, and talks or at least concentrates a little bit on issues connected with height.

Since I’m so interested in anything having to do with human height, the Olympic Games are probably the ultimate venue to analyze height for someone like myself, and I’ve been doing just that in the last two weeks – as much as time allowed me to do that is.  Not as much as I wanted to do, but I did what I could.  It’s been my observation over the course of the last few Olympic Games that in certain sports the athletes have been getting taller and taller – which is probably a fact.  Now before you conclude that there’s something going on in the world and that people are getting taller and taller, my advice is, don’t jump to any conclusions.  I don’t believe people are significantly taller than they were 30 or 40 years ago.  If they are then it’s because short people are not having as many children or possibly committing suicide before they have the opportunity to have children, because of all the discrimination that they’re victims of, that so far they haven’t been able to do anything about.  There is however, no doubt that people in the United States are far heavier than they were even 20 years ago, and the epidemic is increasing.  The obesity epidemic makes people appear larger to us, because I know when I see a 6’6” person who’s very slim, as opposed to someone who’s the same height and let’s say about 400 lbs. the 400 pounder looks quite a bit more imposing.  He appears bigger - period.  But the heights of the Olympic athletes in certain sports does appear to be increasing.

As I was watching all the swimming events last week, I was struck by the tall heights of many of the swimmers from different countries.  As the listener probably knows, Michael Phelps, the man who broke Mark Spitz’s Olympic record of 7 Gold Medals in one Olympics with a new record of 8, is 6’4” in height.  I did notice many of the other swimmers to be in the same height range or even taller.  There was one swimmer, who’s name escapes me at the moment who was 6’8” in height.  If we go back to 1972 and look at Mark Spitz, now I’m just guessing, but I believe Spitz is 5’11”, and I wonder if Spitz was competing today if he would be on the same competitive level as he was 36 years ago.  This is a question that is very difficult to answer.  My guess is that he wouldn’t be.  Tall height gives a swimmer an advantage.  Tall height is usually accompanied by longer arms too.  The bottom line is that all things being equal the taller swimmer needs to swim less body lengths than the shorter swimmer.  To give you an example, if one arm stroke can propel the 5’6” swimmer and the 6’6” swimmer one body length, then that one stroke has propelled the 6’6” swimmer one more foot than the 5’6” swimmer.  What this means is that with all factors equal the taller swimmer travels farther with each stroke.  To offset this advantage the shorter swimmer must exert more energy to travel the same distance.  This may be an oversimplification of fluid dynamics and propulsion through water, but you get the idea.  I don’t think I saw any short swimmers on the victory stand for any of the swimming events.  Mostly all of the medalists in both individual and team events were over 6 feet in height.

What had the most profound effect on me though and what prompted the recording of this broadcast was what I saw a couple of nights ago. I was watching the US – Russia volleyball game late at night and this was the regular volleyball, that is, the volleyball played on a hardwood floor as opposed to the beach variety.  And by the way I am opposed to the beach variety – but only as far as broadcasts go – but that’s a story for another day.  I noticed something that struck me as quite incredible in more ways than one, and it will probably strike you as being incredible too.  I noticed while I was watching the game that there was one – and only one – player on each side who’s jersey was a different color than the jersey’s of all the other players on his side.  You know, I immediately became curious.  Now I have to admit that I don’t really follow Volleyball very much.  I did play it a good deal during high school gym class though and the reason for that was everyone who wasn’t chosen for a side in Basketball wound up playing Volleyball; this included the fat kids, the uncoordinated, and of course, the short kids – like me.  I know the rules fairly well, but hadn’t really kept up with any changes in the sport, so I didn’t realize what this player’s purpose was or why his jersey was a different color.  I did however get the picture quite rapidly as I watched the game.  I noticed that the players with the different color jersey never got close to the net, never attacked, and never spiked the ball.  I also noticed that when one side scored a point, the players on that side would all come together at once and the player with the different color jersey just happened to be the shortest on both teams.  Now the alarm bells started to go off in my head so I wrote down the names of the players with the different color jerseys on both the American and Russian teams.  Then I did an Internet search.  I discovered that back in the 90’s a new position was developed called the ‘libero’ which in Italian means ‘free’.  The libero cannot block, spike, or get close to the net.  He cannot attack at all; as a matter of fact it is against the rules.  I then checked the heights of the ‘Libero’s’ on all the Olympic Volleyball teams.  The liberos all happened to be the shortest players on their respective teams.  Now keep in mind that these guys were not short in the real sense of the word, for example as I watched the Russian libero – Verbov is his name, his height was listed as 6 feet.  On my TV screen he actually appeared to be about 5’8” to me.  The American, Richard Lambourne, who was the US team’s libero stands a mere 6’3”.  So these men are not actually short, as a matter of fact they can be quite tall.  The fact that they’re differentiated by a different color jersey and also by the fact that they can’t score points is very, very interesting, at least to me.  (In a woman’s voice) – ‘What are you saying now, that there’s some sort of conspiracy against short people or something?!’  No, but I am saying that all the libero’s on all of the teams just happened to be the shortest on their respective teams, 100% of the time.  And this shortest player is marked off with a different uniform to differentiate him from everyone else.  You know isn’t this the way it usually goes for the short person in the everyday world?  Isn’t this the way it is for the short person socially, romantically, in the workplace, every place?  Obviously these men don’t mind it very much because in the real world they are still tall men.  They can still hold their heads up high.  But you know what really struck me is that as I watched the Russian – Verbov – standing next to the other players on his team, he had to be about 5 or 6 inches shorter than most of the other guys, which would indicate that the average heights of the players on his team were about 6’5’’ or 6’6’’.  There’s no doubt that the heights of Olympic Volleyball players are now equivalent to the heights of NBA Basketball players.

You know, Swimming and Volleyball heights were not the only heights that I noticed.  I – along with billions of other people in the world – watching the Track & Field sprints, could not help but notice the height of the new sprint sensation – Usain Bolt.  Bolt stands 6’5’’ in height.  He is without a doubt the tallest world class sprinter that I’ve ever seen.  I don’t think there’s ever been a world class sprinter even approaching his height.  The problem with very tall men running sprints is that they tend to not be able to move their legs as rapidly as some of the less tall men.  Bolt, however, defies this.  If you couple that fact with the fact that all things being equal, a taller man has a longer stride than a shorter man and therefore covers more distance with each stride, some interesting things are going to happen, and some interesting things did happen, like his two world records in the 100 and 200 meters in one Olympics, which has never been done before.  The success of taller and taller men in sports that select for tall height actually assists in making the plight of the short individual more difficult and it does.  I’ll tell you something else that I noticed as well.  The taller that these athletes get, the more the commentators seem to mention their heights.  Back in the 2004 Olympics in Athens I can remember a commentator and I believe it was the same commentator that was interviewing some of the athletes at ground level after their races at Beijing; I remember him making some rather unkind remarks about Jerome Johnson who was an American 800 meter runner who didn’t make the finals, by the way.  But I can remember the commentator saying, “The shorter runner is getting beat up by the taller runner.” I can also remember him criticizing Lauren Williams who dropped the baton in the 4X100 meter relay and mentioning her height – as if that had something to do with it.  You know, heightism being the wonderfully acceptable little prejudice that it is allows all of this to occur.  It allows free mention of height; free mention of short stature as a negative; free condescion towards short people; free ridicule of short-statured people; and free expression of tall runners, ‘beating up on short runners’.  I guess that’s why they call the shortest volleyball player on a team the ‘Libero’.  He gets to stand in the back – free.  This is Joe Mangano.  Thank you very much.

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Statement in Massachusetts

The webmasters prepared statement for the hearing before the Massachusetts Committee on Labor and Workforce Development on March 25th 2008 at the Massachusetts State House in Boston.
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Broadcast of April 19, 2008 - 'The tougher they get . . .'

This is Joe Mangano.  You know heightism is your quintessential ‘ism’.  And I know I’ve said that before, but there’s no ‘ism’ like heightism, like there’s no business like show business.  I mean let’s face it; let’s be candid with ourselves, shall we?  Heightism is a situation where we, you, you’re short, most of the people who listen to this are short-statured people, listen to these broadcasts.  We are victims and we have no redress.  You know most short people go through life thinking that there’s either nothing they can do about their situation or just not thinking at all.  The few who do think, probably think along the lines of, you know these people are doing this stuff to me and I can’t turn to anyone.  You turn to authority figures they say something is wrong with you.  You turn to others, uh peers, they say something’s wrong with you.  “Oh just get over it.”  “Oh, you’re too sensitive.”  “Oh things like that don’t bother me.  I just let insults roll off my back. HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!”  Well, you don’t get any insults of this nature wiseguy.  That’s why they roll off your back.  They don’t exist.  I know it took me a long time to really realize what this was all about, and most of what I’ve learned has occurred in the last 6 or 7 years or so.  Before that it was an extremely slow progression.  And if you put this on graph – a learning curve if you will.  This would be a graph of my own increase in knowledge about height and height issues.  The graph would show a very slow rise most of my life and then all of a sudden the line would get steeper and shoot up, almost like a stock that had stagnated in price for many years and then whose price went through the roof.  Right now the line’s almost a peak I would say.  Although I am still learning by the way.  Still learning more and more about height and heightism.  And I have to do something with this knowledge.  When you get to this point you have to communicate your knowledge a little bit I think.

You know this height issue is really the quintessential issue of man.  I know you think I’m exaggerating just a bit when I say that.  This is not only an issue on an individual level, it’s an issue on a collective level as well.  It’s even an issue on an international level.  Big countries seem to have the right to invade little countries and all they have to do is doctor up 1 or 2 transparent pretexts in order to do this and get away with it – scott free.  Who’s going to challenge them?  This is the ultimate example of a size advantage.  Now we’re just individuals.  We’re not a country; we’re not a race; we’re not a people with a particular ethnic background; we’re not a people with a specific political ideology; we’re not viewed as even having a disability, etc.  I have to say this over and over again.  The reason I have to do that is that it has to sink in to people’s heads – the short I’m referring to.  They have to listen to it again and again and again because the barrier to this is like a concrete wall in people’s heads and you have to keep hammering away.  Finally the barrier gives way and you have these people and they start waking up and realizing what I’ve realized over the course of the last 6 or 7 years or so and you start thinking of yourself in a different light and you start becoming angry, very angry.  This is what the short are deathly afraid of.  This is what the vast majority of the short of stature don’t want to deal with.  They don’t want to deal with this anger.  They’d rather live in a world of illusion, a world of make-believe, and uh I can’t really blame them either, I really can’t.  The reason I can’t blame them completely for that is because they don’t have any avenues of redress anywhere.

They’re short and you know you can go to a sibling and the sibling will take advantage of you in some cases.  In many cases short statured kids can’t even go to parents.  It was about uh, when was it?  Two years ago that that 15 year-old in New York City was being harassed, he jumped into the East River and drowned himself.  He was about 5 feet in height.  When kids do this, uh commit suicide like this, it usually means that they don’t have any support at home.  That means from parents and family, because if you have strong support at home, you’d never think of doing that sort of thing, really.  To be in that sort of a situation, to be harassed like that, uh, committing suicide is a major thing, especially in the case of a 15-year old.  How many 15 year olds think of committing suicide and then actually go through with it?  Suicide is a major event, let’s face it.  I remember being interviewed by Megan Kendall.  I think I mentioned in another broadcast that she said to me in that interview words to the effect of, “Oh, we’ve all been bullied.”  Well, you know, this goes beyond being bullied, and I don’t think Megan Kendall was ever bullied in her life about anything.  Tall good-looking women are seldom – if ever – bullied by anyone, unless of course it’s a big strong, tall man, you know it and I know it so who’s kidding who.  No.  We haven’t all been bullied.  A small percentage of us have been bullied.  Some of us have been bullied into adulthood, and the people who have been bullied into adulthood have maintained silence.  They maintain silence because how many adults are gonna talk?  They’re utterly ashamed.  Can you imagine an adult man who might be 35 years old walking down the street, gets harassed by a bunch of teenagers who think he’s a kid?  Can you imagine a situation like that?  You think that 35 year old man is going to talk about this?  This is the big problem and this is one of the things that I saw at the state senate hearing in Massachusetts last month.  I went there and a tiny handful of short-statured people showed up, including me, and there’s a big contingent of overweight people there.  Incidentally, all the fat people who testified there at the hearing were women.  There was not one overweight man who testified.  Every single one of the people who testified were women; every single one of them had gotten a good deal of attention from the members of that panel and the three people – myself included – who made statements before the panel, were not asked any questions by the members of the panel and that’s significant.  In my own case I think they heard enough, but in the case of the fat people my own personal opinion is that the members of the panel respected them more, for more than one reason.  Large size, even if it’s weight gets its due, gets its respect, gets its attention.  There’s no doubt about it.  The fact that several high-level educators appeared on behalf of the large people – one of them a short-statured woman – as I mentioned in my last broadcast, assisted the fat people in their cause.  This tends to make one angry.  And if you look at the situation with the fat people, they have a situation where they can lose at least some weight if they really try, and I’ve mentioned this before and you don’t have to hear me say it.  You know it as well as I do.  These people were very, very large, and I remember one woman getting up there and saying words to the effect of, “Oh, 250 pounds is not a large size.”  I mean think about that statement.  I’m 5’4” and 135 lbs. and she’s saying that 250 lbs. is not a large size.  Well I can remember a time when 250 lbs. was defensive end for the Dallas Cowboys.  Not the Giants now.  And this is weight.  And these people on this panel are giving the overweight people a lot of respect and attention.  A lot of this stuff is hurtful, and I’ve got to say it.  You’ve got to call it what it is.  You see a 5 feet in height woman, slim woman, getting up there, traveling 3,000 miles to fight for the problems of overweight people, and completely ignoring the problems of the short-of-stature, that’s a poignant situation and a hurtful one.  I have to admit that I was hurt by that.  I don’t think that I’m being hypersensitive or sensitive in any way to say that I am.  But these are the kinds of things you face as short individual.  And if I was beaten down by this stuff I wouldn’t be giving these broadcasts, I really wouldn’t.

I may be getting, uh, how should I say it, more and more tough, more and more candid about this issue and I heard once where J. Edgar Hoover supposedly said this, and maybe that’s not a good analogy, but J. Edgar Hoover once said, and J. Edgar Hoover was a short man by the way.  J. Edgar Hoover stood 5’7”, yet in press releases, this is my understanding, I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am, they gave out his height as ‘just under 6 feet’.   Typical short guy trying to cover up his short stature.  But he would say, and uh, I heard this somewhere and I don’t remember where I heard it– supposedly he said - when faced with a difficult situation that, “The tougher they get, the tougher I get”.   And this is fast becoming this speaker’s philosophy.  Trying to achieve that.  I don’t know if that’s entirely possible, but, we hope to try.  And there’s things comin’ up, this month.  Not too far down the road, in a few days as a matter of fact, they’re going to have the screening of the “S & M:  Short and Male” documentary.  I don’t know even at this moment if I’m going to be attending or not.  That’s the bad thing about being an activist, especially with something like height, nobody pays you a salary, you have to sort of do everything on your own and there aren’t too many people who are rushing to support you, like when I went up to Boston last month and the Committee certainly didn’t pay my way.  I paid my own way, although I drove the distance up there and I was glad that I did, it was a good experience, I’ll try to do it again if I need to.  By the way, I would like to personally thank Howard Goldberg for his efforts in this endeavor and also his wife Ina Fichman.  This is a first in the history of man I guess, for a documentary on stature issues – specifically short-stature.  This is what the documentary is all about, really.  I think also, it’s an expose about this issue.  Size, whether it’s height or weight is an important one and that’s something that you and I both know.

I think we’re at a point right now where we’re at a small breakthrough, just a small one, not a large one.  I’m completely awake.  I only wish that so many short-statured people were also at the same point.  If an average short-statured person only knew what I’ve had to go through to get to this stage.  You see this is the problem.  The short of stature have to run the gauntlet.  Most of them – the vast majority of them – don’t want to do that.  They would like an easy way out, as do most people for most things.  Everybody wants the easy way out.  Everybody wants someone to tell them how to do it the ‘easy way’.  Unfortunately there is no easy way out, and once you realize that and accept it in your own mind you’ll be much better off, believe me.

You know, going back to the hearing in Boston, the people who were overweight, most of them, practically all of them were very heavy – in the 300 lb. plus range.  That’s my best estimation of the approximate weight of the majority of the fat people.  And when you look at them, you see that they are a very small minority.  You have to understand that NAAFA is 39 years old, incredibly enough.  It began in 1969.  They don’t have that many members.  It’s not like they have 100,000 members.  They don’t, but they’ve been around those 39 years and there are a heck of a lot more short-statured people AND they have a characteristic that is NOT controllable and yet so far fewer short people testified at the hearing.  This is what we’re dealing with, and it’s not something, and I’ve got to be frank, it’s not something that is going to be eradicated tomorrow or the next day.  When you view other groups, people of different races – the feminist movement for example – go back to 1920 – women were parading in the street for the right to vote.  Now I admit that short adults have the right to vote certainly (although I’ll tell you, the first time I voted, my age was questioned, as one might expect), but because the short-statured are not viewed as a group it has advantages and disadvantages – unfortunately mostly disadvantages.  The advantage, because we’re not identified as a group – because there’s short people in all groups – nobody’s out to lynch us.  No one is out to ‘Short-bash’ us, although we certainly are ‘short-bashed’ on a subliminal level.  I believe, my contention is that small people are chosen as targets for bullies on the street, more often than anybody.  I think in many cases women are chosen as targets not because of their sex, but because of their size, although you may not accept that contention at first glance.  People choose the short or small as targets of discrimination, aggression, harassment, etc. because they can and because there’s no inhibitions or restrictions on them for doing so, and they laugh.  They can laugh about it.  There was a time when this applied to other groups.  The listener I think, can see where we are at this moment.  We haven’t come very far, but we’re a lot further than we were 10 years ago for example.  I think we’ve come much further into the light than we were even as recently as 3 or 4 years ago.  I think one of the main reasons for this is the advent of the Internet.  The Internet has been a positive influence for this; of course it has its negative or down side as well.  It’s downside is that you can get a lot of BS and you’ve got to be able to sift through the garbage.  I think the listener knows what I mean.  You get a lot of bullcrap in some places and it’s not like there are dozens of groups for the short-of-stature.  You’ve got something like ‘Signs-on-San diego’, you’ve got ‘alt.support.short’.  There’s less activity on these groups now by the way than there was a couple of years ago, and of the activity that exists on these few groups, there’s less quality from what I can see.   I can speculate on why I think that is so, but it seems that a lot of the old posters are gone and new ones have taken their place and many of the new ones are not of the same quality as some of the older ones.  In the last couple of years my website has come online and I think it might be a transition phase of sorts, although I’m just as new to this as anyone else – this particular phenomenon that is - so I can’t really come to any definitive conclusions about it.  I do think that when one discusses this topic of heightism seriously, many people who just like to whine and complain, you know - not do anything, just sit around and wallow in their misery, so-to-speak, disappear into the woodwork when push comes to shove.  When it gets serious, they wave bye-bye.  That’s the way it is.  You can’t change that.  That might be a good thing when all is said and done.  It would certainly be a good thing for the scam-artists to disappear.

I would recommend that people do post messages whenever and wherever they can – as long as the messageboards are free.  What I mean by that is that I wouldn’t bother posting messages on some group that censors your comments because you happen to disagree with the moderator.  No.  I wouldn’t recommend that at all.

As far as groups where you can post freely though, I recommend that you make intelligent comments and intelligent rebuttals to others comments.  Don’t degenerate into cursing and things like that.  Many of these people who post have horrendous spelling and grammar and nobody is going to take you seriously when you can’t spell and your grammar is poor.  That’s just the way it is.   You know obviously you’ve been abused, and you’re angry and there’s been no redress and there still isn’t any redress, and I’ve been involved in so many situations, I could give dozens of broadcasts just on the experiences that I’ve had, so wherever the listener is, the webmaster has already been there and I’m probably going to be going to places where no one man has gone before so-to-speak, you know, just like Star Trek except this isn’t a TV show, it’s the real thing.

You know, radio silence can be a good thing – sometimes.  Sometimes you have to maintain radio silence.  But there comes a time when you have to tell what needs to be told.  There comes a time when you have to let people know the facts and that’s really what’s being done for the short-of-stature in these broadcasts.  The facts are what you mustn’t be afraid to confront.  You’re a victim, and you should admit that to yourself.  You’ve been wronged as well, and you have to admit that to yourself too.  You’ve been a pawn in other people’s games; none of this is that hard to admit. It really isn’t when you think about it.  Many or most of the short-statured are ashamed like little children.  You know why they feel like little children don’t you?  It’s because of the height aspect of it; the short stature aspect of it is associated with being a child.  They’ve got you thinking and feeling like you’re a little child.  They’ve got you trapped every which way.  They’ve got you boxed in from all sides.  You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.  If you complain you’ve got a problem and if you don’t complain well, you’re going to tolerate what you’ve been tolerating all your life.  If enough of you make complaints, then I might get a few more e-mails than I’ve been getting.  I wouldn’t mind getting a few hundred e-mails a week.  It would be a little bit of a burden, but more is better than fewer in this case – to hear from people who are in touch with reality.  I see the short all the time, the short attempting to be and feel taller or tall.  Identifying with the tall is a common coping strategy for the short.   Even the short defend Tallers.  Some of them even think that by attending some Tall Club meeting that they’re going to convince the Tallers to “join with them” and fight heightism together.  (In ‘Cool Short Mans’ Voice) ‘Hey man, that sounds cool man’.  Ain’t gonna happen.   The tallers concern is with the tallers.  They form their clubs partly out of a feeling of superiority.  Don’t want no short people round them.  Even one or two of the so-called ‘activists’ – and I use that word very loosely here – even one or two of the so-called ‘activists’ have tried that thinking that those big, strong super tallers were going to assist them in their plight.  I don’t see it happening.  I’m sorry, but I have to call a spade a spade.  But one of the biggest problems for the short-of-stature is the simple fact that they don’t think for themselves.  They think the way others think or the way others want them to think.  It’s difficult to apply logic to your own life.  Very few people have this capability.  When you apply logic to all of this, logic should win out in every case, or mostly every case, but sometimes people don’t think logically unfortunately.  You think the way they want you to think.  You think like a person who’s locked up in a prison.  You think like a person who can’t think freely and think for himself.  They’ve got you feeling – and I’m sorry but I have to say it – they’ve got you feeling like a ‘little rat’.  That you have no power, no voice, no chance to do anything.  And God forbid you protest, you’re a little baby.  So they’ve got you covered on all sides.  If you protest you’ve got a big problem and if you don’t protest, you’re in the same boat you’ve been in.  You’re either in the frying pan or you’re in the fire.  You’re either under a rock or between a rock and a hard place as they say.

It was Shakespeare, William Shakespeare, many years ago, several hundred years ago as a matter of fact, who wrote in Hamlet:

“Whether it tis nobler in the mind to bear the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take up arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing,

End them”

 And that’s a worthwhile passage, a passage that short people would do well to consider.  Because you’re 15 years old or you’re 25 years old or 40 years old or even older than that.  If you bear the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” you’re only going to continue on your present course.  Do you want to do that?  Do you want to stay in the same place that you’ve been in, or do you want to do something about your lot in life?  Do you want to take up arms?  And you know you don’t have to take up arms literally.  You don’t have to go out and get a gun and start shooting.  All you have to do is open your mouth like I’m doing.  When you listen to these broadcasts you have to understand one thing, what’s being done here is something that no one else at this moment in time is doing.  There could be one person or two people, or even a few that might be able to do this as well.  What I’ve figured out is nothing that can’t be figured out.  What I know is nothing that can’t be known.  You’ve already listened, and this is high-quality stuff you’re hearing.  There is no website on the Internet that is going to give you the same type of information or make you angry like these broadcasts can make you – will make you – should make you.  Of course there’s a little bit of humor too.  We wouldn’t want anyone to just go out and fly into a rage.  But as I’ve said, I don’t see millions of short-statured people going out and rioting in the streets.  Religions and races and nationalities an