AGGH my midget co-worker has caused me trouble!

And it's totally fucking classic if getting shot out of a cannon is involved.

Curiously, she is more attractive in person than on television, but yeah, I think she's attractive.

And it's all your fault!

upside: big building, she's on another floor and not working on my project
downside: it's not that big

(haha x-post!)

Who DOESN'T hear this every day?

What if he returns with nothing more than a shot of her midriff and breasts?

I hope it works out, for you.

(he's not actually a midget, he's just short, but he keeps joking about what a midget he is, probably because me and the other girl in our department are 6' and 5'11" respectively, he's about 5'6")
-- Gear! (drink_to_remembe...), June 26th, 2004 7:49 PM. (later)

(xpost IT'S LIKE I'M LOOKING IN A REALLY TINY MIRROR SIZED JUST FOR ME)

http://www.stevequayle.com/GG.Images/Midget.major.mite.w.jpg

THIS MUST HAPPEN NOW

nothing really happened. The guy refused to go find her in the dark third floor offices, because he's lazy. Then he suggested I just go on up there and say "hi", to which I replied "yeah if I knew what she looked like I might, you jackal."

I told him after work that I wasn't interested in this girl, whoever she is, he asked why, and I couldn't believe I had to remind him I had no idea who she was. I'm sure the saga will continue tomorrow. Anyway, I do have that new job at a new place soon.

From my post from the other thread:

The word "midget" is considered derogatory by most people.
I am not really eloquent enough to say what I want to say, but I really find these seemingly innocent threads upsetting. I find it hard to believe that what is going on here is not some sort of finger pointing and laughing. Why are people amused/obsessed with dwarfism?

My younger sister has mild achondroplasia. It was difficult to watch her grow up being stared at or laughed at or called names. She handled it remarkably well. She is 23 now and is still stared at and laughed at. It's only funny when she is the one making light of it.

-- marianna (mariannamaclea...), March 29th, 2004.

The only thing that is change is that she's 24 now.

dont get caleld out? honestly, there is so much talk of infringing rights especially recently, which in conjuction with the general (self?)-rightoeusness tone of much ILX chatter, make me yet more mystified when this sort of shit is apparently totally acceptable. In Real life too i find it bewildering that preachy, moralising friends with impeccable liberal credentials, suddenyl start making jokes about 'midgets' and stuff. Like how can you defend this? are you really gonna tell me to shut up for being so high and mighty?

basically Marianna is totally fucking OTM. Jesus.

I'm not sure whether all this applies to this thread, though; some of the comments are rather mean.

Yeah, I'm sure there are more important things to be bothered by then a relatively small group of people being mocked for their height. Try telling that to those people, though...

In other words: you can always find more pressing problems in the world. That doesn't mean the "lesser" problems aren't worth being bothered by. That's like saying to a gay man who was beaten up: "Well, you're lucky, in Country X they kill homosexuals."

Midgetry is always relevant.

And it's totally fucking classic if getting shot out of a cannon is involved.

I think you might need a gypsy to counteract the leprechaun.

this is one of the reasons dwarf-tossing is legal in some places.

super-size me

I'm irritated to have been drawn into this thread on a false promise of midget-related content. I call bait-and-switch.

Using an actual midget to mack on girlies would be SO CLASSIC.

Haha esp. if you fed him Milk Bones and made him fetch sticks for you at the park! Although any girl you picked up via this method would by definition NOT be a keeper.

(X-post, sorry Dan.)

Ridiculous. That just rewards stupidity (as would getting defensive and self-righteous, most times -- but I'm really not either). Either way, though, I can't see it becoming a fight. If it does, it'll be without my joining in.

But I didn't mean to insult anyone personally, I'm sorry Dan for taking your words out of the context.

I think I made it very clear that I found the mocking of and jokes about dwarfism offensive on the other thread. I also made it clear that I thought the other thread could be seen as harmless. This thread was not harmless. I guess I'm disappointed in the micro sense because I would have expected Tep not to continue to try to defend the actions of himself and others. I'm disapponted in the larger sense because I still find it unbeliveable that people with dwarfism are considered to be fair targets for this sort of treatment, while people with other physical or mental disabilities, sexual preferences, or ethnicities etc are not.

I also know there are other 'big' issues in the world, but if there is a chance that my coming on threads and posting that the word 'midget' is considered to be offensive, not to mention the jokes, is making people more aware of the wrongness of their behavior, then I will happily post on every single thread where someone uses the word 'midget' or talks about people with dwarfism as if they are less than human.

When I get to work, my adventures with SID will continue I'm sure.

We want pictures, gear.

and i'd much rather read more on gear's coworker/future girlfriend story than pointless bickering. so lets just drop it.

so... pictures please gear¡

Oh, there you go, making note of your great height and all.

I am sure his colleague would be best man in such an event to show Gear!s thankfullness. Anyways - I am intruiged how a ginger red, curly haired girl who apparently looks like lisa loeb, but won't.

(Though I secretly also hope she IS a ghost.)

Anyway I'm sorry I offended anybody. I only made the one comment because it was meant to be a joke re: the overuse of midgets/dwarves in circuses and not part of any ongoing vendetta or wish to continue to bash a segment of the population.

I still find it unbeliveable that people with dwarfism are considered to be fair targets for this sort of treatment, while people with other physical or mental disabilities, sexual preferences, or ethnicities etc are not.

Yeah, point taken. Though I don't think it's that black & white. (By which I don't mean that midgets or dwarves should be fair targets... I mean the others you mention aren't exactly considered unfair targets across the board. I'll remember this next time some asshole says something derogatory or completely uninformed to me about manic depression. And no, I'm not being snide. Honest.)

she's emailed me and said "why don't you just come on upstairs and say hi?" so soon enough I'll have actually met this girl. this could all have easily been prevented, right?

um well it's sort of strange, because she certainly bears NO RESEMBLENCE WHATSOEVER the the busty Lisa Loeb clone I described. However, she is cute. I was nervous, which I might have been if it was the right girl, and moreso because I was being led to see a girl whom I'd never met before.

what I learned:

- she likes Wilco and prefers YHF to AGIB
- she's from Florida
- she's a huge Michael Moore fan
- seems very sweet and not the total crunchy left-winger that the above would imply
- she works in a big office by herself and says the crows outside her window are what keep her company all day, which comes across as creepy on ILX (like much of this and other threads) but is cute in real life (unlike much of this and other threads)
- I probably made an ass of myself but we still have a coffee date tentatively set for when she returns from a vacation in Seattle next week.

buttsex roomie: Angie Harmon if she'll put on a little weight
trucker-hatted indie-fop: Topher Grace
Gear!: Ron Livingston?
"S.I.D.": the black elf from Bad Santa
Busty Lisa Loeb: Lisa Loeb

Definitely Ron Livingston, though.

New Cute Girl is a critical casting decision.

How long is the hair?

http://www.ipsofactodesign.com/geargirl.jpg

That was my took-way-too-long-gear's-girl-meets-the-little-mermaid version.

Time for the politically correct to go after the most common and pervasive of all forms of discrimination

WHEN George Bush was America's president and Daniel Ortega was Nicaragua's, Mr Ortega threatened to cancel a local peace deal that the Americans had painstakingly brokered. Hearing the news, an enraged Mr Bush grasped for an insult worthy of the offence. 'That little man,' he snarled repeatedly, dripping contempt. 'That little man.'
Actually Mr Ortega is 5 foot 10 inches (1.78 metres) tall, which makes him a fraction of an inch taller than the average American - and not that much shorter than Mr Bush, who is 6’2”. Yet when Mr Bush was searching for an atomic but not obscene insult, it was stature that he immediately seized upon. In that respect, he was not being presidential: merely, rather, primate. For the primate Homo Sapiens tends to sort its males by height.

Every boy knows, practically from birth, that being 'shrimpy' is nearly as bad as being a chicken, and closely related at that. Call a man 'little', and he is understood to be demeaned. When Mr Bush called Mr Ortega 'that little man', his primate-male cerebellum knew what it was doing. It was engaging in what may be the most enduring form of discrimination in the world.

The bias against short men hurts them. It is unfair. It is irrational. So why is it not taken seriously? A serious question: especially if you happen to be short.

First the bad news
On the advice of our lawyers, we pause here for a mental-health notice. Tall men are invited to forge on, as are women (for whom it is weight, not stature, that is life's bane - but that is another story). Short men, however, proceed at their own peril. What follows will depress them.

Height discrimination begins from the moment male human beings become vertical. Give 100 mothers photographs of two 19-month-old boys who resemble each other closely, except that one is made to look taller than the other. Then ask the mothers which boy is more competent and able. The mothers consistently pick the 'taller' one. As boys grow, the importance of height is drummed into them incessantly. 'My, how tall you are!' the relatives squeal with approval. Or, with scorn, 'Don't you want to grow up big and strong?'

Height hierarchies are established early, and persist for a long time. Tall boys are deferred to and seen as mature, short ones ridiculed and seen as childlike. Tall men are seen as natural 'leaders'; short ones are called 'pushy'. 'If a short man is normally assertive, then he's seen as having Napoleonic tendencies,' says David Weeks, a clinical psychologist at Royal Edinburgh Hospital. 'If he is introverted and mildly submissive, then he's seen as a wimp.'

Dr Weeks is 5’2”, so he may have an axe to grind. But he can prove his point. Turn, for example, to the work of two American psychologists, Leslie Martel and Henry Biller, whose book 'Stature and Stigma' (DC Heath, 1987) is especially useful.

Mr Martel and Mr Biller asked several hundred university students to rate the qualities of men of varying heights, on 17 different criteria. Both men and women, whether short or tall, thought that short men - heights between 5’2” and 5’5” - were less mature, less positive, less secure, less masculine; less successful, less capable, less confident, less outgoing; more inhibited, more timid, more passive; and so on. Other studies confirm that short men are judged, and even judge themselves, negatively. Several surveys have found that short men feel less comfortable in social settings and are less happy with their bodies. Dustin Hoffman, that 5’6” actor, is said to have spent years in therapy over his small stature.

The western ideal for men appears to be about 6’2” (and is slowly rising, as average heights increase). Above that height, the advantages of extra inches peter out, though very tall men do not, apart from hitting their heads, suffer significant disadvantages. And medium-sized men do fine (though they typically will say they would like to be taller, just as women always want to be thinner). The men who suffer are those who are noticeably short: say, 5’5” and below. In a man's world, they do not impress. Indeed, the connection between height and status is embedded in the very language. Respected men have 'stature' and are 'looked up to': quite literally, as it turns out.
One of the most elegant height experiments was reported in 1968 by an Australian psychologist, Paul Wilson. He introduced the same unfamiliar man to five groups of students, varying only the status attributed to the stranger. In one class, the newcomer was said to be a student, in another a lecturer, right up to being a professor from Cambridge University. Once the visitor had left the room, each group was asked to estimate the man's height, along with that of the instructor. The results are plotted in the chart above. Not only was the 'professor' thought to be more than two inches taller than the 'student'; the height estimates rose in proportion to his perceived status.

It is little wonder, then, that when people meet a famous man they so often say, 'I expected him to be taller.' If you still doubt that height matters, look around. At the palace of William III at Hampton Court, London, you will see door knockers above eye level: the better to make callers on the king (who was, in fact, decidedly short) feel, literally, lowly. Or sit across from your boss in his office, and see who has the higher chair.

Now the worse news
Perhaps heightism is just a western cultural prejudice? Sadly not. In Chinese surveys, young women always rate stature high among qualifications for a future mate. Indeed, the prejudice appears to be universal.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Thomas Gregor, an anthropologist at America's Vanderbilt University, lived among the Mehinaku, a tropical forest people of central Brazil who were amazed by such new-fangled gadgets as spectacles. Among the Mehinaku, attractive men should be tall: they are respectfully called wekepei. Woe unto the peritsi, as very short men are derisively called (it rhymes with itsi, the word for penis). Where a tall man is kaukapapai, worthy of respect, the short one is merely laughable. His lack of stature is a moral as well as physical failing, for it is presumed to result from sexual looseness during adolescence.

'No one wants a peritsi for a son-in-law,' Mr Gregor writes. By many measures - wealth, chieftainship, frequency of participation in rituals - tall men dominate in tribal life. They hog the reproductive opportunities, too. Mr Gregor looked at the number of girlfriends of Mehinaku men of varying heights. He found a pattern: the taller the man, the more girlfriends he had. As he explained, 'the three tallest men had as many affairs as the seven shortest men, even though their average estimated ages were identical.'

He went on to note that the Trobriand Islanders of the Pacific, the Timbira of Brazil, and the Navajo of America were among the many other traditional cultures that also prize male height. 'In no case have I found a preference for short men,' he said. Among anthropologists, it is a truism that in traditional societies the 'big man' actually is big, not just socially but physically.

It is not hard to guess why human beings tend instinctively to defer to 'height. Humans evolved in an environment where size and strength - and good health, to which they are closely related - mattered, especially for men. Indeed, they still matter, albeit less than they did. Other things being equal, large males are more to be feared and longer-living; an impulse to defer to them, or to prefer them as mates, thus makes good evolutionary sense. Perhaps the impulse is softened in a modern industrial society. But how much? Consider six aspects of a supposedly advanced culture.

Politics
In all but three American presidential elections this century, the taller man has won. By itself this might be a coincidence. And of course some short politicians thrive (examples include France's Francois Mitterrand and Britain's Harold Wilson). But the pattern is still clear, and is also found in:

Business. A survey in 1980 found that more than half the chief executives of America's Fortune 500 companies stood six feet tall or more. As a class, these wekepei were a good 2 inches taller than average; only 3% were peritsi, 5’7” or less. Other surveys suggest that about 90% of chief executives are of above-average height.

Similarly for:

Professional status. Looking at several professions, one study found that people in high-ranking jobs 'were about two inches taller than those down below, a pattern that held even when comparing men of like educational and socioeconomic status. Senior civil servants in Britain, for instance, tend to be taller than junior ones. Shorter people also have worse:

Jobs. Give job recruiters two invented resumes that have been carefully matched except for the candidates' height, as one study did in 1969. Fully 72% of the time, the taller man is 'hired'. And when they are hired, they tend also to earn rather more:
Money. In 1994 James Sargent and David Blanchflower, of America's Dartmouth College, analysed a sample of about 6,000 male Britons whose progress was monitored from birth to early adulthood. Short teenaged boys made less money when they became young adults (aged 23) than their taller peers - even after other attributes, such as scores on ability tests or parents' social status, were factored out. For every four inches of height in adolescence, earnings went up more than 2% in early adulthood. Another survey, of graduates of the University of Pittsburgh, found that those who were 6’2” or taller received starting salaries 12% higher than those under six feet.

Not only do tall people grow richer, rich people grow taller. They enjoy well-nourished childhoods and better health. The stature-success nexus further bolsters the social preference for height. And that preference is expressed in a coin that is even more precious than money, namely:

Sex. Mating opportunities are, at least in evolutionary terms, the ultimate prize of status. And here is the final humiliation for short men. When 100 women were asked to evaluate photographs of men whom they believed to be either tall, average or short, all of them found the tall and medium specimens 'significantly more attractive' than the short ones. In another study, only two of 79 women said they would go on a date with a man shorter than themselves (the rest, on average, wanted to date a man at least 1.7 inches taller). 'The universally acknowledged cardinal rule of dating and mate selection is that the male will be significantly taller than his female partner,' write Mr Martel and Mr Biller. 'This rule is almost inviolable.' For short men, the sexual pickings are therefore likely to be slim.

So why don't you care?
Is there, then, no good news for short men? No: there is none. And if, having read this far, you do not believe that height discrimination is serious, you are no doubt a tall person in the late stages of denial. Or, perhaps, you cringe at the thought of yet another victim group lining up to demand redress. Surely the notion of SHRIMPs (Severely Height-Restricted Individuals of the Male Persuasion) as an oppressed social group is silly, and the idea of special protections or compensatory benefits for short men preposterous? Actually, no - unless all such group benefits are equally dubious.

In general, the kinds of discrimination worth worrying about should have two characteristics. First, bias must be pervasive and systematic. Random discrimination is mere diversity of preference, and comes out in the wash. But if a large majority of employers prefers whites, for instance, then non-whites' options in life are sharply limited. And second, bias must be irrational: unrelated to the task at hand. If university mathematics faculties discriminate against the stupid, that may not seem fair (not everyone can master set theory); but it is sensible.

In politically correct terms, people who share an unusual characteristic that( triggers pervasive and irrational aversion have a strong claim to be viewed as a vulnerable minority group. Is the discrimination against SHRIMPs, then, pervasive? Plainly so. Is it irrational? Except in a few rare cases in which height might affect job performance, obviously. Is it hurtful? Just ask any of the parents who clamour to put their little boys on growth hormones. Will it disappear of its own accord, as people become more enlightened? Be serious. Try to imagine that a century hence, when genetic engineering allows designer children, parents will queue up for shorter boys.
In some respects, indeed, SHRIMPs have it worse than members of ethnic minorities. Jews, Asians and other ethnics often favour each other for jobs, marriages and the rest. If they are disadvantaged within the majority culture, they may at least be advantaged in their own. But short men are disfavoured by more or less everybody, including other short men. If they want to flee, they need to find another planet.
Yet - no country seems to have any anti-discrimination protections for SHRIMPs. America now has laws that ban discrimination against 70% or more of its population, including women, the elderly, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Pacific islanders, Aleuts, Indians, and' the handicapped - extending to people with back problems or glasses. Britain bans discrimination against women and nearly every ethnic or cultural group, Rastafarians excepted. But SHRIMPs? The whole issue, if it ever arises at all, is simply laughed off.

What accounts for this peculiarity? America's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which oversees the anti-discrimination laws, now boasts a man who has given the subject some thought. He is Paul Steven Miller, who is 4’5” tall. To be exact, he is an achondroplastic dwarf. Medically speaking, a dwarf has a recognisable genetic condition marked by short limbs, average-sized trunk, moderately enlarged head, and so on. This is regarded as a disability in America, and is legally protected against discrimination.

Mr Miller favours protections for such little people. But he opposes extending protections to the 'normally' short - men like America's labour secretary, Robert Reich, who is 4’10” and hears no end of it. (Bill Clinton, looking at a model of the White House made from Lego, commented: 'Secretary Reich could almost live in there.') Why protect Mr Miller but not Mr Reich? Because, Mr Miller says, one cannot protect everybody. 'It would be totally unwieldy to let everybody in.' Quite true. But convenient, too, to draw the line so as to include him but exclude a raft of other claimants. Convenience is not a principled reason for leaving short men to suffer their fates.

Indeed, it is hard to find any principled reason. Most of the obvious excuses for excluding SHRIMPs from the list of disadvantaged groups do little but show how arbitrary is the concept of any 'group'. For example, one might argue that there is no obvious line that demarcates a man short enough to be a SHRIMP. True enough; but in a world where blood mixes freely, there is equally no clear way to distinguish, for instance, a 'Hispanic' from an 'Anglo', or an American Indian from a 'white' man.

Perhaps a 'minority group', then, must be an ethnic or hereditary grouping? Plainly not. If women, homosexuals and people in wheelchairs may be minority groups, then surely short men can qualify. American Hispanics have nothing in common except the 'Hispanic' label itself (they are mostly identified solely by their names). At least SHRIMPs are all detectably short.

In the West, the past quarter-century has been an era of awakening group consciousness. Blacks and women, Asians and indigenous peoples, homosexuals and the disabled - one by one, all have come to embrace group-based identities and protections. The obese are now reaching for group status; and, in truth, they too have a case. So why not short men? Logically, there seems no way out.
Wee men of the world, unite!

Accordingly, The Economist demands that the European Convention on Human Rights grant SHRIMPs the protections that other disadvantaged minorities have already won. The United Nations should hold global conferences on the status of SHRIMPs. American federal contractors should be checked for height, to see that SHRIMPs get their fair share. Employers should bend over backwards to recruit and promote SHRIMPs, and should be fined for allowing workers to disparage them. Elite universities should make sure that they include sufficient numbers of SHRIMPs among their students and faculties. Not least, newspapers that snidely refer to short men as 'SHRIMPs' should be subjected to long lawsuits, and the authors concerned should be sent for sensitivity training (even if they are only 5’7”, and write anonymously).

Then again, perhaps not. Knowing that short young men earn less money than other young men is, certainly, interesting. Knowing that only 9% of American Hispanics, as against 24% of non-Hispanics, hold a university degree is also interesting. But what do such facts imply? One does well to remember that they are mere statistical compilations, averages that blur together individuals who have virtually nothing in common. A 'Hispanic', for instance, is a mere Spanish-sounding name masquerading as a human being. A SHRIMP, similarly, is no more than a mark on a tape measure.

To convert adjectives into pronouns - as in 'a SHRIMP', or 'a black' or 'an Asian' or 'a homosexual' - is to seize upon a single element of a person's make-up and cast into the background everything else. This kind of thinking may be useful as a tool of social analysis; as a basis for public policy, however, it is treacherous. For centuries, short men have shrugged their shoulders and carried on. They, at least, still see themselves, and are seen by others, as variegated individuals, not as a monotonal social group. That may be the best approach to all such human characteristics.

© 1995 The Economist Newspaper Limited.

Anytime yo.

Why is that Bill Clinton can say something like this and it comes off as being somewhat charming, but if George W. Bush made a comment like this, it would just come off as being mean?

I'm not trying to imply that Bush is judged unfairly because he is a mean asshole. There's something here very important that we can learn about the differences of style between these two men, but I can't put my finger on it.

"Average for a guy is like six one, right?"

Actually I knew a guy who gave himself the nickname "Stumby", because he said "I stumble a lot!" I told him he should then call himself "Stumbly" and he didn't really say much after that.

Because Bush is a smug piece of shit?

Not that Clinton isn't, really, but magnitudinally Bush wins by a billion light years.

The really annoyingly positive girl finished up last week and they put me and the midge in another, much smaller room together, by ourselves.

THE DESKS HAVE BEEN ARRANGED SO THAT I AM SITTING WITH MY BACK TO HIM AND HE CAN SPEND ALL DAY STARING AT THE BACK OF MY HEAD, I CAN FEEL HIS EYES LOOKING AT ME NOW

HIM: Hey did you just go into Moviechat?
GEAR: Zuh?
HIM: Someone named (^#%$^%#) just came into the room.
GEAR: Can't say I did.
HIM: You sure?
GEAR: (*&#^$&^#) isn't an uncommon name, really.
HIM: Oh. He just typed something that sounded like you as well.
GEAR: Really?
HIM: Yeah.
GEAR: What'd he say?
HIM: "Hey what's up?"
GEAR: ....
HIM: You always say that in the morning.
GEAR: I see what you're saying, but that wasn't me.
HIM: Oh okay.

GEAR: Hey I'm gonna turn this desk around.
HIM: Why?
GEAR: This setup is a little awkward.
HIM: Afraid I'll cheat?
GEAR: No I just have this thing about people sitting behind me like that in an office.
HIM: I was kidding about cheating.
GEAR: I figured.

Better yet, bring him home and introduce him around the apartment.

xpost: ugh!

(fabricated three minute conversation with no one re:
best Mexican places in L.A. follows)

I guess maybe I should go back,too - clear headed and ready to be impressed.

Right?

12:37 pm, PT

MIDGE: Still looking for a place?

ME: Yep, moving to Los Feliz.

MIDGE: There's a place opening up in my building.

ME: You live in Hollywood, though.

MIDGE: Dude, 900 a month, huge apartment, carpets, everything.

ME: Yeah, but I want to live in Los Feliz and I'd prefer hardwood floors.

MIDGE: Let me tell you something. I've stayed up late on a Wednesday night blasting my Attack of the Clones DVD and no one's ever complained.

ME: No shit.

MIDGE: It's a total bachelor pad.

ME: Yeah, but I'm really set on Los Feliz.

MIDGE: I can put in a good word for you.

ME: No thanks, I'm heading to Los Feliz.

MIDGE: Sure about that? There's so much more to do in Hollywood.

ME: Pretty sure.

MIDGE: If you change your mind, (gives me thumbs up, affects terrible Sean Connery accent for some reason?!) juscht let me know! Hahaha!

Also, pls post your work number and next time you are experiencing awful conversations with midge one of us will phone you with some important business queries.

I just wandered into the lobby and this man...

http://photos.friendster.com/photos/90/38/6718309/5520512964144l.jpg

...is William Shatner!

Also is your roommate your friendster, Gear?

(Why can't I see the pics?)

so then he hangs up.

MIDGE: Now that's what I call networking!

ME: Why?

MIDGE: Moved my way up the T-Mobile ladder.

ME: What were you calling them about?

MIDGE: To pay a bill. Oh shit. Haha, I forgot to take care of it.

ME: ....