The M-word revisited

New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt acknowledges that the word "midget" is offensive, and writes that the Times will no longer use it to describe people with dwarfism. Here's my earlier item.

The M-word makes an ugly appearance

It's hard to believe, after all these years, that the word "midget" would pop up in a front-page story in today's New York Times. David Segal writes:

After the Depression, Congress formed what became known as the Pecora Commission, which grilled top financiers. But the point was mostly to embarrass them, and the upshot was to set the stage for stricter regulations. The most indelible image of the commission's hearings was a photo of J. P. Morgan Jr. with a midget who had been plopped in his lap by an opportunistic publicist.

The American Heritage Dictionary makes it clear that the M-word is "offensive." In my book, "Little People," I trace the history of this unfortunate word, possibly coined in the 1860s by Harriet Beecher Stowe and inextricably tied up in the idea of putting someone on public display.

A little reality

In my latest for the Guardian, I take a close-up look at a story in the Washington Post Magazine about a teenage girl with dwarfism who underwent dangerous, painful surgery in order to become taller.

The Post story is an extraordinary achievement. At root, though, it stands as an argument that dwarfism is a difference that ought to be fixed. Our experience in raising a daughter with dwarfism tells us that's exactly the wrong approach.

"Little People" is back online

My 2003 book on dwarfism, "Little People," is back online, this time with its own domain. Thanks to Media Nation readers for finding me a free hosting service. I also took your advice by adding some meta tags and getting my name on the title bar. In a few weeks, I hope, it will at least show up on Google searches.

The vagaries of search

Yes, I'm looking for help from the brain trust again.

A year ago I published a free, online edition of my book on dwarfism, "Little People." Unfortunately, I've done it in a way that renders it nearly invisible to Google.

Here's how I handled it. I uploaded the book to a subset of my personal Web site. The top page for the book is home.comcast.net/~dkennedy56/littlepeople.html. Then I registered the domain name littlepeoplethebook.com and set it to forward to that page.

My other ventures are not exactly invisible to Google. But when I Google "Dan Kennedy" "Little People", a link to the book doesn't come up until the eighth page. And when I search for text inside the book, it doesn't come up at all.

Interestingly, "Little People" is better represented on Google by Cape Cod Today, whose publisher, Walter Brooks, was kind enough to serialize my book last fall.

Yes, I know I could get a hosted solution, but I'm not willing to spend any money. Would it help if I moved the book to a higher level? (Example: home.comcast.net/~littlepeople.) I could do that, but I don't want to bother unless it's really going to make a difference.

Or I could set it up as a Blogger or WordPress.com site.

Thoughts?

Disability and difference

I've got an essay (PDF) in the current issue of ArchitectureBoston on the uneasy confluence of dwarfism, disability and difference.

Why ArchitectureBoston? Because the editor, Elizabeth Padjen, asked me. And because the assignment gives me the opportunity to discuss dwarfism as a disability that is socially constructed: take away the fact that the built environment is made for people between five and six feet tall, and the disability goes with it.

Dwarfism as disability and difference is a major theme of my 2003 book on dwarfism, "Little People."

"Little People" is now online

Today I have an exciting announcement to make (exciting to me, anyway). The full text of "Little People," my 2003 book on the culture of dwarfism, is now online. You will find it here.

Why did I do this? About a year ago, my publisher, Rodale, took "Little People" off the market and sold its inventory to remainder houses. Despite a flurry of favorable reviews and national attention, sales had never really taken off. Given that the book is now officially out of print, the rights have reverted to me, and I decided to make it available for anyone who's interested.

You'll find everything online that's in the hardcover edition — even a Flickr slide show of photos from the book. (I did have to make some substitutions to deal with copyright issues. But the result, I think, is a better selection.) I've changed the subtitle; it's now "A Father Reflects on His Daughter's Dwarfism — and What It Means to Be Different," which is a mouthful, but which more accurately describes the contents. There's also a new, online-only introduction.

Finally, I've issued "Little People" under a Creative Commons license, which allows anyone to make copies or even adaptations, as long as it's for non-commercial use and (ahem) I get the credit.

I actually posted "Little People" over the summer, but, like Andy Card, I believe you shouldn't introduce new products in August, whether it's a war or an e-book. Now feels like the right time.

My hope is that some enterprising publisher will take new interest in "Little People" and contact me about bringing out a paperback edition. (E-mail me!) I also hope this helps me sell a few hardcover copies out of my basement. (New condition! Signed by the author!)

Even if that doesn't happen, though, this means that "Little People" is still in circulation. And, ultimately, that's what every author wants.

Down's, dwarfism and eugenics

I highly recommend Amy Harmon's story in today's New York Times on efforts by parents of kids with Down syndrome to educate medical professionals and expectant couples about the good lives many folks with Down's lead. With prenatal screening for Down's and other genetic conditions becoming more and more pervasive, activists are trying to get out the word that abortion should not be an automatic choice.

A major theme of my book on dwarfism, "Little People," is the degree to which our culture remains profoundly uncomfortable with difference — and what we would do about difference if we were offered the chance to eliminate it. Within the dwarf community, there's a sense that several of the most common types of dwarfism could be routinely screened for at some point in the not-too-distant future. If couples are told that their child, as an adult, would be four feet tall, with disproportionately short arms and legs, and would walk with a waddling gait, what would they choose to do?

In most cases dwarfism, which does not affect mental development, is not nearly as debilitating a genetic difference as Down syndrome. (Although, to be fair, Down's families assert that the condition is often not as serious as it's generally portrayed.) Yet plenty of people would choose abortion. More important, that attitude is more pervasive among medical professionals than among prospective parents.

One of the people I interviewed for "Little People" was the late Dorothy Wertz, a psychiatrist who was affiliated with the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center in Waltham. In the late 1990s, Wertz conducted a study of about 2,000 people — 1,000 genetics professionals, 500 primary-care physicians and 500 parents. Among her questions: If achondroplasia, the most common form of dwarfism, were detected in utero, would you opt for an abortion? Here are the results:

• Genetics professionals, 57 percent
• Primary-care physicians, 29 percent
• Patients, 24 percent

I'll bracket this with two more of Wertz's findings. For Down's, the breakdown was geneticists, 80 percent; physicians, 62 percent; and patients, 36 percent. For a genetic predisposition to severe obesity, it was geneticists, 29 percent; physicians, 13 percent; and patients, 8 percent. Thus, dwarfism was right in the middle. And the obesity finding, I think, is significant in that it reveals an underlying aversion to virtually any kind of difference. It's no wonder that activists often refer to genetic screening as "eugenics."

The problem, of course, is that when expectant parents receive a diagnosis of a genetic condition in utero, the first thing they are told to do is to schedule an appointment with a geneticist — a person who, statistically, at least, is far more inclined to think they should terminate the pregnancy than the parents themselves. The parents, of course, have a right to choose, but it should be an informed choice. And an informed choice involves knowing something about the real lives of people who have that genetic condition.

With dwarfism, at least, attitudes may have changed for the better in recent years thanks to the "normal" roles played by actors and actresses such as Peter Dinklage and Meredith Eaton, and, most notably, by the Roloff family, stars of the TLC reality series "Little People, Big World."

But the threat posed by a future of cheap, pervasive genetic screening, coupled with a social expectation that we're all entitled to the perfect child — whatever that might be — makes stories such as Harmon's, and the work of the parents she portrays, more important than ever.