tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43100658563228167762024-01-25T05:37:38.387-08:00Common Ground Common Ground: Commentary from the far side of ChicagoGary M. Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380617782801372424noreply@blogger.comBlogger247125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4310065856322816776.post-91960922440135797122020-03-03T18:25:00.000-08:002020-03-03T18:25:33.410-08:00Episode One: Star Wars, Movie Violence, and my Dad
Image with words "Final Trailer" and image from 'The Rise of Skywalker
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Gary M. Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380617782801372424noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4310065856322816776.post-10694176318766933322018-11-08T20:59:00.000-08:002018-11-09T07:02:02.653-08:00The vegetarian special Years ago, while biking home, I stopped at a Burger King. The marquee outside the fast-food restaurant advertised $1 Whoopers. At the cash register, I bought three and stuffed them into my backpack. Turning toward the exit, I came face to face with two close friends. One of them was vegan, and a vigilant animal-rights activist. The Gary M. Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380617782801372424noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4310065856322816776.post-57202666434405617052017-10-22T18:33:00.004-07:002017-10-22T18:34:01.399-07:00Trump, disabilty steretypes and suburban traffic <!--[if gte mso 9]>
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Gary M. Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380617782801372424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4310065856322816776.post-67760563270000762152017-10-01T18:57:00.000-07:002017-10-01T18:57:26.953-07:00What would Bill do?<!--[if gte mso 9]>
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Gary M. Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380617782801372424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4310065856322816776.post-61689915256868897412017-02-13T19:35:00.000-08:002017-02-13T19:35:17.870-08:00Why the encore in Happy Valley? <!--[if gte mso 9]>
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Gary M. Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380617782801372424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4310065856322816776.post-27118862367852277502017-01-03T14:03:00.000-08:002017-01-03T14:03:28.490-08:00Intruder's defense reflects objectification of little people Every day, google news sends me a report with news stories that include the word dwarf and stories that include the word midget. For a week or two during December of 2016, the same story popped up multiple times on my daily google alerts for the word midget. The story was of a man who broke into the apartment of a couple with a two-year old girl. In the middle of the night, the Gary M. Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380617782801372424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4310065856322816776.post-6417337051423209062016-12-21T20:17:00.002-08:002016-12-22T15:21:52.892-08:00Phobalicious
Though the essay below is posted on a blog, the events are not true. The story below is fictitious. The story is based on events in my life.
gary arnold
Phobalicious
It is official. I make people
uncomfortable. I wish it was because of
my political beliefs or my righteous work.
But it’s not.
The first clue to that discomfort
came during a visit to the Gary M. Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380617782801372424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4310065856322816776.post-73687851967808951462016-10-22T08:14:00.001-07:002016-10-22T08:14:42.048-07:00Land of Liberty
The group from the United States at the
International Dwarfism Summit in Berlin
On October 14, my wife and I arrived in Berlin for the first-ever International Dwarfism Summit. At the airport, after we picked our luggage from baggage, I took my place in line at a currency window to buy $50 worth of Euros. As I waited, a man talking on a cell phone cut in front of me. Gary M. Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380617782801372424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4310065856322816776.post-29947303949447833782015-11-14T18:06:00.001-08:002015-11-14T18:06:22.407-08:00A Presidential Biography and the MWord A few weeks ago, reviews and coverage of President George HW Bush's biography, Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush, began to appear in the news. The initial coverage focused on Bush's trash talking, speaking ill about people from the time of his presidency and his son's presidency. I paid the most attention to what he said of his 1988 Gary M. Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380617782801372424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4310065856322816776.post-20421733078706031232015-10-23T15:08:00.000-07:002015-10-23T15:08:52.098-07:00Baseball Dreams: Dwarf or average stature, everyone strikes out
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<![endif]-->October is Dwarfism Awareness Month. In addition to the
specifics that distinguish people with dwarfism from others, awareness can be
raised by drawing attention to the common bonds Gary M. Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380617782801372424noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4310065856322816776.post-18054121838709678792015-10-17T10:59:00.000-07:002015-10-17T10:59:36.458-07:00Freakishly Human
Ben and gary in theater lobby after the Sideshow Performance
Yesterday, I watched my friend Ben perform in the musical Sideshow, staged by Porchlight Music Theater. It sounds sketchy and possibly exploitative for a little person to play the role of a dwarf character working for a Freak show, but Sideshow, like other more recent productions that highlight circuses and performers putGary M. Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380617782801372424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4310065856322816776.post-42035228250739340572015-09-21T20:19:00.000-07:002015-09-21T20:27:56.677-07:00Petite Randy Moss stirs up memories of heightism in popular culture I watch plenty of sports on television. Anyone who watches sports for any length of time is probably familiar with the DirectTV commercials that pitch subscription packages. I've seen plenty of them. My favorite of the commercials is Creepy Rob Lowe hanging out at the local rec center, sitting on the pool deck, watching swimmers with a pair of binoculars.
The premise of the DirectTV Gary M. Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380617782801372424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4310065856322816776.post-52379769408579120872015-09-07T16:45:00.000-07:002015-09-07T16:45:33.334-07:00Factor This I've never voted for a Republican. Politically, I identify as progressive. Yet, I've been watching more Fox News lately. It started around the 2012 Presidential Election. As media coverage on Election Night pointed toward reelection for President Obama, my wife and I turned the television channel to Fox News. We were curious how a network that clearly railed against an Gary M. Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380617782801372424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4310065856322816776.post-83494186474514970812015-08-30T17:42:00.000-07:002015-08-30T17:42:46.411-07:00Live and learnFor quite some time, I often reminded myself and I told others that my level of maturity had little impact on the way people treated me. Whether I was 20 years old, 30 years old or 40 years old, many small children will gape at me because of my appearance, and many adults will take my picture without asking. It doesn't matter how old I get, the behavior of others toward me won't change. When I amGary M. Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380617782801372424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4310065856322816776.post-75037194446162689642015-08-23T18:15:00.000-07:002015-08-23T18:15:39.684-07:00From midget to little person and beyond
Who knows how old I was when I first heard the story about Eddie Gaedel, a little person hired by Bill Veeck, the owner of the St. Louis Browns Baseball Team. In 1951, according to what I have read, the Browns were one of the worst teams in the history of baseball. As a publicity stunt, Veeck signed Gaedel to a contract with the St. Louis Browns. First, Veeck had Gaedel jump out of a Gary M. Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380617782801372424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4310065856322816776.post-12172078376281224792015-08-16T11:28:00.000-07:002015-08-16T11:30:34.062-07:00Charles Schultz, Peanuts and dwarfism Several years ago, in a conversation I was part of, someone mentioned that the appearance of the human characters in the famous Peanuts comic strip was based upon the appearance of people with dwarfism. Even though Peanuts is a very famous and beloved comic, I wasn't thrilled to hear this. It's similar to how I feel when adults refer to their children as munchkins. Both are Gary M. Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380617782801372424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4310065856322816776.post-44345040757392857332015-06-28T15:25:00.000-07:002015-06-28T17:29:13.467-07:00Nice CarWith less than a week before the National Little People of America Conference, this year in St. Louis, Missouri, and behind at the nine to five job, I went in to the office yesterday, which was a Saturday. I was there for about four hours, from noon to four o'clock. Yesterday was a beautiful day in Chicago, sunny and not too warm. The Access Living office, where I work, is in River North, aGary M. Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380617782801372424noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4310065856322816776.post-78915278641003838922015-05-10T09:04:00.002-07:002015-05-10T09:12:23.600-07:00When is a fare not really fair? A late night cab ride
David Tuffs (photo from DNAinfo/Alisa Hauser)
In April of this year, the Chicago media outlet DNAInfo reported that David Tuffs had won the "2014 Taxicab Driver Excellence Award" and a free taxi medallion. The award was presented by Chicago's Business Affairs and Consumer Protection Agency. The award is presented annually to a driver of a wheel chair accessible taxi. Less than Gary M. Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380617782801372424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4310065856322816776.post-50662696530281398272015-04-27T13:40:00.002-07:002015-04-27T13:44:15.568-07:00A Small Medium, at largeYesterday, Sunday, April 26, I was in the Phoenix airport, checking the Southwest Airlines Departures Board. A woman walked up to me. She was middle-aged, probably five to ten years older than me. She started to talk to me. I don't remember exactly what she said. It was something like, "There is a midget....little person in Phoenix. He is a psychic." Though she seemed to correct herself Gary M. Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380617782801372424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4310065856322816776.post-84985758735001921332015-04-12T12:22:00.002-07:002015-04-12T12:22:12.152-07:00Rough Night in River NorthYears ago, while working the Sunday Shift by myself at Arrow Messenger Service, I sat reading an article from Cosmopolitan Magazine. The article's message said that if you are single, you need to spend every moment you can cultivating opportunities for relationships. That meant, no Friday or Saturday nights alone in front of the television. I often thought of the article, and often Gary M. Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380617782801372424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4310065856322816776.post-64936934205096967442015-04-05T14:32:00.000-07:002015-04-05T14:33:35.988-07:00Message Evolution Tiffanie DiDonato is in the news again. Back in 2008, she made headlines for her decision to undergo limb lengthening surgery. News coverage of her experience frustrated me. Headlines such as "Little Person No More," sent an inaccurate message. Whoever elects to have the surgery, and whoever undergoes the procedure, is still a dwarf at the end of the procedure. For the Gary M. Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380617782801372424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4310065856322816776.post-39413937990335143192015-03-29T13:02:00.000-07:002015-03-29T13:02:44.833-07:00Imaginary Lines
Some people will tell you that they always have music playing in the background. Whether they are commuting to work with an ipod and headphones or doing things around the house with a CD playing, they will always be listening to music. Some people tell you that as they get ready to leave their home in the morning, and when they return later in the day, they will always have the radioGary M. Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380617782801372424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4310065856322816776.post-53723768237629029472015-03-14T14:25:00.001-07:002015-03-14T14:37:31.619-07:00No luck and no holiday spirit Today is Saturday, March 14. Officially, St. Patrick's Day is not until Tuesday, but Chicago is celebrating today. This morning thousands lined the river along Wacker Drive and Michigan Avenue for the moment when the City ceremonially dyes the Chicago River Green. At noon, the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade stepped off from Balbo and Columbus Drive. Following the parade, the Gary M. Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380617782801372424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4310065856322816776.post-12506745602903250222015-02-22T08:30:00.000-08:002015-02-22T08:35:51.470-08:00Reaction to Tom Shakespeare's article "It's time dwarfs stop demeaning themselves in public." Tom Shakespeare is a sociologist and disability rights advocate who is the co-author of The Sexual Politics of Disability and the author of Disability Rights and Wrongs. Early in February, The Telegraph published an article by Shakespeare titled "It's time dwarfs stop demeaning themselves in public."
In the article, Shakespeare argues that historically, roles in Gary M. Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380617782801372424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4310065856322816776.post-27520384289261763602014-12-29T19:10:00.000-08:002014-12-29T19:10:35.621-08:00People and the things that they doJohn Young is a friend of mine from Facebook. Over the Christmas Holiday, he visited his home town in Canada. While in Canada, he had to deal with people trying to take his picture at least twice. The incidents happened while he was out for a run. John's nephew suggested that he write about what happened, which he did. He submitted the story to local papers. I am notGary M. Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380617782801372424noreply@blogger.com0