Something quick to think about today. This is a response I have been getting since all the emails to the website email account are all the same. 95% of the time the people who message me are already in their 20s, and often in their late 20s with completely closed growth plates. They usually ask me for help to get them to grow 4-6 inches in height (or 10-15 cms in metric units) and I can’t really tell them anything that would be reasonably helpful.

I suggest to them to go to the supplement section to look at the Hyaluronic Acid, Astragalus, and the Glucosamine Sulfate and I never hear back from these people.

Maybe I am just getting very frustrated at the people who are already past the age which our research right now can help.

I know from the research, as well as people like Hakker and Tyler that the people who are young enough with open growth plates are sooooooo much easier to help in getting extra growth and height. However these people rarely ever message me. They are the ones I can seriously help at this time but the people who want to talk to me are late or too late for really good help.

So “Why do we wait so late or most often too late to get help for our growth and height problems?” When we were in our teens, around 15-17 and noticed that we were starting to become shorter than our peers and classmates in school, weren’t we concerned about how we would look and possibly end up. Why weren’t people actively trying to do something back then in their younger years, when they had a far, FAR better chance of getting help and really functional methods for height increase and to grow taller but chose to wait a little to long until it was too late?

Maybe it is just the way humans behave. We often don’t take the initiative to take action to make an improvement on ourselves or our lives until life forces us to, or our suffering and pain becomes too unbearable. People don’t seem to be very proactive when it comes to the stature growth endeavor. Why does every single pubescent girl or boy not worry about their height and growth thinking that they would be the one of the special ones or unique cases, like Dennis Rodman or Anthony Davis, and will magically go through the growth spurt that they were sure and completely expect for themselves later in their puberty years. Why don’t they take some action earlier and fix the problem since it is very well known that a person can eliminate a problem when the problem is at its infancy.

Just like the medical condition of cancer, it is easiest to treat when it is small which might involve some simple, easy, painless procedure. When it starts to grow and spread, the problem gets exponentially worse and worse until it reaches a critical point where no modern medical technology can help them.

When I put up the two posts that signal that I am about to write two possible books sometime in the future about how to assist people to grow taller, only 1 person signed up to buy the book for open plates, while many signed up to buy the book for closed plates. The truth is that I might never even get a chance to finish the book for closed plates. It is really that hard. There is nothing completely viable or truly functional at this point.

Maybe this post was sort of way to get a frustration off of my chest in the form of a rant but I just have to say it. I really wish that people would come to me earlier or sooner with their problems instead of later. The older a person gets, the harder it will be for them to change, but especially in the endeavor of height increase.

While I was going through the news websites today I came across on the hugely popular news site Reddit a link to The Big Bang Theory actress Melissa Rauch who plays the petite microbiologist Ph. D Bernadette in the show HERE. It seems that Melissa went on the Conan O’Brien show and started to get into the subject of being afraid of Short Men and teenage middle school aged girls.

She would go on for quite a while talking about her fear of “short guys” and sound condescending to something which guys can’t really do much about, unlike the analogues weight problem found in females.

The height of Melissa Rauch listed on the website HeightCeleb.info has her at 5′ 0″ but most other sources has her height actually at 4′ 11″. There is people saying that she stated on the Craig Furgeson show on February 15, 2011  that she was “below 5′ 0″” . CelebHeights.com lists her at 4′ 11″. So I would settle on her height of being 4′ 11″ although her hairstyle makes the top of her head higher than it might be in reality. It could be that Melissa Rauch has a real height lower than 4′ 11″ but closer to 4′ 10″.

Her husband which I couldn’t find the name for looks to be around 6’3″-6’4″.

So she says “we have these groups of short guys in our block…they are these single men…”.

Personal Psychological Assessment:

It is very clear that while she might be just trying to be funny, she is being extremely insensitive about this issue and I think she knows that it is a very sensitive issue. Her mocking tone to say that the group of short statured men are all single suggest that she thinks that short men should never even get a girlfriend or have any chance of mating. It shows just how extremely insecure she is about her own height, which is understandable since she can’t even break the 5′ 0″ mark. If she is 4′ 10″ which I believe might be true, then she would be labeled under technical definition to be a “dwarf” since that is the cut-off point defined by some medical professionals.

I can only kind of understand the way she thinks and the way she views the world as a person who is so low on the bell curve of height distributions in a society. If she was native Vietnamese or Filipino female, she would be not that short in comparison to others in the native country, but as a Caucasian females, she is definitely at the bottom.

I can’t imagine how difficult it might have been to grow up to be that much shorter, and be bullied and make fun of something she will never be able to do anything about. If she was tall and fat, she can join a gym and fix the problem in less than 1 month. If she has a unattractive face, she can go to Seoul and get some face work done. But the fact that she is so much shorter than other people means that there is nothing she can do anything about. I applaud her for her being lucky enough to be in a hit television show and I am sure she is paid very well for each episode, probably around $500,000-$1,000,000 per episode. Maybe she is trying too hard to use humor to mask the amount of unconscious anxiety and insecurities inside of her mind over this fact. The money, fame, and success obviously helps her cope. Just imagine what it would be like if she was not just small, but another one of those out-of-work, broke, half employed actresses that are all struggling to make it in the cut-throat world of Hollywood. However that money won’t change the form and shape of her body.

So what is the next best thing? Hope to make her offspring and children taller, by paying the genetic lottery and improving her odds by finding the tallest guy who exhibit gentle-giant characteristics, is dependable, unlikely to cheat and stray in 20 years (after the words “cute” , “perky”, and such can no longer be used to describe her since she is past the age of possible to be called “cute”), and has a mellow easy going personality. Those type of guys with the height genes are the “type” that girls who have insecurities go for en masse. I’ve seen it in multiple cases with my own eyes with petite southeastern asian females who swarm tall “white” guys like ants towards a chocolate bar in the summer heat.

Then she says “13 year old girls, I am so petrified of them….” …and “so when I see a group of 13 year old girls, I so badly want to be included by them…”

Personal Psychological Assessment:

Why would a girl around 30 years old with so much more experience, money, and success be afraid of 13 year old girls? Let’s look at it from the size perspective. Could it be that most 13 year old girls on average are already at her height or slightly taller, and are still growing? Maybe how tall 13 year old girls are compared to her petite frame makes her realize just how small she is and it is extremely difficult for her unconscious to accept. She looks at her world, her husband, and her world and realize that maybe one day many years in the future, one of these 13 year old girls will grow to become much taller than her, be younger than her, and start laughing and taunting her at how small she is. By that time she would still be at the same height, while everyone else, but especially the young girls have all become taller than her. Of course she would be older then, and the taunting, laughs, and discrimination will start all over again since she will be both small and old and start loosing her looks, just like in Middle School bullying.

Being small but young means you still can be called “cute” or “spunky”. Being small and old means no one will even notice you anymore or just call you “funny” or “to try hard”. Will her tall husband one day stop looking at her and go for someone taller after say 10 years of blissful marriage? Maybe, since men care so much about physical attractiveness.

All I am trying to say that her fear in 13 year old girls are valid, and I think I can explain why she has that fear. She feels the competition slowly approaching, and the sight of girls who are still in middle school and already taller than her makes her feel threatened.

It is socially acceptable for her tall husband may be able to defend her from any type of come-ons by “short guys” but when it comes to the younger, taller middle school girls, her tall husband has his arms bind due to social rules. He can’t use his size to restrain 13 year old girls, or he would be thrown in jail for being accused to be a sex offender or something.

With 13 year old girls, Melissa has to defend herself agains the taller, younger girls with no chance of getting help form her above average in size husband. His job is to hold back the men, not the young girls. How does it feel to go against in any type of conflict against a younger, taller, opponent who know all of your tactics, tricks, and methods since they are so much like you in so many ways and plays the game in the same way? A scary thought.

In addition, due to how the rules of society works, Melissa can belittle “short” grown adult men without fear of reprisal since if any short adult came after her in revenge for her demeaning joke, he would be labeled the bad guy, be made fun of even more, call he another “angry short spiteful guy” and everyone will side with her and say she is the victim.

If a 13 year old girl went after her for her jokes , it would be much more socially acceptable, and people will side with the younger girls.

So the point it, if there was any type of verbal conflict, she can’t win against the 13 year old girls, but she will always win against the short adult men. This is the way society’s rules are constructed and she knows well her weaknesses and which demographics she does not want to contend with since she will surely loss.

On a side note, there are more thoughts made by others on her psychological intentions…

One commenter states this rather revealing fact which few heterosexual females would ever be willing to admit in public due to fear of social reprisal...”It’s true – short girls want a tall guy to compensate for their lack of height.”

Another commenter may have hit her psychology on why she is afraid of teenager middle school aged girls much better than I would ever be able to do…

“I imagine a tall guy would be startled by a tall woman too. Imagine being the biggest in your class ever since you remember. It made you feel pretty good and you never took advantage of your height in a malicious manner and it has earned you some friends.

All of a sudden you see a girl who is around your height. I imagine it would throw you off for second or so. That’s what I think of with this interview. She’s terrified because her tiny size makes her feel a lot more vulnerable than most. So, that’s why she got a taller guy. She may never have any confrontations, and having a taller guy makes her at least feel safer in that regard.

Besides I think she’s the first ever person to be scared of us shorties. Who has ever said that?”

When I was looking through the posts on the old, now dead Spanish language based height increase seeking blog Zar De la Estatura I found that there was a mention of a website or online business.company named ORTOPEDI which offered a type of grow taller and height increase program

From the front page of the ORTOPEDI webpage….

ORTOPEDI. A Combination of tradition & science whether you we in the business, art, science, modelling life will, life will effortlessy require you to be at your best apperance.

ORTOPEDI has been helping people of any age increasing their body height since 1970. It is a proven traditional and scientific method that does not require the students to consume any pills, drugs or any chemicals. It does not require the students to be in constant communication with the school, giving the students complete freedom to follow the instructions at their own free time and schedule. And we will provide guidance (letter correspondence, emails, phone calls) whenever the students have any questions.

Change your look & apperance for optimum performance.
Become your most desired self

So what does it say for the science about why this program would even work? from the Science behind ORTOPEDI section…

ORTOPEDI is the breakthrough result of centuries of research in scientific fields that involved human body. We have delved into hundreds of published studies from psychiatrists, practitioners, doctors, researchers, chemist, nutrientist, psychologists, educators, therapists, physicians, sports trainers, counselors, neurofeedback, and clinicians worldwide. From here, we have gained information/access to the most secret and natural way of body growth.

Human skeleton will usually stop growing once a person reach the age of 18 (eighteen). Although there are people few individual who still grows after they pass the age of 18 years, this cases are very exceptional. The cause of these few exceptional cases is due to excessive production of growth hormone. If a person consumed too much growth hormone during his/her growth, he/she will have an excessive growth, or in many cases called gigantism.

If your body has reached its maturity, and you bones have stopped growing, there are two things that you have to do to increase your body height, especially if you are a mature adult. Those two things are:

• By straightening the body’s skeleton to make the body taller, and
• Increasing the body’s height by focusing on the growth of certain parts of the skeleton. These certain parts are still in the specially designed, not hard bones. By following ORTOPEDI written course thoroughly, these parts of the skeleton are encouraged and stimulated to grow, therefore resulting in increase of the body’s height.

When a person is standing tall, the backbone of that person must be straight from the neck to the tailbone (when viewed from behind and the side). Many people do not obtain their maximum body height. Their backbones are not completely straight. When they are standing, their body looked bowed. And when examined carefully, this bending is most noticeable in the upper spinal area. The bend in this area is too curvy, and often the backbone continues to bend that the spine is not straight anymore. All this is caused by performing wrong body postures, that has become a habit done since childhood e.g. bending and tilting when sitting; bending one of the knees, when standing up, this causes most of the weight to be shifted to only one of the leg. Bending the knee causes the pelvic bone to rotate, which in turns caused the backbone to bend to one side. These are why many bodies tend to lean to the side, front or back.

All the physical abnormalities that we mentioned above, will not only result in unattractive physical appearances, but they also have bad effects on the health of the persons, because their breathing and other channels (including the thoracic cavity) in their chest are being physically disturbed. This result in the oppression of the heart, lungs and bowels, which in turns cause the person to be tired and experience breathlessness much more easily.

Many people think these abnormal body postures are natural and cannot be fixed anymore. But to everybody’s delight, we are informing you that ORTOPEDI written course can help fix the misshapenness of the body posture by straightening the skeleton / spine of the individuals. ORTOPEDI will not will not only increase the height of the body, but it will also improve the physical and hopefully, emotional health of a person, as all the vital organs of the body will be able to function well. The muscles will be stronger, and able to hold the bones in their proper, straight positions.

Among the results of joining the ORTOPEDI written course, are:

1. The increase in thickness of cartilage disks of the backbone, which leads to the increase of body height. *If thickness in each of the 12 cartilage disks in the backbone increases by 1 cm, it means that there will be a significant increase of 12 centimeters in the height of the body
2. Improvement of the health of the body, because as we go along with our activities, shocks from the movements that may cause scratching of the spinal cord & nerves will not happen again.

Remember, even though the human skeleton`s growth usually stop at the age of 18 or 19 years, the Epiphyseal lines can still be stimulated to grow. This means increasing the length of the Shinbones and increasing the height of the body.

ORTOPEDI written course will explain, teach, and guide you in great detail. We will explain to you how growth hormone is produced, how we can produce them, how our bones can grow and how to make them grow; we’ll teach and guide you through the course on what to do and what to consume and again explain how all these things plays a part in reaching your ultimate goal: HEIGHT INCREASE.

Now, we have explained to you in general the possibility and rationality of being able to increase your body height and at the same time improving the health of the body. All this are possible by just following all of the ORTOPEDI instructions in good faith, having confidence, concentration, discipline, and strong determination!

ORTOPEDI written course had been proven for over 35 years. Within 3 months after they joined the course, they have succeeded in gaining increase of more than 10 centimeters (about 4 inches), helping them to reach their desired body height and improve their height.

Analysis & Interpretation:

The first thing I always want to see is just how long the website has been around. A quick look at the bottom of the home webpage shows that the website has been around since 1998, almost 15 years ago. That is a very, VERY long time in terms of internet age. There is the claim made by many areas of the website that the program in the form of a written course has been taught and offered for almost 35 years. The last part of the science section claims that after a person joined the course, they grew by almost 4 inches in 3 months. Really?

The science sort of makes some sense for a person who has not done the level of research a height increase researcher like me or Tyler would have and some people would want to try out the program. The page is well written and sounds convincing.

So what is really in the program if I had to guess?

I would guess that there is a short pamphlet showing the person how to do some yoga and stretching exercises to make the vertebrate straighter. The pictures will be on how to walk, how to stand, how to improve the posture, etc. so that the person can look more confident, taller, and maybe more imposing due to the way they walk.

It will then give a short, not content rich section on the source and production of HGH. some pages will be left to state which foods contain the most nutrition, the most nutrients, and which foods and supplement will provide the individual with the most proteins and amino acids.

 So what is included in the program?

The special equipments of the ORTOPEDI written course are:

• The special “V-O Apparatus” that will enhance the growth of body height.
• The complete instructions of the course that reveals fully the secrets and results of the studies that can scientifically increases your body height significantly in a very short amount of time.

I am willing to admit that the website is well designed and there is some continuous upkeep and some new information added once in a while.

The cost of the program or course is $138 which you are supposed to pay to a stranger’s account.

If you chose the automatic outside international bank account transfer method, there is a name used Tjai Kusnadi Kundrat who has a PO BOX in the island nation of Singapore. The payment methods are Paypal, Credit Card, or bank Transfer. Through the eyes of a slick Internet Marketing professional, these are the easiest way to get money from strangers while still concealing one’s identity. The PO Box is used most often by people who wish to remain anonymous and keep their privacy and security without fear that their real identity is discovered. Almost all secret businesses and companies these days choose to use the PO BOx route instead of have a real physical mailing address due to security and identity protection reasons.

These are the bank details to put for the wire transfer….

AYMENT BY WIRE TRANSFER (THROUGH YOUR BANK) at SINGAPORE Please wire transfer the appropriate amount to:

Conclusion: The small nation of Singapore comprises of 3 ethnicities. The Malays, the Chinese, and the Indians, which are probably from Sri Lanka island nation and the Tamil Nadu province area. The nation is well known for being very rich with a very high GDP per capital. There are more millionaires in this place than almost anywhere else in the world, except maybe Monaco, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and some other rich affluent city-states.

If the person who resides in Singapore did find a real solution on how to increase height and make people who are past puberty grow taller, there would be a HUGE surge in interest in their product in Singapore alone. The people from Singapore, the Indians, Chinese, and Malay have traditionally not been the tallest group or nation in the world. However they are well off and relatively rich.

If there was a solution, there would be an endless demand for the program. I note that the Grow Taller Guru program user named Michael was based in Singapore. After 300 days, he increased his height by maybe 3-4 cms, where the most results and height change was seen in the first 90s days.

The fact that this person from Singapore has to go online and use the most non-professional way for product transactions aka Paypal shows that they are running a very superficial online business. If the product was as good as they said, they would want to make the business into a real brick-and mortar company with real locations and offices.

What I am saying is that the product they would give a person who spends the $138 would never be as effective as they claimed.

So is the company ORTOPEDI another internet based grow taller scam? most likely it is, since it is promising something that can’t really be given to the people who spend their money.

This is a website called Support For The Short I found maybe two months ago which I will add to the “Resources” page which seems to be one of the most informative, up to date, and honest websites out there that deals with short stature, “heightism”, the need to find support for short stature individuals.

I felt that that the website is very useful to use to find new articles and information and it seems to be stating another organization NOSSA (National Organization of Short Statured Adults) which I had previously listed in the Resources page is a fraud who is cheating people of their money.

I had written about NOSSA many months ago and said that it was a great resource in the post ”
National Organization Of Short Statured Adults, Inc. NOSSA“. I had in that post said that it was…“an actual Non-Profit 501 (c) (4) Membership Organization”

Now from this new information I have to re-examine my previous claim. I have to ask the question, does the non-profit 501(c) organization actually do anything to help its members or is it just something created so that the creator/founder collects the $25 entrance fee? There is the forums, and sections which I had stated before but is it really doing anything to help bring awareness and support to the plight of short people? A second look says that maybe it doesn’t. Does it do anything at all? I think it doesn’t.

All I can say is that this new website Support For The Short has a real message to promote and it does a great job in finding articles and instances where Short Stature People are getting treated badly from discrimination and biases. I completely agree that it seems that people of short stature has heightism inflicted on them constantly by society, the media, and even their peers.

I wrote a recent post entitled “A Thesis Showing That Discrimination Due To Short Stature Heightism Is The Last Real Form Of Discrimination Left” which is a really weak attempt at showign that in the modern day, most other types of discrimination is no longer allowed or society accepted by it seems that the discrimination against short people is still very strong and public.

The other types of discrimination that might have been very prevalent public even a decade ago are mostly private, hidden, and less common now. Discrimination in terms of race, disabilities, mental disorders, sexual orientation, weight problems, unattractiveness, religion, etc. have started to ebb and go away as society becomes a more tolerant and friendly place. However the short statured individual still is being discriminated against. Why do so few people see the problem? Why are so few people willing to bring awareness and support for this cause?

What is amazing is that on this website, under the Essays section, there is a another article with the exact same message as my post on this website entitled “Heightism – The Last Bastion of Discrimination”. There is a really great section for the Audio-Video where one can get relevant media files on why and how short statured individuals suffer so much prejudice and discrimination in the world.

In conclusion, this website Support For The Short is a great resource I will add to the resources page to help other people. The information is great, it is honest, and it stays relatively active in updates.

When I step back from all the research and take the time to contemplate about the greater implications of what we are trying to do, I sometimes wonder whether we are being too selfish in asking to be taller than where we are naturally supposed to end up.

When I think about the type of person who would spent a lot of time on this website, they are probably already in their 20s or late teens. Their natural growth has stopped and they are dissatisfied with where they are currently in terms of size/height. So they go on the internet to search for a solution. Probably no one in their immediate circle of influence has any knowledge or information which can help them.

After searching around and rejecting the easy, much more obvious options like the crazy Grow Taller Pills they somehow find the forums and this website. Then they see that this website is being genuine and honest about the endeavor and they think that because of all the research me and the other researchers have done we would already have the solution. I can only say that there is nothing at least at this point I can give the other people.

Height Increase is something that is very radical in nature. It is not like weight loss. Weight loss is easy, much easier than what we are trying to do. There are probably millions of websites on the internet devoted to the idea of weight loss and maybe a good percentage of them have worthless advice and information and some of them are scams. However weight loss can be done, often in weeks for the individual to see results. This researcher to make a person taller is much harder.

At this point, after writing hundreds of articles I am starting to wonder whether it might be really impossible to achieve the goal of height increase after bone maturity without choosing the limb lengthening approach. Maybe there is no real way.

The search is extremely hard, and there have been a few serious breakthroughs but there has not been any clear routes on where to go. I have had to retract some claims I made earlier on in the research because I found evidence later on that showed that I was very wrong before. The best example is what happened when I re-analyzed the diagrams for the epiphysis of the long bones and realized that there is no layer of periosteum on the ends of the long bones, but it is instead comprised of just the layer of articular cartilage which somehow keeps its layer width constant, and I still can’t figure out the molecular mechanism which keeps it from from keeping the same cartilage layer width.

Something that I sort of still feel a lot of shame about is that I feel that I have to keep this website and this research a secret, hidden from the closest people in my life. I don’t think they would understand why I chose to create this website and why I spend so much time, energy, and effort in researching this topic so extensively. Most people would not use the label “short” on me but I still feel in the back of my mind lacking in this area. It doesn’t seem to be able to go away. The emotion is very raw and I feel anxiety over this issue, if someone brings it up in my real life in social situations. Maybe they might call me selfish for wanting to be even taller. Maybe they will call me crazy for spending my life and time on this endeavor instead of devoting more time towards another goal, like making more money so that I can eventually provide for a family. However, I know that at least at this point in my life, this is what I want to do.

So I do the research at a relentless rate, with persistence, in secret, without the people closest to me knowing about it, except you the readers.

I openly admit that this obsession is not healthy to have a fully fulfilled life but I feel like my life has meaning and purpose when I am researching an answer to this problem. It allows me to learn, make a contribution, grow, feel important and significant, while making new cool discoveries everyday. I look at this entire thing as a Hanayama Metal Puzzle that may (or may not) have a solution or maybe even one of the 6 remaining Millenium Prize Math Problems posed by the Clay Mathematics Institute that was posed at the turn of the millenium ago.

I know that millions, if not billions of people in the world right now could secretly be wishing that there is a solution. I know at least 5-6 people in my immediate life who would love to be able to use the solution if I did ever figure it out. Everyone seems to want this solution. So I wonder, are they being selfish? Am I being selfish?

Maybe I am being too selfish in asking more than what I already have. Are we as individuals asking too much from the world to be more than where we are now?

Somehow I came across this website today while I was perusing through another website that was not related at all to height but on that website’s forum there was a thread which caught my eye where people were talking about the issue of height and how some people will discriminate against people who are short in stature.

Because of my intentions and this website I would say that I do not support heightism in any way. I actually am extremely against the issue of heightism. To me, heightism may be one of the greatest social evils that stills occurs today.

My arguement: That almost no other form of discrimination is still as publicly allowed as the discrimination on height, short stature.

1. It used to be about race, and racism was the big topic. However race discrimination is no longer accepted and not politically correct.

Now in the 21st century, being 2013 I feel that most people have been able to move beyond race, look past the skin color, and more or less at least be able to tolerant the different types of races. Racism still exist but it is definitely no longer so in-your-face or blatant as say many decades ago. Maybe a white female might be uncomfortable getting in an elevator alone with a black guy even if they are say coworkers in a white collar, fortune 500 company but it is extremely unlikely she will ever dare to express her personal bias opinions out loud without the fear and possible social ostracizing of the current political correctness way of viewing race in these days. With the increase of how the world is becoming more connected and becoming even closer, I would say that the issue of “race” is less of a concern, at least in public. One can still hate another group of ethnicity due to their skin color alone in the privacy of their own homes and write troll-like and hateful speech under fake and anonymous profiles thinking they have complete privacy and security (when they are not since Google does track a lot of what a person does online and if they had to would cooperate with the US government agencies and enforcement agencies if they wanted to find someone). However almost no one except self described supremacist group would publicly state such prejudice ideas in crowds without fear that the group of people they don’t like won’t want to defence their race and fight them. To keep the general peace these days, since the USA has become such a racially cosmopolitan and multi-colored nation, race bigotry is not longer allowed, at least in public.

How about discrimination towards people with a physical disability like a wheelchair or something similar?

This type of public discrimination is frown upon as well since it is consider very cruel and insensitive to make fun of people over something that they were born with and have no control with. For the last few decades, with consistent effort in lobbying by special interest groups, most public places now have an area where people in wheelchairs can use.

Not only that people with disability have special privileges in terms of parking. The disability sign on any car means that people with disability get a few public benefits at least.

While it is not public that people would make fun of people with disabilities, it is more likely that people don’t want to associate or spend to much time with people with certain disabilities, since they might be very uncomfortable around them due to not understanding the medical condition the person is suffering from.

What is more likely to happen is that there would be a lot of sympathy and compassion by the people around to genuinely want to help the person who might suffering from a very debilitation condition.

The best example might by the Astrophysicist Stephen Hawkings, the former Lucasian Chair at Cambridge, whom so many people consider the smartest person on earth and who has become the inspiration and role model for so many aspiring physicists. HIs disability has been one of the most severe suffering for over 5 decades with Lou Gehrigs Disease (spelling?). However his life has been turned around to show it in an inspirational light and showcase the indominable human spirit.

So people with disabilities these days are not ridiculed. either people try to avoid them out of ignorance, become curious at learning more, or try to help out the person in need.

How about the discrimination over mental health like a learning problem?

With all the talk these days about how 20% of all child have some type of Autism, the portrayal of people on popular television shows with Asperger’s Syndrome, and so many famous and successful people coming out and admitting that they suffer from the learning disability known as dyslexia, it seems that public support for people with mental health issue are reaching an all time high.

Uptight strong willed, perfectionist people would openly admit that they seem to have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder or at least some of its symptoms. People who have just seasonable depression will flaunt the fact that they have Bipolar Disorder. Women who go through pregnancy might claim to have suffered from Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder. There are now multiple support groups for all of these people.

If a person did make fun of someone who might have a learning disability or suffering a serious psychopathology, and they were found out, they would be severely socially isolated and be shamed about their insensitivity.

What about the discrimination of gays and homosexuals?

In the last few years there has been so much talk about gay marriages and equal rights. Our current president Obama supports gay marriage and has been trying to make it legal in all of the states. Many more famous celebrities and people on television have come out of the closet with almost all of their friends and family members fully supporting their lifestyle choices.

Attractive females now all claim that they have gay male best friends who they love going shopping with. Even heterosexual men these days at least in the US are becoming more comfortable around the gay and have them as close friends.

Can we still make fun of and mock people of certain religions?

Ever since 9/11 the world has become much more careful of at least joking about or making fun of Islam and people who are Muslim due to fear that it could cause riots, public protests, and more terrorist attacks. The term “Islamophobia” has become last decade’s focus on why discriminating against religion is still not a good idea. These days if a person mocked the society of Scientology, they might get civil suits thrown at them.

Sure, some people do make fun of Christianity like the creators of South Park and Family Guy but most people these days feel that the faith of Christianity is rather benign unlike the more violent prone Islamic faith. Comedians might use the horrible priests & young boys abuse scandal in their joke routines and that is something which I feel is being resolved these days. The new popes have been expressing that this problem with the modern Christianity is something that needs to be dhelt with.

Is there still open, blatant, public discrimination against women?

In some ways, it seems that women have become the more social affluent, stronger gender in recent years. More women are graduating universities and graduate schools than men. The jobs women have had got hit less hard than the jobs that men had. In terms of economic power women are the new force to recognize. many decades of feminists jostling the government and society for equal opportunity and equal pay with men have pushed the women further ahead of men. Women these days account for 65% of all the initiators of divorces. 55-60% of initiations for relationship separation are being done by the female. With shows like “Sex In The City” during the 2000s years, it shows that women have finally been able to display the amount of power and privilege their mothers and grandmothers fought so hard for.

If anyone did try to discriminate against women, specifically men, say in the work place, they are likely to get a civil suit thrown at them. Any inappropriate behavior results in sexual harrassment suits. Some women have even begun to make fake rape accusations to put innocent men in jail or extort them for money.

If there is any discrimination against women these days, I have not seen it. Women Rights and Girl Power has changed the landscape on how at least the Western Nations act and any type of disrespect against the female gender is not longer allowed with severe social and financial consequences.

How about “ugly” people?

I would have to agree that this might be a still prevelant problem but we must realize that the concept of  “beauty” is very subjective, at least for women. Every culture has their own definition on what constitute beauty and what constitutes “ugly”.

I personally would cite the example of Robert Pattinson, who I find extremely unattractive as a male but somehow because he was given the leading role in the hugely popular “Twilight” movie series has gained a reputation for being attractive to legions of teenage females and adult women.

It does not take a lot to change either one’s face or change the way people see oneself. For any men, a good hair cut, clean shave, some teeth whitening, more time spent in the gym in losing weight, some tweezing, and a good suit would change the way people view them dramatically. The same can be said of the dramatic make-over done on plain jane girls which one also finds on tv these days.

The thing to know about discriminating against “ugly” people is that the concept of beauty is very subject. If one is truly dissatisfied with one’s appearance. one can improve on it with a quick trip to the plastic surgeon for a few thousand and get a completely new face That is what they do here in Seoul on a very regular basis.

Can we still discriminate against “poor” people?

Ever since the 2008-2009 major economic crash, more people than ever have been brought down from the middle class to the lower class. With so many people lossing their jobs and or not able to find another job, more anger and resentment are being developed against the “upper class” or the rich 1% od society who seemed to actuall get richer from the recession by seizing on the horrible times to exploit people for cheap labor.

If anyone these days were found to be discriminating against the “poor” people, they would be laughing at the large majority of the American population. If theire real identity was found out, they would get death threats on them since they are laughing at the mis-fortune of other people and some spiteful people would want to harm them.

So making fun of “poor” people these days is something no one is willing to do in public due to fear that there would be some type of action taken due to vengeance.

How about the obvious discrimination seen towards overweight, fat, and/or obese people?

Discriminating against overweight individuals is something that I would admit is still sort of a prevelant social problem. However, of all the type sof discrimination that is done, this is the type that is most easily solved.

There are thousands of diets, and millions of gyms and weight loss drinks sold today which help anyone who is angry at people making fun of them loss the weight even in a few months. Once they loss that weight which had been used to make fun of them earlier, they have a hug increase in confidence, feel better, healthier, and can go back to the person who discriminated against them and show off how they change their body to prove the initial harasser wrong.

So what type of discrimination is still being publicaly done today which people can still get away with and the person being discriminated can’t really do anything about it?

It seems to be towards the group of people who are suffering from “heightism”. Below average in height people these days are the last real group of individuals who are still targeted on a regular basis of discrimination and it is still socially accepted to a large degree. Most other groups of people who might have been traditionally discriminated against are not longer socially allowed or there is something that they can do to easily change their situation.