Grouping

Special Interest Groups

or 

Groups With Interests that are Special

or 

Special Groups With Interests

or 

Interests that Specialize in Groups

or

GROUPS

(Grownups Raging Over Underwear Poop Stuff))

Today, according to “Wikipedia” (which is a special interest group dedicated to fake information that is unusable in college term papers) Special Interest Groups (SIG’s) are organizations focused on mutual interests. For example: JALT, the Japan Association of Language Teachers, is a SIG where folks try to come up with ways to get their students to speak better and more Japanese.

Actually, I have no idea what this group dreams about. It’s possible this group just sits around and drinks fermented rice juice.

A jaunty assembly of clever letters is often involved in organizing a special interest group—also T-shirts with informational messages like Join JALT—but only if you teach better and more Japanese.

I love SIG’s. They’re so tribal. Historically a tribe was a Special Interest Group dedicated to the “mutual interest” of kicking some other tribe’s butt and burning down all their stuff. Like the Special Interest Group the VISIGOTHS whose “mutual interest” was raping and burning its way across the Special Interest Group EUROPE.

Today, Special Interest Groups tend to be much more narrow in their “mutual interests.”

For example, the special interest group AWGA, Australian Worm Growers Association, is a group that wants to teach more and better Japanese to worm farmers.

Not true. Actually, it’s a fan club for earthworms and the folks that grow ‘em in Australia.

Scary stuff, if you belong to the special interest group FFCNCST (Folks Frightened by Creepy Night Crawling Squishy Things.)

Special Interests Groups include: Labor and Trade Unions, Associations, Groups, Clubs, Chorus Lines, Steel Drum Bands, and Clown Cars.

The “Von” Zern Family singers and clog dancers are a special interest group that has been drawn together by the mutual interests of extreme opinion making, the free exchange of potty training tips and tricks, and ritual mooching.

The most fascinating special interest group that I have learned of recently is associated with my college and describes itself thusly,  “The Safe Zone Ally Program [hopes] to increase awareness and solidarity with our diverse gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, questioning, queer, pansexual and intersex (LGBTQQIP) community.

I was excited when I read pansexual because I thought it meant sex with pandas, and while I wouldn’t want to marry a panda, I’d love to snuggle a panda. FYI – that’s not what pansexual means. See? It’s working already; my awareness has increased.

And that’s why special interest groups are good; they’re fun; they’re educational; they’re insulating; they’re all for us and us for us.

Linda (Raw Milk Drinkers for Freedom) Zern