"The poodle community is particularly snappish about doodles. Doodle breeders help themselves to the poodle’s brain..."

"... and its low-shedding, hypoallergenic coat, temper the poodle’s supposedly high-strung personality with a mellower breed, and then sell their hybrids for twice as much as poodles go for.... Online, doodles stir darker emotions. 'I love all dogs and own the best dog in the world. But my god I hate those fuckers,' one Reddit commenter said of doodles. 'We have one in my close family and I’ve never met a more neurotic dog.' Many object to the prices that doodles command; Much Ado About Doodles, for example, a Virginia-based breeding business, sells pretrained goldendoodle puppies for some fifteen thousand dollars each.... 'My AKC registered dog was way cheaper and came from champion bloodlines.'... Groomers complain about owners who, instead of troubling themselves with the daily brushing and regular cuts that low-shedding coats require, allow their dog’s coat to develop painful mats that have to be shaved off, then yell at the groomer for denuding their fur baby. A common clarification in anti-doodle discourse is 'It’s not the doodles I hate, it’s the people who own them.' Wally Conron, the doodle dogfather, has apologized for his creation. '... I released a Frankenstein. So many people are just breeding for the money. So many of these dogs have physical problems, and a lot of them are just crazy....'"

From "How Doodles Became the Dog du Jour/Poodle crossbreeds have grown overwhelmingly popular, sparking controversy in dog parks and kennel clubs alike" (The New Yorker).

"I also, again, just want to recognize and honor the sex worker community."

"I will continue to support and be an ally. All of the incredible people, the women that I’ve had the privilege of meeting from that community has been one of the highlights of this incredible — of this entire incredible experience."

Said Mikey Madison, quoted in "Mikey Madison wins best lead actress for 'Anora'" (NYT).

Madison also underscored the influence that sex workers had on her performance. To study her character, she read memoirs by sex workers, underlining sections of Andrea Werhun’s “Modern Whore.”... She also... took pole-dancing lessons. The role involved significant nudity and a number of intimate scenes, which Madison said was never daunting to her: “I was always comfortable, and I also think because Ani was too,” she told The Times.

I haven't used my tag "the [blank] community" in a long time, but here we have "the sex worker community." 

Mikey Madison becomes the 10th woman to win an Oscar for playing a prostitute — 12th if you count Donna Reed in "From Here to Eternity" and Jo Van Fleet in "East of Eden." And Madison is the first to win an Oscar for playing a prostitute since the #MeToo movement shook Hollywood to its nonexistent core.

"An artist whose work was withdrawn from a gift shop at London’s Royal Academy of Arts after she was accused of transphobia has said she could pursue legal action if she is not given an apology."

"The academy said that it would no longer stock works by De Wahls and thanked campaigners for bringing to its attention 'an item in the RA shop by an artist representing transphobic views.' On the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, De Wahls said: 'They frantically tried to call me the day they realised that was a really bad PR decision. They contacted me the day after they posted it on social media. There was no point to that conversation... I don’t know what they were looking for..... I might [pursue a legal remedy]. But, to be honest with you, right now, I have the feeling that there is a hope within that institution, which is mind-boggling to me, that this just will go away... my inbox and the feedback I’ve been getting from the general public is quite the opposite. This isn’t going away. This is a conversation that needs to happen, it needs to happen in public. They will have to talk eventually."

From "'Cancelled' artist Jess De Wahls could sue unless Royal Academy apologises" (London Times).

Here's what she wrote that led to that campaign against her — from her blog, back in 2019 : "I have no issue with somebody who feels more comfortable expressing themselves as if they are the other sex (or in whatever way they please for that matter). However, I cannot accept people’s unsubstantiated assertions that they are in fact the opposite sex to when they were born and deserve to be extended the same rights as if they were born as such." 

Her art trades in feminism: She makes "textile pieces... involving women, ovaries and flowers." I see she had a show called "Big Swinging Ovaries." She came up with an image — embroidered — of fallopian tubes giving the finger. That info is in the London Times column, "Anatomy of a cancellation by the culture Stasi/The Royal Academy’s decision to ban an artist’s work over her views should be a test case for anti-discrimination laws." That column also has this: 

"For 51 years, one of the Zodiac Killer’s puzzling codes he sent in letters to newspapers in the late 1960s and early 1970s has confounded the cryptography community..."

"But the Bay Area killer’s 340-character cipher mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle has been cracked by an international team of code-breakers... verified by the FBI," WaPo reports.

Here's the video announcing the cracking and explaining the lengthy process. 

Don't get excited about the message. 

I HOPE YOU ARE HAVING LOTS OF FUN IN TRYING TO CATCH ME THAT WASNT ME ON THE TV SHOW WHICH BRINGS UP A POINT ABOUT ME I AM NOT AFRAID OF THE GAS CHAMBER BECAUSE IT WILL SEND ME TO PARADICE ALL THE SOONER BECAUSE I NOW HAVE ENOUGH SLAVES TO WORK FOR ME WHERE EVERYONE ELSE HAS NOTHING WHEN THEY REACH PARADICE SO THEY ARE AFRAID OF DEATH I AM NOT AFRAID BECAUSE I KNOW THAT MY NEW LIFE IS LIFE WILL BE AN EASY ONE IN PARADICE DEATH

The English words— revealed at long last — feel banal in comparison to the page full of mystifying symbols. What if all the great mysteries are grander left in the form of mystery? 

But yes, hooray for nerds who figured it out, and I'm glad they demystified this murderer who somehow captivated so many people for so long and made a complicated code but didn't know how to spell "paradise."

"To better understand Locals, think of it as an intersection of Patreon, YouTube, and social media, or as Rubin calls it, 'digital homes for creators.'"

"To participate, content creators with some established following buy into Locals, which works with them to develop a website or app — depending upon needs and objectives — allowing each creator to operate their own personal website and community of followers and crowd-funders. Each creator determines his own rules of conduct for his community and monetary threshold for access. For instance, Rubin’s rules for his site are essentially don’t do anything illegal and don’t be a trolling jerk, and his subscription cost for community buy-in is a $3 minimum. Chronological content feeds can function as video receptacles, a creator messaging feed, and a social engagement tool for subscribers, among other things...."

I'm reading this piece in The Federalist from last December: "Dave Rubin Launches Creator Hub ‘Locals’ To Counter Big Tech: ‘Small Is The New Big’/Nearly a year after leaving Patreon, Rubin says his new tech company Locals is the solution, taking power from online behemoths and placing it into the hands of individual creators."

I've heard of this place because Scott Adams talks about it on his podcast. He's moving his work onto it, and I'd like to take a look. I'd probably subscribe, but I need to look at it first! I get this far:



I'm not going to join something I can't see at all.

I started looking at that yesterday as I was contemplating moving my own work onto this site or something like it. I'm not considering closing this blog, just ending the comments here and having a parallel blog with commenting on the same posts. I'd work on various extras (podcasting, etc.).  Anyway, I think the commenting community could flourish without the need for burdensome and annoying moderation.

But with Locals, I cannot even get to the point where I can see what I would be using. I created an account over there but it didn't get me to a place where I could get a feel for writing in that format! It's just not user-friendly enough for me to get started.

And even as I'm contemplating moving my own work into a membership format, I'm feeling my own unwillingness to join anything. I couldn't bring myself to click to "join" the Scott Adams "community," even though I really wanted to see what it looks like, and I'm willing to speak openly about it here. It's not as though I'm a secret consumer of Scott Adams material. I just resist joining. And I'm not drawn in by the idea of being in a "community."

ADDED: I see that I wrote "I think the commenting community could flourish" and then "And I'm not drawn in by the idea of being in a 'community.'" Is that inconsistent? Not really, I don't comment on other blogs, and I don't look for in-person opportunities to comment on various issues. This blog exists and has persisted as a daily activity for 16 years because I'm not the community type.

"You humiliated yourself with your ludicrous run for president last year, and every time you open your mouth now, Andrew Cuomo runs over and drops a stick of dynamite in it to remind you who’s boss."

Writes John Podhoretz in "Bill de Blasio’s new low: blaming the Jews" (NY Post).

The headline refers to De Blasio's harsh reaction to a specific event: a large gathering of Jewish mourners that took place in Brooklyn. De Blasio blamed those Jews for that one thing that they did. The headline makes it sound as though de Blasio had engaged in classic anti-Semitism, blaming Jews in general for things that go wrong.

For example, during the Black Plague in the 1300s, Jews got blamed and murdered on the theory that they were causing the disease. I don't think de Blasio is much good as a mayor and he should never have joined the overcrowded Democratic presidential race, but it's awful to characterize him as "blaming the Jews."

Podhoretz writes:

There’s no way to read your tweet from Tuesday night in an exculpatory fashion. Here it is: “My message to the Jewish community, and all communities, is this simple: the time for warnings has passed. I have instructed the NYPD to proceed immediately to summons or even arrest those who gather in large groups. This is about stopping this disease and saving lives. Period.”

Now, there really is something stupid about that tweet. De Blasio refers to the "Jewish community" when he meant the Hasidic Jews in Williamsburg, and they are a small proportion of the much larger set of Jewish residents in New York City. Podhoretz writes that there are 1.2 million Jews in NYC. I had to look up the number of Hasidic Jews in Williamsburg, who are not even 10% of the total who belong to "the Jewish community" in New York.

But maybe Podhoretz is seeing into de Blasio soul. Why did he get so mad at the Jews who came out onto the street in mourning? Why did that provoke him into posturing about a strong show of police force? Why did he look at one Jewish community and see "the Jewish community"?

And what a terrible visualization — Cuomo sticking dynamite into de Blasio's open mouth. Where does that violent imagery come from?

I thought I hadn't used the tag "the [blank] community" in many years...

... as I was adding it to that last post, "We have a fat population, so why don’t we have a community?"

But after publishing the post and clicking on the tag — "the [blank] community" — I saw that I'd used it 3 times in the last 2 years. Something about "the nice community of woke people." The notion that Amy Klobuchar gets mad about the use of "community" in press releases. And something about "the BDSM community" (who the hell was "Schneiderman" that I blogged about him without a first name?).

Before that, though, you have to go all the way back to Fall 2008 to find the tag. It flourished that season. There are 4 posts. One of the 4 posts is about about the loner community (and refers back to 2 other posts about the loner community):

"I'm here on the internet and I can't find any communities for loners."

"... I'm so deeply put-off of people from my grueling experiences with extroverts and socialites. So, I'd like to get a chance to talk to my own kind a little. I know there are a lot of people who feel the same way as me... but I can't find a message board for them."

That's a new comment on a post from last August. Perhaps you'd like to respond to the commenter, whose name is Autonomous. I'll redirect him/her to this post, so use this comments section.

Oddly, I've joked twice on this blog about "the loner community": here and here.

In the comments there, Freeman Hunt says:

I guess I'm weird around here. I'm definitely extroverted. Not in the social butterfly, small talk, loud sense--I don't like boring conversation and some of this social butterfly talk seems to imply that--but I definitely enjoy the company of people. I like people, all kinds of people, a lot. Call me crazy.

In fact, I've always hoped that there will someday be a nationwide Althouse get together. You people interest me. :)

That was responded to by Meade (whom I would meet in real life 2 months later):

I like Freeman's idea but wouldn't it be a riot if we all got together only to find out that in person we all rub each other the wrong way because in person we're all just a bunch of loud annoying energy-sapping attention-seeking opinionated extraverts who do nothing but talk over each other?

For a disquisition on whether the spelling is "extrovert" or "extravert," go here.

The original "the [blank] community" post was from the first year of the blog, 2004. I took issue with the term "the sniper community."

"We have a fat population, so why don’t we have a community?"

"We want to be a resource for people to feel loved and welcomed. We knew there was a need, and we knew that if we did something like this, people would show up," said Elizabeth Chinn, a founder  of Fat Babes Club of Columbus, quoted in "Hulu’s ‘Shrill’ popularized the body-positive pool party. These women threw their own/On a recent Saturday night, the Fat Babes Club of Columbus welcomed attendees with pool floaties and Lizzo tunes" at The Lily (the women's section of WaPo).

While “Shrill” normalized a body-positive pool party for streaming audiences, the goal of the Fat Babes Club pool party was to change perceptions through social media. “Since social media is a huge thing, we can construct a counter-narrative outside the mainstream,” said 28-year-old co-founder Krystal Orr. “We’re able to create a community.”

Here's the trailer for "Shrill" (with a "fat babes pool party" at 0:54):



Here's the Instagram announcement for the Fat Babes Club of Columbus pool party:

View this post on Instagram

Our first Body Positive Pool Party went so well that we are hosting another one ! 💦 MARK YOUR CALENDARS ! Aug 10th 8-11PM 💦 Thanks @tykoe for this amazing design ! We will be announcing ticket sales soon, multiple times, before they go live on @eventbrite 💕

A post shared by Fat Babes Club of Columbus (@fatbabesclubofcolumbus) on Jul 12, 2019 at 11:54am PDT

One more Instagram pic from the Columbus fat babes:

View this post on Instagram

Making BIG moves this morning 😉❤️

A post shared by Fat Babes Club of Columbus (@fatbabesclubofcolumbus) on Jul 2, 2019 at 8:13am PDT

"You don’t have to kink-shame or say that people are creepy because of what they enjoy doing," said Charlotte Taillor, who had hoped "to have a nice relationship with a nice community of woke people."

The hoped-for "nice community" was Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Taillor had moved in with her "kink collective," which runs "bondage workshops and other fetish events for the B.D.S.M. (bondage, dominance, sadism and masochism) community."

The quoted article is "When the Dominatrix Moved In Next Door/A 'kink collective' in a residential area of Brooklyn has upset longtime residents and resulted in a culture clash and gentrification struggle all wrapped up into one fight" (NYT).

But the battle on Quincy Street is about more than just sex. For [longtime resident Laurie] Miller, it’s about trust and safety; for Ms. Taillor, it’s about respect and kink-shaming. As both women fought to protect their communities, what resulted was a culture clash and gentrification struggle all wrapped up into one fight.

Miller is black, and her reaction to Taillor's "nice community of woke people" was, "Oh, 'woke'! Bye, Felicia!" Miller also said, "I don’t like the transient nature of the guys that come there, that have no vested interest in our community. We don’t know what their backgrounds are or what they’re capable of. It’s just a scary thing."

Taillor says she's going to move out and: "It’s her block... I respect her. I want her to be the Beyoncé of her block. I want her to be the queen of the block. I have no qualms with it.... It’s definitely her block... I’m a feminist, I’m all about her rights.... I want to be cherished.... We deserve to be recognized in the community that we are in."

Imagine plopping your sex business into the black neighborhood and not just expecting the residents to be "woke" about it but expressing that expectation out loud and to their face!

And here's the Wikipedia page for "Bye, Felicia":

The phrase "Bye, Felicia" (actually spelled "Felisha" in the cast listing) came from a scene in the American stoner buddy crime comedy film Friday (1995). According to Ice Cube, who starred in the film and co-wrote its script, "Bye, Felicia" is "the phrase 'to get anyone out of your face'," and, as it was used in the Friday scene, is generally intended as a dismissive kiss-off.

You know me — I said, last December, "Why aren't the Democratic candidates better? I'm just going to be for Amy Klobuchar."

Link.

So what am I supposed to do with this: "Staffers, Documents Show Amy Klobuchar’s Wrath Toward Her Aides/'It’s hard to explain the anxiety that permeates the office,' a former staffer for the Minnesota Democrat told BuzzFeed News."

I could say, eh, it's BuzzFeed, well known fake-newsers.

Or I could say, this is what they do to women. The same thing that would be tolerated (or even celebrated) in a man is terrible in a woman. Oh, Amy's not nice enough. Every single woman who could pull off the presidency is not nice enough in your perverted sexist little world.

From the article:

But behind the doors of her Washington, DC, office, the Minnesota Democrat ran a workplace controlled by fear, anger, and shame, according to interviews with eight former staffers, one that many employees found intolerably cruel. She demeaned and berated her staff almost daily, subjecting them to bouts of explosive rage and regular humiliation within the office, according to interviews and dozens of emails reviewed by BuzzFeed News.

This reminds me of the way the media talk about Trump. He's always raging behind closed doors. He's so angry! What a loose cannon! I have never bought into that tale-telling.

That anger regularly left employees in tears, four former staffers said. She yelled, threw papers, and sometimes even hurled objects; one aide was accidentally hit with a flying binder, according to someone who saw it happen, though the staffer said the senator did not intend to hit anyone with the binder when she threw it.

I've heard of binders full of women. She's a woman full of binders. Notice: "accidentally hit." Remember when Hillary Clinton threw a lamp at Bill? Yeah, Snopes calls that a "legend."

The New York Times summed up the then-prevalent view of Hillary as “a lamp-throwing Delilah, emasculating her weak husband.” This aptly presented why, once the rumor was up and running, it continued to be repeated — it confirmed an image of the First Lady that was already widely suspected.

Back to the legend of Angry Amy:

“I cried. I cried, like, all the time,” said one former staffer.

In the emails seen by BuzzFeed, often sent between 1 and 4 in the morning, Klobuchar regularly berated employees, often in all capital letters, over minor mistakes, misunderstandings, and misplaced commas....

Email sent in the middle of the night isn't like a phone call in the middle of the night. The recipient gets it the next time they check their email. If your boss tells you your written work is full of little errors, you should get on it and proofread much, much more and strive for the level she's set. Yeah, maybe you would cry over falling short of her standard, but move on and get better. How did she act when you did a good job?

As Klobuchar prepares to potentially announce a presidential campaign Sunday, four of those former staffers said they were sharing emails and anecdotes with BuzzFeed News because they believe that insight into her office reflects on the senator’s ability to run the country. 

Sounds like she should have fired them.  They deserved to be fired, were given more of a chance, and they turned on their boss, and are getting revenge now. If it "reflects on the senator’s ability to run the country," how does it reflect? I don't think the President should be about coddling insiders who don't perform up to standard. The President works for us, and we are on the outside, not close to him/her where we can cry for leniency. Find the best people and make them do a great job or — as they say in Trumpspeak — "You're fired." Maybe the problem with Amy is that she didn't fire these people. She had incompetent snakes in the office and she hoped against hope that they'd get better.

Some former staffers have gone on the record to defend Klobuchar. “Amy was one of the best bosses I’ve had,” said Asal Sayas, who was referred to BuzzFeed by Klobuchar’s office and worked as her director of scheduling for three years. “I found her to be incredibly fair and extremely effective.”

The senator “cared deeply for me as her staffer," said Kali Cruz, who worked for her during her first term in the Senate. "When I was pregnant with my first baby, she threw me a baby shower, opening up her home and cooking a meal for my family and friends. We worked hard, but we always had some fun, too.”

You know what I like about Sayas and Cruz? I can see their names.  Meanwhile:

The employees [with bad things to say] all asked not to be named, most because of fear of retribution from Klobuchar.... They were hesitant to describe specific incidents on the record, or publish the text of emails, because they feared it would make them identifiable to the senator.

Convenient.

“Women shouldn’t be expected to nurture their employees or colleagues more than men, and they should be no less entitled to challenge them,” Sayas said. “As a strong woman, it was inspiring to work for another strong woman that was direct, incredibly smart, and a leader.”

That's a good theory, but awful women can use that as a cover. If you criticize me, I'll call you a sexist. And I'm afraid of having a woman President, because we will get called sexist when we criticize her. Sayas says "Women shouldn’t be expected to nurture their employees or colleagues," but by the same token, we the people shouldn't be expected to nurture a female office-holder.

BuzzFeed tells us the unnamed bad-mouthers are "experienced congressional employees who say they have worked with difficult lawmakers" and they found Klobuchar "uniquely unbearable."

Anything could set her temper off, they said... minor grammar mistakes, the use of the word “community” in press releases, forgetting to pack the proper coat in her suitcase, failing to charge her iPad, and using staples. “Two months later, that changes, and she’s really pissed about paper clips,” said the second former staffer....

"Community" — ha ha. I agree. Come on. Once you know the person you're writing for hates a word, you don't use that word. If that's too hard to get right, she shouldn't have you ghostwriting for her. I don't use ghostwriters myself, but if you were my ghostwriter and you studded the text with "garner," I would know you were either incompetent or out to get me. You're fired.

"In recent days, Mr Schneiderman's case has come under close scrutiny in the BDSM community..."

"The BBC spoke with sex experts and prominent members of the community who... said they were keen to explain what does, in fact, make a consensual BDSM relationship...."

"It is entirely unacceptable to 'surprise' someone with slaps, whips, blindfolds, or anything like that if you haven't spoken to them about it before," said anonymous sex blogger Girl on the Net....

"People who participate in the BDSM community pride themselves on their communication and negotiation skills," said [Clinical sexologist Dr Celina] Criss. "Ideally, negotiation happens before partners ever touch each other."...

Girl on the Net likened it to a contact sport. "BDSM is to abuse what boxing is to being punched by surprise.... "I also know that 'BDSM made me do it' has been an excuse used by powerful men in the past to try and dodge accountability for their actions. It's not acceptable... BDSM is not an excuse for abuse."...

"It can be sexy, but also deeply caring," explained sex coach [Sarah] Martin. Kinky sex should never be used as a way to defend violent behaviour, she said. "It makes me feel it makes an attempt to take advantage of general societal ignorance of BDSM," she said.

How does something that people individually want to do get to become a "community," with rules and experts, who claim to be in a position to enforce lines they've decided are there? How does this level of organization (or perceived organization) occur? When an individual like Schneiderman gets bad press, the experts serve a function, tending to the reputation of what they call a "community," but how are we supposed to judge this after-the-fact PR?

I haven't used my "the [blank] community" tag in a long time.

Do very fat people -- riding on airplanes -- have a right to 2 seats for the price of one?

They do in Canada now, says Swaraaj Chauhan, who illustrates his post with an astoundingly apt photograph. Hipopinion has an even more distressing photograph. (Canada might want to recognize a right not to have one's obesity appropriated to amuse and teach lessons to the normal-weight community.)

If you get a free extra seat now, won't people be clamoring to be considered one of the truly obese? Does some government agency certify that you are fat to the point of disability and thus entitled to accommodation? Or is this just a matter of airlines telling some people they'll have to pay for a second seat -- and now, they're being told they will need to give that seat for free? If the latter, some of the chubbier passengers may decide to sprawl strategically to extort extra space from the airline. If the plane is full, who gets bumped?

Post-feminist/post-sanity Darwinism read way too early in the morning.

Last night, between first and second sleep, I scanned the blogs for something to read and landed on "Love in the Time of Darwinism," by Kay S. Hymowitz.

There's an Instapundit post from 2:40 a.m. linking to it with the line "A REPORT FROM THE chaotic post-feminist dating scene." Post-feminist... or post-morality, post-sanity, post-... everything?

Is Glenn really up looking for new stuff to throw at us at 2:40 in the morning, or does he just set these things up to post at the times he sees fit... and if the latter: why this, why 2:40?

Hymowitz tells us us that men these days are angry -- angry that "young women are dishonest, self-involved, slutty, manipulative, shallow, controlling, and gold-digging" and "that the culture disses all things male" and "that marriage these days is a raw deal for men."

SYMs [single young males] of the postfeminist era are moving around in a Babel of miscues, cross-purposes, and half-conscious, contradictory female expectations that are alternately proudly egalitarian and coyly traditional...

As the disenchanted SYM sees it, then, resistance to settling down is a rational response to a dating environment designed and ruled by women with only their own interests in mind. “Men see all of this, and wonder if it’s really worth risking all in the name of ‘romance’ and ‘growing up,’ ” a correspondent who calls himself Wytchfinde explains. “After all, if women can be hedonistic and change the rules in midstream when it suits them, why shouldn’t men? Why should men be responsible when women refuse to look into the mirror at their own lack of accountability?”...

By far the most important philosopher of the Menaissance is Charles Darwin. The theory that human sexual preferences evolved from the time that hominids successfully reproduced in the primeval African grasslands can explain the mystery of women’s preference for macho—or alpha—males. At the same time, evolutionary theory gives the former wuss permission to pursue massive amounts of sex with an endless assortment of women. Finally, the emphasis that Darwinism places on natural selection encourages him to adapt to the brutal current sexual ecosystem. Culture, in both its feminist and Emily Post forms, hasn’t won him any favor with women, so he will embrace Nature in all its rude harshness.

(Paging Bob Wright.)

Hymowitz proceeds to tell us about something called the Seduction Community -- "a loose network of dating coaches, gurus" who teach something called Game, by which men can pick up women and use them however they like.

Teachers encourage clients to project confidence and sexual energy, what is called, depending on the guru, “cocky funny” or “amused mastery.” In The Aquarian, a New York–based music magazine, Kevin Purcell describes his experience at a Game workshop: “One of our first tasks was to walk around the hotel silent, repeating in our heads ‘I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks about me.’ This mentality, it was assumed, would help lower the wall of anxiety and make us less prone to the pain of rejection. Like soldiers responding to a drill sergeant, when asked ‘What are you?’ we were instructed to loudly proclaim, ‘A fucking ten!’ ”

Wait! How much do guys pay for this training? Are Penn & Teller working on an episode of "Bullshit" on about Game? I'd say it's asking for it. I want to cameras at that hotel, pointed at those would-be pick-up artists wandering about thinking "‘I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks about me." Presumably, they wouldn't object to the cameras, since they don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks about them. To be fair, the guys are getting fucked... one way or another.

There's much more at the link. You can read it or not. Your call.

As I said, I read it in the middle of the night, in that strange mental peak between first and second sleep. And it freaked me out. Oh, so this is what life is like now, for those people in that most important part of life, the place from which the next generation springs (if it is to spring at all)? (I've been reading Mark Steyn's "America Alone," and that laid the groundwork for disturbing thoughts about a culture's failure to bring men and women together in reproductive success -- which is, of course, the real Darwinism.)

I clicked over to Metafilter for some fresh air, and the first thing I saw was a post about "Love in the Time of Darwinism." Everyone was trashing Hymowitz. It wasn't exactly comforting. In fact they sounded... SYMish. But it unfreaked me out nontheless. It broke the spell. And, anyway, my iPhone power was close to 0% and that's as good an indication as any that it's time for second sleep.

"I'm here on the internet and I can't find any communities for loners."

"... I'm so deeply put-off of people from my grueling experiences with extroverts and socialites. So, I'd like to get a chance to talk to my own kind a little. I know there are a lot of people who feel the same way as me... but I can't find a message board for them."

That's a new comment on a post from last August. Perhaps you'd like to respond to the commenter, whose name is Autonomous. I'll redirect him/her to this post, so use this comments section.

Oddly, I've joked twice on this blog about "the loner community": here and here.

"The tattoo community sees them as posers. It’s like going out in the 1960s to buy a Beatles wig."

Said Bob Baxter, the editor of the tattoo journal Skin & Ink, of people who get hand or neck tattoos before they've inked up the rest of their bodies.

Why I love this quote:

1. Everything's a "community" these days. There's no escape. The tattoo community. The rugged individualist community. The loner community.

2. Who knew you had to earn your neck tattoo? I'd have thought getting a neck tattoo as opposed to, say, one of those peeping-over-the-pantyline tattoos was a real demonstration of commitment. Ten (or more) years ago I stood in line at the University Bookstore behind a pretty young woman who had a tattoo on her neck of an old-fashioned, claw-footed bathtub -- complete with the extended pipe and shower-head. "Poseur" is not the word that crossed my mind.

3. The simile. It's so inapt! The whole point of a wig is that you don't have to have the hair. It's the equivalent of a fake tattoo. But in another respect, a wig is out there. What man dares to wear a wig? Look at all the men who, balding, shave their heads. They miss their hair, but they still won't wear a wig. In the 60s, guys who wanted the Beatle look but needed a professional style some of the time would comb the front part down as well as they could and not go so long that they couldn't comb it up and over.

4. When I think of an actual wig, I think of Andy Warhol -- look at him here. He was doing something men still won't do. I know there are men who dress up like women and use lady's wigs for that, and there are plenty of women who rely on wigs, but where is the men in men's wigs community, eh?

"The sniper community." For years, I've been following the overuse of the word "community." Not everyone who can be put in one category (e.g., gay) is actually in a communal relationship with others in the category who may, in fact, commune in a group. (You could feel sad and left out if you were something that gets called a community but didn't have any rewarding group experiences.) And not every category that people can be put in is the sort of thing that suggests the relationships of community. I remember hearing the expression "the military community" about ten years ago and thinking, now, the use has reached its most ridiculous extreme. Today, on Morning Edition, I heard the most ridiculous one ever, in a story about American soldiers trained as snipers. One of the soldiers referred to "the sniper community." Next up: the loner community.

UPDATE: Chris notes that the most profound misuse of the term "community" is the expression "the international community."