Coffee? Tea? Diet Ski?

A quick timeline:

• November 2008 - Social/foreign-policy liberals, angry at social/foreign-policy conservatives, elect Barack Obama as the 44th President. Optimism ensues.
  
  
• February 2009 - Fiscal conservatives, angry at fiscal liberals, form the Tea Party Movement and help elect Scott Brown as a United States Senator. Optimism ensues.
  
  
• April 2009 - Social/fiscal liberals, angry at all the anger, initiate the reliable Nanny-Nanny Boo-Boo offense, normalize network-television references to testicles being put in people's mouths.
  
  
• February 2010 - Social/fiscal/foreign-policy nihilists, angry at the anger over all the anger, form the Coffee Party. Their platform (not to be confused with kindergarten curriculum) includes hugs, sharing, and following the leader.
  

Clearly, grassroots political organizations are the new black, and for once I intend to finally be on the inclining end of the graph. Therefor, I am proud to announce the formation of the Scotticus Finch Diet Ski™ Party.

For those of you who have never been in a situation where it was necessary to purchase a beverage from a service station out of a foam bait cooler labeled "POP - 50¢", Ski is like Mountain Dew infused with Ted Nugent's sweat. In 2005, Diet Ski changed its slogan from "Ain't Y'all Thirsty?" to "Sip it with Supper!", and in 2008 they celebrated the first confirmed purchase of Ski by a black person. But I digress.

There are three major planks of the Diet Ski Party platform. First, we demand that the Federal Government finally take responsibility for forcing NBC to cancel Bonanza after a mere 14 years. (And just when Little Joe was beginning to get into his stride as a character!) Second (as envisioned by blogger Pro Libertate), we will create a (budget-less) Office of Skepticism headed by James Randi, whose only responsibility will be to shame superfluous governmental agencies into voluntarily disbanding. Lastly: Congressional term limits, measured in "hours remaining" and continuously displayed on an LED lapel tag.

The symbolism is appropriate. The Diet Ski Party, like Diet Ski itself, is just another knock-off of the two major brands that are, themselves, practically identical. Despite the fact that it's a cheap imitation of a branch of a branch of a branch of a major brand, thousands of yokels would inevitably become Diet Ski Party fans, create Diet Ski Party Facebook groups, organize Diet Ski Party marches, and blog endlessly about the tragic underexposure-treatment the Diet Ski Party is getting from Big Media, which is of course snugly in the pocket of every party except the Diet Ski Party. The point is that Internet connectivity and 24-hour news cycles lend a misleading implication of ubiquity to even the silliest of communities. Some of us have learned that "revolutions" most often... aren't.

I appreciate anything that puts a bee in the bonnet of either major party, but to affect real change it's going to take something with a lot more kick than tea.