April Fools Prank Goes Too Far, Has Surprising Political Results

Residents of Idaho County, Idaho (a real place), seem to have taken a recent April Fools joke too far. Keuterville (pronounced “Kooterville” — also real) resident, Schuyler Colfax, showed a video of the famous Monty Python skit, entitled “The Ministry of Silly Walks”, at a recent Idaho-Urban County government meeting. After viewing the video, Colfax explained that America needs its own version of a Ministry of Silly Walks because, apparently, Europeans have them and we must stay competitive, a message that apparently resonated other locals.

Chairman of Idaho County Commissioners, Skip Brandt, tried to convince attendees that funding was not available to enact a local department to cover silly walks and that the idea was stupid. It didn’t matter, as residents had whipped themselves into a frenzy over their demands for the local government to provide citizens with personalized silly walks. According to witness Joel Haubenreich, as things were getting out of control, as Idaho County meetings so often do, Colfax loudly declared that “if the Idaho County government can’t provide Idaho County residents with silly walks, then we’re gonna take this all the way to the federal level!”. Apparently, he meant it.

Email campaigns, petitions, newsletters, newspapers, and post-it notes around the office circulated Idaho (the state, not just the county) with a frenzy. Some churches even risked their 501(c3) tax status by urging churchgoers to support the movement for a federal agency that would provide everyone with a silly walk, calling it “the only civil rights issue we can think of that we can support, since black people became pretty much equal with whites.”

Idaho’s state representative Walt Minnick (D), who is famous for being born in Walla Walla, Washington, having involvement in the creation of the Drug Enforcement Agency while part of Nixon’s staff, and directing photographers as to when and where they can take pictures of President Nixon as he posed with Elvis, caught wind of the idea for government issued silly walks and liked what he heard. He quickly began working with Idaho senator Mike Crapo (R) to appease, what has become an overwhelmingly popular idea in Idaho. Both Crapo and Minnick announced that they would do their part in garnering support in Washington if citizens of Idaho could create a national campaign to put pressure on politicians to see that no one is excluded from having their very own silly walk.

Thus the movement to establish a national “Department of Irregular Walks” has slowly spread from Idaho, across middle-America, throughout the south, and has even sprouted support in parts of north-west, as well as in Vermont. It calls itself the “Irregular Movement” and, judging by the banners and chants that spring up throughout the crowds, it’s unofficial slogan is “Making Irregular the new Regular”. There have been many hundreds of gatherings in a very short amount of time; some garnering literally dozens of supporters.

Because of the outrage that’s being projected towards Washington, some are comparing it to the Tea Party movement, a move which both camps vehemently deny. Jennifer Cochran, a P.E.T.A. activist and San Francisco Tea Party organizer explained that “what you see in the Tea Party, is the desire for less government because the government cannot create anything of use and only hinders the utilization of scarce resources. Central planning does not work, the lessons of history are clear about that. Especially with a government as incompetent as we have today.”  She then added, “The government has to expand sometimes to protect us from terrorists and at least then, if it’s incompetent it is overseas…. with military action and not on our home soil. Ya can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.” She said all of this while wearing an “New World Order you won’t surprise me — Keep your RFID chip away from me” t-shirt.

Ms. Cochran was clear that the Tea Party she represents are advocates of retracting government involvement in our lives. She did not represent a lunatic neo-conservative fringe, a soft-spoken minority that unsurprisingly, has not ventured an opinion on the movement. Non-lunatic Sarah Palin was asked what she thought about the movement. “I think it’s just another example of, you know, regular folk taking back the country. If we hadn’t spent so much bailing out Wall Street, which I’ve always been opposed to, and spent so much on voodoo science research, we’d probably be able to have our own Department of Irregular Walks.” When asked about the constitutionality of establishing the department, Palin said “I haven’t read the Constitution yet, but I will and I’ll get right back to ya.”

I spoke with Amanda Bowen, an original advocate for the establishment of the Department of Irregular Walks, or an Irregular, to clarify just what her movement is all about. “We acknowledge that the government is far too big; it’s incompetent and has choked the life out of America. They start these big programs with the best of intentions and before you know it, they’re nothing but bureaucratic red tape that screw with the lives of the little guy. And today, with all this technology and instant gratification, kids are loosing not only their creativity, but their ability to be entertained.” At this point, Ms. Bowen had to wipe away a few tears because she had become unexpectedly emotional, over something that didn’t seem that bad. I could smell alcohol on her breath.

“We want to make sure that all children and young adults are provided their very own irregular walk, in hopes that it can rekindle America’s creativity and ability to enjoy itself. Entertainment shouldn’t be something you have to earn, because today’s kids are at such a disadvantage. 50 or 60 years ago all you had to entertain yourself were Cary Grant movies, model trains, anti-communist campaigns and sticks. It was much easier to grow your imagination because you had to. It is the right of every American to be entertained. If the government is not willing to look out for the children of this country then who is?” I asked what role the parents played in this attempt to regain our collective imaginations, but Ms. Bowen simply shouted “It takes a village!”, and began quoting Bible verses.

Although it certainly seems that a Department of Irregular Walks would be something that every American would love to have, the press for its establishment has been met with opposition. I spoke with Libertarian Party of Oregon’s Susannah Sizemore in her office adorned with stuffed animals — not the cuddly kind but the trophy kind. She said that because America is already 13 trillion dollars in debt, a federally organized attempt at implementing irregular walks for each citizen would certainly be out of the question. “Even attempts at partnering public and private efforts to provide irregular walks just isn’t feasible, and no amount of number crunching could make it so.” I had more questions to ask Susannah, but there was a shot-gun sitting ominously on her desk, so I opted to get out of there.

On the front porch of her trailer home, Florida resident Amanda Bruin said defiantly, “Idaho is always screwing things up for the rest of America.” “I’ve got 7 children from 5 fathers, and it’s nobody’s business how or what kind of silly walks I and my baby daddies want to teach them. If the government wants to step in and tell them how to do a silly walk, what’s next… telling us we should or shouldn’t smoke cigarettes? I suppose they’d tell me I couldn’t eat my EGGO waffles because of the shortage.” She then got a far-off look in her eyes, shook her head and muttered “The Mayan Calendar predicts another catastrophe.”

For its part, the White House has kept fairly quiet about the whole situation. When asked about the possibilities for a federal Department of Irregular Walks at town hall meeting, President Obama simply said that he’d have to see some paper work on the proposal but that the department was probably not very necessary. Still the impassioned support carries on.

What will come of this movement is anyone’s guess. It could cause Republicans to arouse even more anger by claiming that they’ve always stood for supporting irregular walks, and that the Democrats want to control our lives by forcing everyone to live out their days without a federally sanctioned irregular walk. There are signs, however, that the anger over not having universal irregular walks might push some elements of the movement to derail and splinter off into a whole wing of extremism that could end up posing some serious political problems for Republicans. It’s difficult to gauge the ascendancy which this movement will garner, difficult to comprehend why we have such strong feelings of entitlement, and difficult to have reasoned discussion with the populace in the detached realities that motivates extremism. But I think we’ll all have to wait for a poll to come out before we rush to judgement, or at least the media can gauge how much it should discuss the phenomenon.

I apologize for the heavy, over-use of commas in recounting this story.

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