Forgive me for being somewhat irreverent today (if not downright irrelevant), but I only have time for a quick note as I'm busy putting together tomorrow's "Obama Poll Watch" column (which is, I have to admit, a fun column to write and hopefully will be a fun one to read as well).

Two completely trivial things struck me while watching the ongoing "people power" movements in North Africa and the Middle East this week. The first was that it seems that more and more revolutions/people power movements today are color-coded. It makes perfect sense, from a sheer marketing perspective, and also from a crowd's perspective. If the movement chooses a color to rally around early on, then it's a lot easier to see who on the streets is on your side and who may not be. Militaries throughout history have used this principle in the color of their uniforms, for instance. But, increasingly, it seems that revolutionary movements also are self-identifying with a color (or, sometimes, colors).

The first modern people power movement using a color which I'm aware of (I'm not counting as far back as the "White Russians," I should mention) was in the Philippines in 1986, when the "Yellow Revolution" (or "People Power Revolution") brought Corazon Aquino to power. Crowds of people wearing yellow cheered this development, as I recall. Since then, we've had a Rose Revolution (Georgia, 2003-04), an Orange Revolution (Ukraine, 2004), a Pink Revolution (Kyrgyzstan, 2005), and a failed Green Revolution (Iran, 2009). Some also call voting in Iraq a "Purple Revolution" (due to the purple ink on the fingers in the voting process), but this label never really widely caught on.

And now we've got a Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia inspiring others in the region (in Egypt, Yemen, Algeria, Jordan, and likely elsewhere before it ends). Currently, the world is focused on Egypt, but as far as I can tell the people in the streets of Cairo haven't color-coded their revolution yet.

One wonders, in the future, what is going to happen when all the familiar colors have been used up by other countries. Will they begin a two-tone scheme (the Blue-Yellow Revolution), or go with ever-increasingly obscure colors (the Teal Revolution, the Fuchsia Revolution, the Ecru Revolution)?

Inane wonderings aside, though (hey, I already apologized for this column in advance...), I do have to point out one bit of brilliant wordplay and "branding," which apparently is now being used in Egypt -- but also which the American media hasn't really noticed yet. Because it covers not just each individual revolution/people power movement, but rather is a meta-term which describes the entire wave of movements sweeping the region: a "Tunisami."

This term has several things going for it, not least of which is the cutesiness factor. The whole thing started in Tunisia, after all. And the "wave/tsunami" imagery is pretty good and pretty accurate in terms of describing how things are spreading.

So, while I sincerely do hope to be forgiven for such trivialism in the midst of history being made, I would like to encourage everyone to start using this brilliant term to describe this historic era: the "Tunisami" of 2011.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant