Posted On: Friday - July 31st 2026 6:33PM MST
In Topics: Music TV, aka Gov't Media Legal Stupidity Kung Flu Stupidity
(Thanks for the image, Adam Smith!)
I hear tell from the www that's there's been a new mini Soap Opera out or a Telenovella, if you will, starring a bunch of Congressional TV stars you may know from other shows and this one evil villain, played by Anthony Fauci.
It used to be that housewives and hotel maids would pass some of their tedious work time watching the hour-long Soap Operas that would appear, one for each of the three TV networks.* There were commercial interruptions, but it was still a whole hour each weekday, continuing day to day with the exciting stories of these beautiful people in As the Days of our Lives Turn and The Guiding Light for All My Young and Restless Children or something like that.
It's different now. You only get a couple of minutes at a time for each of these shows. I can't imagine how you can make beds and vacuum when you have to keep clicking stuff every couple of minutes. But, commercial free! (Or maybe not.)
Not only that, but I heard these episodes have been very repetitive so far, with the evil villain saying the same lines each show, always something like "Under the advice of my attorneys I will invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution... line, please! ... to refrain from answering your questions." To make it more exciting they should have that "right" creature being invoked appear as a ghost or demon, perhaps with projectile vomiting. Nah, but Soap Operas never had much action in them, as I recall (cheaper to produce, I'll give 'em that).
Having a diary does fit in with a good soap opera. This seems to generally be a woman thing. Men might have research notebooks, log books, spreadsheets, bedpost notches, what have you, but diaries? That's pretty odd to begin with for a supposed to Infectious Disease research Scientist like DOCTOR Anthony Fauci. Yet he has one or had, and it has been exposed to the world during this Kung Flu Reminiscence that is really the theme of the show.
1970s "Easy Listening" musical artists could get pretty intense with this business too. Note too the high-level vocabulary in this song, written and sung by the band Bread's David Gates back in '72.
What's happened to Anthony Fauci in these latest Soap Opera episodes can be embarrassing. I'd hate it too if my diary got photocopied multiple times for discovery at a deposition or worse, it went viral on the web.. Well, since TV is the subject of this post, my modern favorite, as any regular reader would know**, is The Office.
You may very well want to back it up to the beginning - this is funny! Ha, at 4:36 HR dweeb Toby Flenderson requests a copy of Michael's diary too!
Here's the rest of the diary scene:
As with the Soap Operas back in the day, in this modern www version, there will be no action sequences.. Nobody will be jailed, whipped, or seen waiting by the gallows pole.
These last two 1970s songs are nothing close to Easy Listening. Gallows Pole by Led Zeppeling off their Led Zeppelin III in '70 is from an old traditional song but amped up greatly by Jimmy Page and, well, all of them. Whipping Post by The Allman Brothers from their '69 self-titled album. There's the 22 minute jam version on Live at Fillmore East from a couple of years later.
And finally, because we are one of those Public Educational websites, Peak Stupidity has no commercials, so we will put in a quick word from our sponsors. This post sponsored by The Office and The 1970s.
* I don't count that Learing Channel, ETV or whatever. They were too high-brow to have Soap Operas. Instead they had Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy.
** Long after I was already off the TV, some young lady on the sidewalks of Canton ripped and burned 4 seasons of The Office for me. I'd never heard of it, but the first year British show (she couldn't tell the difference) and remainder America show became my funniest TV show ever.
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[UPDATED 08/03:] Added the great image, thanks to Adam Smith.
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Comments:
Moderator
Saturday - August 1st 2026 6:46PM MST
PS: Haha, Alarmist, lying to yourself in your very own diary? That's pathetic, if true, but that was likely a lie. Did you enjoy the "The Office" clips?
Moderator
Saturday - August 1st 2026 6:45PM MST
PS: Yes, I've been following that South Carolina soap opera to some degree, Mr. Hail. President Trump was under the impression that the people of the State care more about his opinion and character judgement than they do about people they know pretty well. I don't know if you could call it "getting bad advice", as the Dorchester County GOP Chairman suggests.
I think it's Trump's people skills, which might be great for a Reality TV show called "In The Running: SC Special Elections Unit" or some crap, but this is not a TV show. Trump can't seem to tell the difference - it's all about who he knows personally. Too bad, Trump. I hope the new Mrs. Lindsey gets trumped in the 1st round. That probably WON'T happen. However, if she doesn't get a majority, there will be a run-off (a good system, IMO!). In this run-off, the votes for a S. Carolina well-known Conservative politician should overwhelm the votes for "Miss Lindsey's little sister".
BTW, I wrote that in at least one other post, that Trump did NOT get who he wanted for GOP Governor candidate. As for the maps, I think that wasn't a rejection of Trump, just some cronies making sure they all had the voters they wanted.
I think it's Trump's people skills, which might be great for a Reality TV show called "In The Running: SC Special Elections Unit" or some crap, but this is not a TV show. Trump can't seem to tell the difference - it's all about who he knows personally. Too bad, Trump. I hope the new Mrs. Lindsey gets trumped in the 1st round. That probably WON'T happen. However, if she doesn't get a majority, there will be a run-off (a good system, IMO!). In this run-off, the votes for a S. Carolina well-known Conservative politician should overwhelm the votes for "Miss Lindsey's little sister".
BTW, I wrote that in at least one other post, that Trump did NOT get who he wanted for GOP Governor candidate. As for the maps, I think that wasn't a rejection of Trump, just some cronies making sure they all had the voters they wanted.
The Alarmist
Saturday - August 1st 2026 3:39PM MST
PS
I vaguely recall sometime in the 1990s, during Whiewater hearings, one of Mr. Clinton’s aides saying, when called out on entries in his diary, that he had lied to his diary. So simple.
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I vaguely recall sometime in the 1990s, during Whiewater hearings, one of Mr. Clinton’s aides saying, when called out on entries in his diary, that he had lied to his diary. So simple.
🕉
Hail
Saturday - August 1st 2026 1:00PM MST
PS
More on the July-August 2026 Trump soap opera in South Carolina:
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‘Trump threw us all a curveball’: South Carolina Republicans are stewing about Lindsey Graham’s old Senate seat
CNN
By Patrick Svitek, Dianne Gallagher
Sat August 1, 2026
When President Donald Trump helped orchestrate Darline Graham’s appointment to finish Sen. Lindsey Graham’s term, many Republicans in South Carolina saw it as a fitting tribute to her late brother.
But four days later, following Trump’s announcement that he wanted Graham to run for a six-year term, their feelings quickly flipped.
The president’s decision to get behind a political unknown for a breakneck special election process is further testing his clout in South Carolina, a solidly red state where Republicans already this year have roundly rejected his first pick for the governor’s race and his push to redraw the state’s congressional maps. Behind the scenes, some Republicans are stewing as others fret that Trump is setting himself up for failure, once again, in the Palmetto State.
“The issue is that the president continues to get bad advice about South Carolina,” said CJ Westfall, chairman of the Dorchester County GOP. “We certainly empathize with Darline — and even the president, as Lindsey was a really good friend of his — but he’s certainly getting bad advice. We’ve got a lot more exciting options for this seat. It’s a once-in-a-generation opportunity.” (...)
https://lite.cnn.com/2026/08/01/politics/trump-south-carolina-lindsey-graham-darline-graham
________
More on the July-August 2026 Trump soap opera in South Carolina:
_________
‘Trump threw us all a curveball’: South Carolina Republicans are stewing about Lindsey Graham’s old Senate seat
CNN
By Patrick Svitek, Dianne Gallagher
Sat August 1, 2026
When President Donald Trump helped orchestrate Darline Graham’s appointment to finish Sen. Lindsey Graham’s term, many Republicans in South Carolina saw it as a fitting tribute to her late brother.
But four days later, following Trump’s announcement that he wanted Graham to run for a six-year term, their feelings quickly flipped.
The president’s decision to get behind a political unknown for a breakneck special election process is further testing his clout in South Carolina, a solidly red state where Republicans already this year have roundly rejected his first pick for the governor’s race and his push to redraw the state’s congressional maps. Behind the scenes, some Republicans are stewing as others fret that Trump is setting himself up for failure, once again, in the Palmetto State.
“The issue is that the president continues to get bad advice about South Carolina,” said CJ Westfall, chairman of the Dorchester County GOP. “We certainly empathize with Darline — and even the president, as Lindsey was a really good friend of his — but he’s certainly getting bad advice. We’ve got a lot more exciting options for this seat. It’s a once-in-a-generation opportunity.” (...)
https://lite.cnn.com/2026/08/01/politics/trump-south-carolina-lindsey-graham-darline-graham
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