I've got 9 carefully curated TikToks for you this evening. That is, these are all things I liked.

1. Some have FOMO, but a lot of us have FOPU.

2. A lobster has been seen in real life.

3. Kayak camping and the coconut crab.

4. The L.A. conversation.

5. What does Dolly Parton think about prostitution? 

6. I remember when I lost my mind.

7. When David Bowie shouted out "It's great to be in Cincinnati..."

8. The different generations react to they/them pronouns.

9. Unclogging the drain.

"I thought you'd be interested that he went on and on about Joe Morgan... and himself"/"Yeah, it's mainly himself."

That was the conversation here at Meadhouse after I read this passage from the transcript "Joe Biden Campaign Speech Cincinnati Museum Center Transcript October 12": 

Before I begin, let me say that I’m saddened to hear that one of my baseball heroes, Joe Morgan, second baseman, Red’s legend, Hall of Famer and a good man passed away. And my condolences to the Morgan family and his teammates and to his fans here in Cincinnati and all across the country. He played one year on the Philadelphia Phillies. Now, I’m going to get myself in real trouble, but I have a bad habit of telling you the truth. I happened to grow up in a household in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where, if you wanted to have dinner, you had to be Yankees fan because that was the farm called, the Triple A ball club was a Yankee ball club.

He obviously couldn't call to mind the name of the Triple A ball club in Scranton.

And my grandpop was an All-American football player, but he was a great Yankees fan. But it wasn’t hard back in those days. There was Whitey Ford and a few others, but in Delaware, if you are not a Phillies fan, and let me put this way, if I were not a Phillies fan, I’d be sleeping alone. My wife’s a Philly girl. You think I’m kidding. I’m not. But Joe actually played for a year in the Phillies if my memory serves me correctly, but he had fans all over the country. It’s amazing to be both the heart when he was a second baseman, and the voice as one of the great baseball announcers in history, of the same club. I mean, that’s a pretty incredible accomplishment. And so, my best to his family and to his fans, and he has fans all across the country. Folks, as my football coach says, “Go time, Joe.” It’s go time. This is the most important election of our lifetimes, not because I’m running, because what’s at stake....

The Union Terminal is a big conspicuous place in Cincinnati. I've been there. Photo from 2010:

 

So I wonder, how many people were there. The Cincinnati Enquirer reports "Biden spoke for about 35 minutes to about 20 local Democrats and union leaders in the massive rotunda of Cincinnati's Union Terminal." He goes to a "massive rotunda" and only got 20 people? Well, the article says "The event was limited to invited guests in order to follow COVID-19 safety protocols." It also says that local party officials "urged Biden supporters not to show up outside for safety reasons." That's lots of safety... and also lots of protection from creating an embarrassing visual if nobody shows up. 

Here's the Wikipedia article on the Scranton triple A baseball team, and the name of the team in the relevant years — 1919–1988 — was Heritage. Something metaphorical in Biden's forgetting "Heritage," but there's also a lot of basis for confusion as the team has a few different names since then — Red Barons (1989–2006), then Yankees (2007–2012), and now RailRiders (2013–present). [CORRECTION: “Heritage” is the heading for a section on a series of names, not a team name. And this team, in the relevant time period, wasn’t located in Scranton. Biden seems to have been talking about some other minor league team in the Yankee system!]

Why RailRiders? "The team name was submitted by Chuck Parente of Duryea. Although 'RailRiders' received the most first place votes by fans, 'Porcupines' received the most overall fan votes on the ballots ranked one through three. As a result, a porcupine was incorporated in the RailRiders' logo. The name of the team was a tribute to the Wyoming Valley's history as an economic powerhouse and railway center in the eastern parts of the state and Scranton's long contributions to the history of the US railroad and streetcar industries."

"There are two Americas: one fights for Black lives and the other fights for brunch."

This photo went viral on Twitter. As protests continue in the U.S., some say it perfectly captures two different attitudes.

But there's so much more to this photo: https://t.co/5D7aHIigt5 pic.twitter.com/m2cXw2EUzp

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) June 19, 2020

The quote in the post title is in the linked article and from a tweet that made the photo go viral. The photo was taken by Nick Swartsell last month in Cincinnati (in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood).

"Nothing like going to the Cincinnati Zoo and being on lock down due to a polar bear on the loose!"

"Polar bear just got out at the #CincinnatiZoo. We're hiding in the monkey house."

"It's a shame. He took over management in 2008 and he turned the team around, getting into the playoffs..."

"... but they just can't win in the playoffs. That's very important. That's baseball. They say that about all kinds of things, but when a team does not advance, then it's management. I'm sad for Dusty, because I think this will be the end of his career. He had that heart attack last season, and he's 65 or 64, and now, if you'll excuse me, I have things I need to know, like 5 things I need to know about Jodie Foster's new girlfriend."

That's what Meade said when I requested a quote on the occasion of the Cincinnati Reds firing Dusty Baker. Meade, who moved to Madison from Cincinnati, has been a Reds fan since 1972, when the Reds were in the World Series and — Meade starts talking again — "they were just an exciting team. That was the beginning of The Big Red Machine. Probably what really drew me to them in 1972 was Pete Rose. I kind of hated him, but I was fascinated by him."

"So have you learned anything about Jodie Foster's new girlfriend?"

"Yeah, she's Ellen DeGeneres's old girlfriend...."

"Anything else?"

"She's tall, dark, and handsome."

"That might offend people. Is that in the article?"

"Yeah. No."

Last night, in Milwaukee...

... I chose to wear a baseball cap for the first time in my life.

Resisting a robber who points a gun.

A trend in the Bronx.

“You get more resistance in high-crime areas than low-crime areas,” [said Rajiv Sethi, a Barnard College economist]. “People who would not resist have left the areas. Those who stay can’t afford to leave or to give up the little property that they have in their possession.”...

“We are not under siege by the vigilantes and the criminals that come out at night,” said Andy King, a city councilman whose district includes the area. “The pride, the respect factor” takes hold, he said. “It’s a violation, and some people are at a stage in our communities that they will stand up for certain beliefs.”

In the comments, someone from Cincinnati says:

I don't live in NYC and would never live in a city that prefers to allow armed criminals run free while disarming it's citizens. In the midwest city where I live, there were three recent attempted armed robberies. In all three instances, the robber got shot dead by the victim. No expensive trial or costly incarceration. Just dead criminals, each of whom was no stranger to the justice system....

At the Zaha Hadid Café...

... you can talk about the "urban carpet" effect of architecture in a "somewhat declining downtown"... or anything else that might amuse you.

AND: Speaking of questionable interior space, you might what to weigh in on the redecoration of the Oval Office.

ALSO: Here's how LBJ had it:



I took that picture at the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas.

Liberal fascism.

Last night, I posted a picture of Union Terminal in Cincinnati that made Dead Julius say:

Nice American flag drapped just like a big Nazi flag...

In a train station too... You know who liked trains? Nazis! Therefore...

Althouse is a FASCIST! Q.E.D.  (Meade has too much connection to the earth to be called a fascist... he's just a FASCIST-LOVER!)

That station is amazing. So were the fountain sculptures. I wanna visit the city now. One thing on my to-see-in-Cincinnati list is the sculpture of the great Cincinnatus returning the fasces and returning to the plow... the fasces resembles an Uzi.

The link goes to a photo that I didn't take.

Palladian comes in with:

Cincinnati has a replica of the Capitoline She-wolf in Eden Park, presented to the city by none other than Benito Mussolini himself!

And that link does go to an old blog post of mine — with a photo by... well, that's not by me either. By Meade:



Hey! Look at those teats, Tits! This vindicates Alan Simpson. And Jonah Goldberg.

Inside Union Terminal.

(In Cincinnati.)

A superior expanse of roadway.

(Enlarge.)

... somewhere in Cincinnati. This is the kind of thing you know isn't pretty and you'd hate to have in your neighborhood but you have the feeling that if it were a photograph, it would take on a strange, evocative grandeur. Is it wrong to feel that way? Should I be ashamed of myself to find this scene beautiful... but only because I'm not there?

Liberty Tire.

(Enlarge.)

... a building we rolled by ... as we left Cincinnati yesterday.

IN THE COMMENTS: Pogo said:

Classic racist American building.

No doubt the tires had smallpox.

Noting the "Liberty" clue, I interpret the Indian character as a Tea Party protester (of the original Boston Tea Party ilk).

Meade says:

Tired of getting rolled? Assert your naturally endowed rights to Life, Liberty, and Freedom From Being Trod Upon!

The manly mosaic men of Union Terminal.

"German-born artist Winold Reiss was commissioned in 1932 to design murals for the Cincinnati’s railroad station, called Union Terminal.... The 12-foot foreground figures illustrate the workings of people in the developing country.... Winold Reiss drew the portraits from life, and many of his subjects were Cincinnatians."

Lovely Cincinnatians!


(Enlarge.)


(Enlarge.)

Boys and their water animals.

From the base of a fountain in downtown Cincinnati.

Transparencies.

At the Cincinnati Café...

... eat the rich.

At the ball game.

A late night post.

I'm back in Madison now, after 500 more miles of driving.

Yesterday:

Buying meat and booze in Cincinnati.

The Spring Break Nostalgia Café.