Worst part of TikTok not where it’s from

It’s a variety of short videos ranging from amateurish to good production values. Something there for any taste from awesome to stupid. From brilliant to crude, way less of the latter.

I learned a lot about Lake Michigan, it has its own Stonehenge including a stone with a carved mastodon. And now I know how to make a raised garden bed without tools and how to use string to divide it into one-foot squares. One tomato plant per square or 16 radish plants.

There’s a “dragon blood tree” on Socotra island that runs red sap when cut.

There was a demonstration of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony; lots of musical performances including a bespectacled young man in a University of Georgia cap accompanying himself on guitar to a Paul Simon song.

A middle age nurse told me how to respond to being called names — said he was called “old” but having cared for young patients who died, he feels fortunate.

Vintage footage of Trump selling Trump Steaks at Sharper Image, you got 16 for $1,000, out of business in two months.

Lots of dog stories. One about a rescue who saved his owner’s life when he had a stroke. Others told from the dog’s point of view in a Siri voice. Really liked this. Funny. One confessed while sleeping with his owner the dog “let a big one rip” and the owner developed pink eye.

A young man with cerebral palsy wished me a good day.

Learned this Tidbit: Stephen Hawking is only person to have played himself on an episode of Star Trek.

I learned how to husk a coconut. And recipes for almost empty condiment jars. How to cut green onions and to cook Italian, Asian and Southern.

Louis Pasteur invented the first vaccine by accident when he left his work for vacation. Vacations are important.

Bill Nye the Science Guy showed me about entropy.

A former car dealership employee told me what add ons are a ripoff and why I should refuse to pay for them.

A rancher in North Georgia taught me in Cow Facts you need two acres for every cow. A calf is weaned when it is 50 percent of its mother’s weight. I found Cow Facts fascinating.

A psychologist who lives on a farm used the animals to demonstrate life lessons. He noted his son didn’t cut grass the way he did but in the end he got the job done, what’s important. “He’s gonna do greater things than I’ve ever done.” Uplifting.

Turns out brilliant people tend to be sarcastic, anxious and have messy handwriting. There may be hope for me after all. At a book signing once a guy told me “Your handwriting is worse than a doctor. I know, I’m a doctor.”

There was a video of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet trying to fill cones of soft serve ice cream. Gates did better.

Lots of airplane stuff: video of pilot’s view landing and takeoff, info on airplane models, what Epstein flew to his island, stories from cabin attendants and some dude reviewing his trip from Atlanta to Detroit on Delta. Also the conversation between cockpit and tower on Qantas’ last 747 flight, which I found strangely sad.

There is a female comic in a front porch setting making fun with a Southern accent of her neighbors passing by. Hilarious.

Plenty of stunts: jumping off bridges, jumping off cliffs, jumping over cars, skydiving.

Houses of the rich and famous. Fixer up places. Haunted and abandoned places.

Titanic facts, including the conspiracy theory it was her sister ship that went down. It wasn’t. And movie bloopers and mistakes including the movie “Titanic.”

Saw the house where Elliot lived in “ET: The Extraterrestrial.” It’s in the Tonga neighborhood of LA’s San Gabriel Valley. Not the flying bicycle scene. That’s Grenada Hills.

Politics for sure: These people have Trump’s number. Young, their parents and grandparents, a sudden awakening for some, it appears. They review Trump tweets.

Most seemed to be on other platforms too so if TikTok were banned, you can get the material elsewhere except people displaying after a ban would be even more pissed. Fasten those seatbelts. A few showed how to make your Internet think you’re in Canada thus avoiding the ban.

Supposedly the ban would be about security since the company is Chinese. Also learned Google and Facebook collect much more on us. If we lose freedom, one TickToker said, it will be the politicians in Washington, not the Chinese.

The worst part of the app is not that it is a Chinese company. The most dangerous thing about it: Addiction. I was watching a news;  started the app during a commercial break. Two hours later I was still scrolling and that news show was long gone, unnoticed by me.