Consuming and Creating: Part 6: Screen Time

Yep I'm back on this subject again. I have several nieces and nephews and I have seen all of them over the holidays. Screen time seems like a big issue parents have to make decisions on. Especially in this technology saturated society. Watching movies, TV shows and youtube videos, and other people playing computer games. Playing computer/tablet games. All of those things are part of screen time. But I think there is a difference, a better and best if you will.
All the types of screen time above are recreational, but I wouldn't say they are all necessarily consuming activities. I think playing games like mahjong or tetris or candy crusher can be an exercise for your mind. Sandbox building games like minecraft and terraria let you be creative. And watching other people play games can build relationships. I suppose watching movies or TV shows can do that as well. Of course all these have to be done in moderation or they can become mind numbing. Basically I'm just saying that screen time can vary a lot, and some is actually very creative. Screen time isn't always consumption even when it is a game.
After all I normally spend quite a bit of time in front of the computer, writing and artwork.

Honorable War Wounds

I became enthralled by Brian Jacques' Redwall series when I was about in third grade, and really liked them for a long time.
In one of them, (Salamandastron maybe) they talk about having Honorable War Wounds. I remember loving the phrase and using it frequently with my brothers in reference to scratches and bruises we obtained from run of the mill playing.
The past couple of weeks I have been spending a lot of time with some of my nephews and we have done a fair amount of roughhousing. I have a bruise on my hand, my heel and my foot. The one on my foot is the most painful, but you can barely see it. I find it a tad disappointing. Why have Honorable War Wounds if no one can even tell!
Although I suppose there are sometimes that not showing your bruises is helpful.

Antecedent Confusion

I am Not a grammarian. Is that a word? Anyway, I am not an expert on grammar. Never have been... except maybe for a week in seventh grade where we learned grammar rules and I thought it was so easy, and I understood it. Then I took the test, and I never did recover that knowledge.
Anyway. I'm writing a book and I had a friend help with the read through (among other people). She was an English major in college and she knows her grammar. At least a lot better than I do.
Anyway she is always writing "fix this, there is antecedent confusion." Or something like that. Meaning the pronouns are not clear. And now I finally get to the point.
Since she (meaning the before mentioned English major friend) has started writing that (meaning "antecedent confusion") I have noticed how often in writing, and conversation antecedent confusion actually occurs.
Like that last sentence for instance.
Sometimes I just want to stop and say "Antecedent Confusion!" but instead I settle for:
Wait who? Where are you talking about? Are you talking about cookies?

Historic versus Cultural

Japan

A couple of years ago I wrote about how different Nativities can be. I was noticing it again this year, but a different aspect of it. No one really knows what that scene looked like so long ago, and yet there are thousands, if not millions of representations of it. My Mom collects nativities, and many of them are from different countries. I just find it fascinating how even though we do know something of the culture and dress of the original Nativity, people have put there own culture into the Nativity sets they make. Because ultimately they aren't trying to represent a historically accurate event but they are putting themselves into the situation of the Christchild's birth. Or at least that's how I see it. So all nativities show truth, show the reality of God in a culture, in a home, in a life.

Philippines

Honduras (we think)