Saturday update!

My goodness, the better part of a week has gone by! Whew! So seeing as it's too late to fill you in on things as I was thinking about them, you're going to get a portmanteau blog with your saints, news, and obituaries all rolled into one.

First, today is the feast day of C.S. Lewis, of Narnia fame. I think the thing that I love most about C.S. Lewis' writings, as dated and imperialist as they can most certainly be, is that he was willing to have Christian thinking take form in popular writing styles. I actually like his science fiction trilogy a great deal, though the last book terrified me the first time I read it in high school. My parents were out and I turned on all the lights in the house.

But the point being, I think too many people think spiritual writing needs to sound Spiritual, by which I mean hoity-toity. As if it were better and more Spiritual if it's incomprehensible. And unfortunately, it seems you can fool a lot of people into thinking that if it sounds Spiritual then it probably is. C.S. Lewis did the opposite, overtly writing spiritual texts in a straightforward manner. Which has its own limitations, but at least has the advantage of being entertaining.

In the news this week, I was flabbergasted that there would be any doubt or delay about closing Camp Curry in Yosemite after a rockfall there on October 8. "An Associated Press examination of records found that rockfalls in and around 600-cabin Curry Village have been happening more frequently in the past several years, with two people killed and about two dozen injured since 1996." Part of the camp has been closed, but there's been debate about whether to keep it closed or not.

Here's my favorite quote: "'It's not inaction on our part over the past 10 years,' said Scott Gediman, the park's public affairs officer. 'It's just us saying we're going to do the scientific studies and make decisions based upon that.'"

Talk about bad use of science! And, boy howdy, does that P.A. officer make Yosemite sound like jerks.

Yesterday afternoon, the National Park Service decided to permanently close 1/3 of the cabins in Camp Curry. Excellent lead (lede) in the Chronicle: "Visitors to Yosemite will be less likely to be crushed under a cascade of giant boulders tumbling down from the cliff above Curry Village but may have more difficulty finding lodging under a decision announced Friday by the National Park Service." I'd say not getting crushed under a cascade of boulders is a huge upside.

Among the many wonderful obits of interesting people this week, this opener caught my eye: "Bette S. Garber, the Cartier-Bresson of big-rig trucking, died on Nov. 13 in Philadelphia."

Among the small but lively fraternity of photojournalists who specialize in documenting trucks and truckers, Ms. Garber was considered the foremost in the country.

Did you know there was a small but lively fraternity of photojournalists who specialize in documenting trucks and truckers? I didn't. You really have to read the whole thing. It's delightful.