Go, Team Oxford Comma!

[Source]

Oxford commas are important.

There's a court case decision that shows it's always important, and not just academically correct. (Hush up, Academics Against the Oxford Comma - you are objectively Wrong.)

Here's the scoop: a dairy delivery company in Maine had a nice, long list of activities that didn't qualify for overtime pay for their workers.

The canning, processing, preserving,
freezing, drying, marketing, storing,
packing for shipment or distribution of:
(1) Agricultural produce;
(2) Meat and fish products; and
(3) Perishable foods.

Now, the entire case hinged on the phrase "packing for shipment or distribution." Does it refer to two separate activities ("packing for shipment" and "distribution"), both of which are exempted, or does it refer to one activity ("packing for shipment or distribution") and leave the actual distribution off the list? There's enough ambiguity in the phrasing that the court ruled in favor of the drivers, who felt entitled to overtime wages. If the company had used the Oxford comma, as is clearly the Way of Righteousness, there would have been no confusion.

So, kiddos, remember - always use the Oxford comma, and keep this list of links to show anyone who says it's not necessary:

• The Oxford Comma: Great For Listing, Pontificating, And Winning Court Cases
• A court’s decision in a Maine labor dispute hinged on the absence of an Oxford comma 
• An Oxford comma changed this court case completely

Also, a cool video:

Now, who's ready for a pretty picture?

Links!

• Library Land
• 7 Books That Give Us Library Envy  Personally, I'd like to work for The Library at Mount Char, but the competition for a position there is too fierce.
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: 'Can people please stop telling me feminism is hot?' "'I’m already irritated,' Adichie says. 'This idea of feminism as a party to which only a select few people get to come: this is why so many women, particularly women of colour, feel alienated from mainstream western academic feminism. Because, don’t we want it to be mainstream? For me, feminism is a movement for which the end goal is to make itself no longer needed. I think academic feminism is interesting in that it can give a language to things, but I’m not terribly interested in debating terms. I want people’s marriages to change for the better. I want women to walk into job interviews and be treated the same way as somebody who has a penis.'"
• Alec Baldwin to co-write book as President Trump "On Wednesday, Penguin Press announced that they would be publishing a book co-written by Baldwin and Kurt Anderson, a parody political memoir lampooning Trump’s first year in office called You Can’t Spell America Without Me: The Really Tremendous Inside Story of My Fantastic First Year as President Donald J. Trump."
• Disappearing Books: How Russia Is Shuttering Its Ukrainian Library "Officially, what is happening to the library -- its 52,000 books are being transferred to Russia's main foreign language library -- is 'a change of address' not a closure.  But the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, some of the library's employees, and members of Russia's large Ukrainian diaspora say it is a closure in all but name."
• Health, Science, & Technology
• Don’t look now, but reality is winning the climate debate "...[A]s President Trump figures out how to roll back his predecessor’s efforts on climate policy, something interesting has happened: Gallup polling suggests that Americans have broadly accepted the science — and risks — of global warming.... The irony to all of this, of course, is that the country recently elected the most fervently anti-climate change president in its history. After a decade-long fight, those who accept the reality of climate change have managed to convince America of what’s going on. That this one particular man who just moved into the White House isn’t convinced will likely end up meaning that those seeking action on climate change find themselves in a worse position than when America was skeptical but its elected leaders weren’t." 
• Related: The Great Barrier Reef is bleaching yet again, and scientists say only swift climate action can save it "No matter what you try to do to care for coral reefs locally, the researchers suggest that you can’t protect them from global warming without controlling temperatures themselves."
• Humpback whales are organizing in huge numbers, and no one knows why  "At one point about 90 percent of the world’s humpbacks had been hunted down, but they've been on the rise since becoming a protected species in 1996. Maybe humpbacks were always this social, and there just weren’t enough of them for us to notice."
• Randomnesses
• Unused gift cards total $44B since 2008: study Wowzers! I know what I'm not getting people for Christmas.
• U.S. News
• Former Drug Czar Says GOP Health Bill Would Cut Access To Addiction Treatment "'We know that people with addiction, and particularly in the opioid epidemic, need access to high quality health care in general,' Botticelli told NPR."
• Trump budget will slash the EPA, State Department, Amtrak, Meals on Wheels grants  Meals on Wheels, guys. Also, the "Food for Peace Program, a State Department program that distributes food assistance in emergencies such as famine and natural disaster, and does some non-emergency food relief, will face 'drastic reductions.'" 
• There's more: Trump’s budget calls for seismic disruption in medical and science research I'm sure the President is leaning hard on his science advisor's opinion on what to cut. Oh, wait, he doesn't have a science advisor. Never mind. Related: Trump Budget Would Slash Biomedical and Science Research Dollars
• Trump defends Obama wiretapping charges, predicts ‘very interesting items’ to be revealed  "'Let's see whether or not I proved it,' Trump said. 'You looked at some proof. I mean, let's see whether or not I prove it. I just don't choose to do it right now. … I think we have some very good stuff, and we're in the process of putting it together, and I think it's going to be very demonstrative.'"