You can have my Oxford Comma

credit: Dona Nobis Pacem

when you pry it out of my cold, dead, and decomposing hands.

Although it seems that rumors of its demise have been exaggerated.  As Linda Holmes at NPR explains,

... there was a rumbling that the University of Oxford was dumping its own comma. As it turned out, this wasn't the case.  They haven't changed their authoritative style guide, but they've changed their internal PR department procedures that they use for press releases. The PR department and the editorial department are two different things, so this doesn't necessarily mean much of anything, except that it's maybe a little embarrassing to have the PR department of the university with which you're affiliated abandon your style guide.

You know who's really excited by this news?  Stephanie Meyer.  By Reasoning with Vampires' count, she's never met a comma she didn't like.

source

source

via bookshelves of doom

#musicmonday: English Beat

Summer Song Favorites: 'Save It For Later' : NPR

Woman was made to play guitar. Shout, Sister, Shout!

I like to think I'm pretty knowledgeable about the roots of rock and soul, but I had never heard of Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Thank the gods for NPR, because this woman was 

BAD.  ASS.

Tharpe was a self-taught guitarist, and she strutted around a stage strumming windmills decades before Chuck Berry or Pete Townsend. Her 1945 crossover hit "Strange Things Happening Everyday" was later covered by Jerry Lee Lewis, and admired by Elvis Presley, Little Richard and Bob Dylan.

In the pantheon of mod'ren music, I don't think it's a stretch to say she was the Hera to every rock god that came later.







Sister Rosetta Tharpe: Etched In Stone At Last : NPR Music

George Foreman knocks out the fat!

My Foreman Grill finally, FINALLY arrived! Yay!  The market for celebrity endorsed cookers has really expanded since the original hit the market.

30 Rock - The Meat Machine | Movies & TV | SPIKE.com

Mr. T pities the fool that doesn't turbo cook his food.

Speak softly and carry a big stick

NPR's Morning Edition had a great piece yesterday about the "Pink Sari Gang".  In a part of India where corruption is rampant and justice is fleeting, one woman, Sampat Devil Pal, got mad as hell and decided she wasn't going to take it anymore. When one of her friends was assaulted - and the authorities did nothing - she organized a group of women to push the police for action.

Sometimes she uses persuasion or shame ... and when that doesn't work, the sticks come out.

These sticks are called lathis. The police in India beat people with them when they want to keep crowds in line. Sampat demonstrates her combat skills, grinning as she spars with an office assistant. The lathis are mainly for self-defense, she says. But the Pink Sari Gang sometimes uses them in anger.

Ms. Pal: (Through Translator) These days, we use them mainly on drunk men. What else are we supposed to do with men that drink and misbehave with women?

Preach it sister.

Corrupt police and officials, looking for a handout? Not on her watch:

There's a story about Sampat going to the police to try to release a man whom she thinks the police arrested purely to get a bribe. This is Sampat's version of what happened after the police turned her away.

Ms. Pal: (Through Translator) The next day, I took my gang of several hundred women, all with lathi sticks. We surrounded the police station. We beat the police officers sitting outside the station. The other policemen came out with their lathi sticks. Our women then got very aggressive and started beating up the police, and then we tied them up.

She's not just a vigilante though. She uses her fame and growing stature to improve the conditions in her community. Including discouraging the marriage of underage girls. She herself was entered into an arranged marriage at twelve.

Ms. Pal: (Through Translator) A man will never have enough guts to raise a hand against me. I would just slap him back into place. If a woman really wants to, she can put a man in his place.