One commenter at the Guardian arts blog presents the pragmatist’s case for punctuation:

Punctuation is an arbitrary system of marks that writers of a given language agree to use, primarily to avoid ambiguity and increase readability. For example, “the potato’s boiling in the small pot” is an unambiguous phrase until you realise that the person who wrote it may think that “potato’s” is a plural.

In poetry (and sometimes prose), the absence of punctuation (no initial caps, full stops, etc.) is used to create ambiguity and involve the reader. outsideofthesespecificinstanceswhereauthorsdontusepunctuationsoas
toachieveaspecificeffectitsabsenceormis’useisapainintheneck

Brilliant!

Or, What the Hell is Wrong with Americans [e.a.]? 

A recent study by Orbitz, the online travel company, found a drop in the number of people taking three-week or two-week vacations and an increase in those taking a week or less. One-third of respondents said they took five or fewer days of vacation in the past year.

Their reasons?

Nancy Kirk doesn’t have anything against vacations; she just doesn’t consider them worth the effort …

[Professor Wallace Huffman] said it can be difficult for working couples to coordinate time off, and that some people worry that they’ll fall hopelessly behind at work if they take even a few days off.

I sympathize, and I empathize. But come on, folks.  Five days off a year?