Working in Ottawa today --We are amused

Good morning folks, I will be working in Ottawa today.

A few items that should be included in today's email..

----------

Today is election day in Ontario.  Get yer asses out to VOTE!  I plan on bemoaning fiscal and social policies through out the next four years and if you didn't vote, you won't be able to join in and express your opinion.  Don't be irrelevant, VOTE!

I had no faith that I could get back to Mississauga in time to vote this evening, so I voted yesterday by special ballot.

----------

Steve Jobs has passed away yesterday at the age of 56 after a battle with Pancreatic cancer.  Over the last 10 years, after 10 years in exile, Jobs reformed Apple computers, the company that he co-founded in 1977.

---------

I started to pen a brief tutorial on how not to get conned by Social Engineering, be it phone calls, phishmail, or lurkers checking out your monitor for PostIt-Note! passwords. When I typed a sentence with the words," ..and then we have..".  My attention was transfixed to the word "we".

It was clear to me that I really meant you, but I had used the literary device, we.  The more I thought about the we device, then more interesting the topic seemed.

You (we) surely are familiar with the Royal We, bet you didn't know that it started likely with William Longchamp in the 12 century (remember him in that film about William Wallace?).  The use of we actually refers to both the Royal and God, collectively.  Solves that little puzzle of how royalty can appoint bishops.

How about the use of the Patronizing We?  The doctor asking, "and how are we feeling today?".  I don't know about you doc, but I have this pain on my neck.  

Queen Victoria's "We are not amused.". she was not actually invoking the Royal we, but speaking for herself and the women of the court according to Caroline Holland in Notebooks of a Spinster Lady, 1919.

The editorial or author's we suggests an assumptive agreement, that the readers agree with the editorial position or share in the knowledge.  This can be as a conclusion to a logical construction, "Take 10 and 5 and then we have 15" or just as agreement to a particular opinion or position, "Raising the blood alcohol limit will reduce the incidence of drunk driving?  What we have here is an absurdity."

There is the We of Solidarity, We shall overcome.  We, the People in the Preamble of the United States Constitution.  We are not ashamed, Joan Jett.

Let's have a good day shall We :)