March 25, 2017

Dear Mr. Adams,

You are indeed wise to correspond in print. For while my dear post office may still want for speed, it does not want for relevance. If Mr. Assange is to mine our communique, his pedophiliac fingers will require at least latex gloves and a plunger—I have burned your letter and tossed it in the loo!

And pity as your writing exhilarates me more than all the wine. I was inclined to imbibe in it as much, as your prose is elegant and your efforts at self-improvement are entertaining. But if there are three things known to be extremely hard; steel, diamond and knowing one’s self, you are proving that there is a fourth, perhaps harder still: remaking one’s self. In your case, I am glad of it. I dare consider our chances for independence had you been merely meditating and performing downward facing dogs in Philadelphia. Your temper may offend, but is a resource that might well again fuel our nation’s conscience. I thus hope you do not entirely lose the virtues of a lost temper.

Regardless, as you rightly note, no state of mind will make us more capable of hacking. For that we need expertise. We are as much novices with this as we are with sober breakfasting, but I am quick at work learning. Along with Mr. Steele, I have made some cyber friends in former Wallachia and am studying the geography of Cyprus and the art of passwords, while I have also taken to the Segway electric vehicle, a contraption that uses the same fundamental principle as the Leyden jar, but without the grace or haute couture. It is, as so many inventions today, one primarily of amusement in lieu of improvement. But I have found it enough to evade the occasional security guard or sheriff, and I find too that it relieves my gout as I am much fatigued traveling between sportsbooks. Villanova has cost me more than an executive suite during this month of madness.  

I do not fret, however. At present my microwaving oven is no more capable of espionage than properly popping corn, but I am confident that in due time I can tame other devices. We have little alternative. The election may have brought anger and ignorance, but it brought as well the knowledge that time travel is plainly never possible and thus it is upon us to mend what we are able, here and now.

I trust that we will, Mr. Adams. I shall travel the world and the world wide web. But you would do well to look again at what we have heretofore seen and read again what we have heretofore written ages hence. The answers need not be concealed. The truth may not be as promiscuous as those ladies behind the Excalibur, but nor is she a Puritan. She will wait patiently for us.

Believe me, your most humble and dedicated friend,

B. Franklin