The telephone was quite a gift
Ameche’s great invention
Until, for our convenience
We added the extension
Then nosy little brothers
To their sister’s great chagrin
Could pick up a receiver
And discretely listen in
Well, soon those sisters
In pursuit of adolescent pleasures
Resumed communications
With effective counter measures
They knew that when a word is heard
It cannot be deleted
And learned not to enunciate
What they didn’t want repeated
It wasn’t just the telephone
Could get a battle brawlin’
But even ink on paper
Into the wrong hands, fallen
The South controlled the battlefields
McClelland couldn’t beat ‘em
Until he found those battle plans
The day before Antietam
You’d think that we’d have learned by now
Through centuries of fighting
To carefully consider
What we commit to writing
Whether to an enemy
And more so to a friend
Consult your inner editor
Before you click on “SEND”
So that what you compose, my friends
Should not portend your doom
Write only what you’d do and say
With mother in the room
The press enjoy pursuit of pelts
Their belts are made for notching
Big Brother ain’t the only one
That’s listening or watching
This then is the lesson
That all of hist’ry teaches
Clinton, with her emails
And Donald, with his speeches
