It seems that the genius of my open response was initially lost on both Brian and Eric—and so it was probably lost on everyone else, too. What follows are the instructions I provided for Eric and Brian to enjoy my open letter to its fullest:

1. Read Brian's open letter to me
2. Read the GT editorial I link to ("grand scheme of things") to get an overall picture of the other things I refer to in my setup
3. Read Kulongowski's open letter ("thrown down his gauntlet"), which I parallel to Brian's open letter
4. Read Karen Minnis' open response ("Dear Meddler Brian")
5. Finally, Recognize (that I'm immensely clever to find a parallel, timely, open-letter situation to poke fun at and use as the basis for my response)