It seems worth reporting that the Hemings-Jefferson paternity disbelievers are introducing their book today at the National Press Club: The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy -- Report of the Scholars Commission, edited by Robert F. Turner, $45.00, 432 pages, http://www.cap-press.com/books/isbn/9780890890851/The+Jefferson-Hemings+Controversy .

I hope this report doesn't ignite a fiasco debate in this forum. More importantly, I also hope that we won't see too much toxicity in the international conversation that today's news has already started in the Washington Times (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/aug/30/new-book-disputes-claim-jefferson-fathered-childre/), in the Drudge Report's link to that article, and in the U.K.'s Daily Mail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2032467/Study-doubts-claims-Thomas-Jefferson-fathered-slave-Sally-Hemings-son-Eston.html).

(Note for Jurretta Heckscher: Despite my distraction by the decidedly non-irenic Irene, I still owe you that Fort-Monroe-snookered-historians answer, and I want to supply it.)

Steven T. Corneliussen
Poquoson, Virginia

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