Professor Hardwick:



You state that I make "ad hominen" [appealing to personal interests, 
prejudices, emotions rather than to reason] attacks and impute motivations 
to other people. I disagree with your accusation; and furthermore I accuse 
you of making ad hominen attacks on me. And since when are posters held to 
limit or expand their introductory comments to the scrutiny you make of 
mine, and that I make "claims". You state "Her [Gordon-Reed's] latest book 
presumes the truth of the argument she makes in her earlier book. You will 
note, if you check her footnotes, that she is quite straight forward about 
this assumption. This . is exactly what scholars are supposed to do." I 
disagree. And I have watched and heard her at interviews state definitely 
that Thomas Jefferson is the father of all of Sally Heming's children. 
Regarding Professor Kiracofe, I think some of his questions and comments are 
well advised, and I answered them. He states "They [scholars] have merely 
accumulated a series of facts, analyzed them in reasonable ways, and 
presented an interpretation that builds upon that analysis." Yeah, but if 
they make their interpretations of significance and importance famous to 
repeated groups of students or in books and films, and they repeatedly 
ignore and do not report available and most compelling evidence which would 
lead to other conclusions, they are misleading and misusing their positions 
of authority; and responders should not be forbidden to evaluate that.



If a writer is writing about a family, and states that the mother of that 
house, who has been repeatedly warned to correct the problems, for many 
years has allowed garbage and trash on counters, furniture, the floors, and 
there is an abundance of roaches and broken glass where infants crawl; you 
would prohibit that writer from concluding that house was dangerous and the 
mother's housekeeping standards must be improved or other corrective actions 
should be taken. This is not a personal attack. In the case where a teacher 
or writer is paid for their work and at work they repeatedly make 
unqualified statements or write that a public figure of great significance 
fathered multiple children by a slave, which was against the stated 
principles of that public figure; and even though there is an abundance of 
evidence which they repeatedly ignore and exclude against their statement, 
and no evidence to prove the statement that as an unqualified fact, he was 
the father of all or any of this slave's children, you consider objecting to 
their statements personal and unreasonable.



I wrote:     "And some 'scholars' that state in writing and lectures that he 
was the father of Eston and or more of her children are those that own and 
work for Monticello and are professors at the University of Virginia, both 
institutions that were founded by Thomas Jefferson. They have a fundamental 
responsibility not to lie and deface their founder Thomas Jefferson. With 
its present administration, I think the Monticello Corporation has no reason 
to continue as a public facility representing Thomas Jefferson, its founder, 
or United States history. Academia would be better off without those that 
misstate, deceive, lie, and prosecute their institutions' founder, instead 
of presenting the available information and wherever it may lead. 
[Underlining added.] They should be removed from their positions of 
responsibility. THIS IS NOT A PERSONAL UNREASONABLE ATTACK.



 "I emphatically question the motives of people who have an agenda to 
publish BIASED AND MISINFORMING opinions and conclusions [and to the extent 
that they ignore most pertinent scientific evidence and historic evidence, 
LIES]." THIS IS NOT A PERSONAL "AD HOMINEN" ATTACK.



"Raping the legacy of Thomas Jefferson is a disservice to society." If 
someone is salaried for stating as a fact that you fathered 7 children whose 
mother was a neighbor, 3 of which were when she was a minor, and there is no 
proof; and the evidence would lead to the conclusion you did not do any of 
this - they are raping your reputation. HOW POLITE AND CIVIL IS THAT?? Don't 
expect people to walk in straight lines when following snakes.



To quote Brent Tarter's preceding memo "The DNA investigations and the 
science are interesting but never likely to be conclusive." But the paid 
professionals I am complaining about are not equivocal. They make repeated 
statements, and leave a definite impression (possibly if you read a footnote 
on one page out of 100 you would get a most vague qualification to something 
else vague somewhere else) that Thomas Jefferson was the father of one, 
more, or all of Thomas Jefferson's slave Sally's children.



I think it is pitiful that it takes a retired, unemployed person to launch 
into this topic - A TOPIC CRICITCAL OF SCHOLARSHIP STANDARDS which is 
definitely one of the issues at hand: issues such as historical accuracy 
versus fiction versus lying versus malpractice. And when one does they are 
accused of being "personal", "unreasonable", "uncivil" and "impolite". This 
is the only posting that I have made in many months. I did not refer to 
postings on this VA HISTORY web site.  And personally I'm glad the repeated, 
same thing over and over about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings stopped. 
Per Professor Kiracofe "And so we are left with the historical evidence 
which we have to analyze and interpret and we should be honest as we do so." 
If he does this, I agree with him. "But I cannot see the good in ceding this 
forum to posts such as the lengthy one from Adrian Zolkover. few [I 
disagree] of the facts are relevant to the question of Jefferson's paternity 
of Hemings' children." Here Professor Kiracofe would limit the ability of 
any poster to present information carefully taken from carefully documented 
books about Thomas Jefferson - that in my estimation contribute, most 
directly, to explaining the person Thomas Jefferson, the man many "scholars" 
state is the father to slave Sally's child or children. Professor Kiracofe 
states ".Thus I believe, she [Adrian Zolkover] does a disservice to this 
list." I think Professor Kiracofe is doing a disservice to this list by this 
opinion. If you object to the topic of standards of scholarship, say that.



I think the public and many scholars have been deafened to the level of 
sound bites. Bites back.



Adrian Zolkover



----- Original Message ----- 
From: <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2009 2:54 AM
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] THOMAS JEFFERSON'S LIFE HISTORY


> Adrian--
>
> I think you would be well served not to impute motivations to other 
> people.  I do not object to you disagreeing with me (or anyone else).  I 
> do object to you doing so by making ad hominem attacks on my character (or 
> that of anyone else with whom you are disagreeing in this forum).  This is 
> what you do to Professor Kiracofe in the post I append below.  There is no 
> call for that, and I for one would be grateful if you would refrain from 
> such incivility in the future.  It really is possible for you to disagree 
> with someone else politely.  Its a skill.  I urge you to practice it.
>
> Your earlier post purported to be a neutral reporting of the facts. 
> However, it contained a number of judgments and conclusions, some of which 
> are not sustained by the facts you adduce.  In this sense, Professor 
> Kiracofe is correct to chide you for being misleading.  You claim to do 
> one thing, but actually do something else entirely.  He is not blind to 
> your points at all--he has merely stated, accurately, that your post 
> claims to be doing one thing, and in actuality is doing something else.
>
> I agree with you, by the way, that Annette Gordon-Reed's latest book is 
> weak.  However, we should note that her latest book presumes the truth of 
> the argument she makes in her earlier book.  In this sense, she is not 
> lying at all--she is merely assuming that the truth of the argument she 
> makes, in some close detail, in a prior book.  You will note, if you check 
> her foot-notes, that she is quite straight forward and open about this 
> assumption.  This is not lying or disingenuous at all--it is exactly what 
> scholars are supposed to do.  I think her argument in her latest book is 
> based on a bad assumption, and is in that sense is one with which I can 
> not agree.  I do not, however, think you or anyone else can legitimately 
> accuse her of lying.  She makes it quite clear in her annotations exactly 
> what she is assuming, and why, and refers her readers to the books on 
> which she is relying.
>
> Kevin
> Kevin R. Hardwick, Ph.D.
> Department of History
> James Madison University
>
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