Funny that HLG offered to go to Detroit to talk it over... guess he's still on that "Beer Summit"

Ben Affleck suppressed slave-owning ancestry, hacked Sony emails claim

Gates on Affleck's slave-owning ancestor: "And he wasn’t even a bad guy. We don’t demonize him at all. Now Anderson Cooper’s ancestor was a real s.o.b.; one of his slaves actually murdered him"

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/apr/18/ben-affleck-pbs-ancestor-slave-owner-henry-louis-gates

The film star Ben Affleck asked television chiefs to hide the fact that one of his ancestors was a slave owner, according to a newly published batch of hacked emails involving the media giant Sony.

The host of the show, Henry Louis Gates, a prominent Harvard history professor, appeared upset by the apparently unprecedented request but the sensitive facts were nonetheless left out of the show, which aired last September.

On Friday, Gates issued a statement in which he said: “We are very grateful to all of our guests for allowing us into their personal lives and have told hundreds of stories in this series including many about slave ancestors – never shying away from chapters of a family’s past that might be unpleasant.

“Ultimately, I maintain editorial control on all of my projects and, with my producers, decide what will make for the most compelling programme. In the case of Mr Affleck we focused on what we felt were the most interesting aspects of his ancestry – including a Revolutionary War ancestor, a third great–grandfather who was an occult enthusiast, and his mother who marched for civil rights during the Freedom Summer of 1964.”

"i fear no fate" e.e. cummings
"No girl. No fried chicken. I'm going back to get some sleep." - Haruki Murakami