This, like many of the New Yorker's cartoons, is supposed to be funny, but falls short of that mark. Besides the ultimate simplicity of the joke (which might appeal to second-graders, there is the question of WHY this bandaged man sat down to play another game of chess with his violent opponent. The joke is overly simple and at the same time it doesn't make a whole lot of sense -- I would not have published this. In Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s article, "Family Matters," the author details his families oral history and the way modern science is changing that picture. Descended from an unknown white man and the mulatto Jane Gates of the pre-Civil War era, it had long been family legend that this line of Gates had been fathered by Jane's owner Samuel Brady. The author's research and DNA testing proves this wasn't the case, and the article looks into the social and scientific ramifications of that...

He starts by describing his childhood interest in his genealogy and family history, building many of his ideas on the family legend of Brady's paternity. He and his family do not hesitate to discover the truth, however, and are not disappointed in the slightest by the revelation that they are not Brady's descendants. Typical of his upbeat yet factual style, the author notes that "for my cousin John Gates, there will always be two stories about our ancestry: the story that our genes tell, and the story that our ancestors told" (Gates, 37). Just like good journalism, Gates' family history consists of hard facts and conjectured narrative, and so long as the conjecture is well evidenced and properly labeled, it can only be an…