Atrios... well, the closest we could come to a photo of the anonymous blogger -- a simulation of his gray turtleneck

Atrios Makes a Difference -- Again!
The Man Who Cost Trent Lott His Leadership Job Has Got Another Bigot in His Sights
by Tamara Baker

Feb. 26, 2004 -- SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA (apj.us) -- Paul Krugman and I don't have as much in common as I'd like (I wish I had his brain and his bank account, for starters), but our web tastes are similar: We both visit the Eschaton weblog every single day.

In case you've only recently started surfing the Web, the Eschaton site -- almost universally referred to as the Atrios blog, after its chief cook and bottlewasher, 'Atrios' of Philadelphia -- is probably the best blog in existence. Atrios makes several posts a day, all of them on issues of the day, and many of them devoted to issues that the mainstream press pays little or no attention. (My personal favorite in this line happen to be his study of how BushCo will release, with great fanfare, wildly inflated employment numbers... and then release revised and deflated numbers a few days later, when the press' attention is elsewhere.) This is one reason why Krugman, along with so many other smartypants types, reads Atrios religiously.

The quality of Atrios' blog -- and his ability to ferret out and showcase the best of his fellow bloggers -- draws a better class of reader. His comments sections are often worthy for use in graduate thesis research. Sure, there's the occasional troll intent on disruption, but for the most part reading the comments section is half the joy of his blog -- which is as it should be for a decent blog.

The high quality of his readership means that when Atrios speaks, people listen -- and act. They did back in December of 2002, when Atrios and Joshua Micah Marshall led the charge to get the press -- the same press that had a week-long freakout over alleged 'improprieties' at Paul Wellstone's farewell service at Williams Arena right before the November 2002 elections -- to notice an actual obscenity being committed right under their noses. It was because of them and their persistence that Trent Lott lost his gig as Senate Majority Leader.

And this week, Atrios and his readers are doing it again.

When visiting the site Wednesday night, I was confronted by a link -- a link I would later find had been submitted by an outraged reader who knew Atrios would share this outrage -- to an editorial by Susan Sanford in the Jasper, Alabama Daily Mountain Eagle, advocating the killing of gays as upholding God's Law.

No, I'm not kidding. Check this out:

The actions of these people were listed along with other
practices that are still considered sin: fornication,
wickedness, covetousness, murder, backbiters, haters of God,
proud, despiteful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to
parents, without natural affection, unmerciful...
"Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such
things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have
pleasure in them that do them." Romans 1:32.
>>>That also seems crystal clear. Those who do such things, and
those who think they are amusing -- or innocent -- are worthy
of death.

"Worthy of death."

How Taliban of Ms. Sanford.

Well, Atrios took one look at that editorial and posted the link to it under the header 'Death to Homosexuals' -- since that is so obviously what this woman is advocating.

The response was immediate and overwhelming.

Before Atrios even had the article linked, one of his readers, having read it from the URL posted in a previous thread's comments section, already had the following info ready to go:

Susan Sanford is the copy editor for the Daily Mountain Eagle.
She can be reached at 205-221-2840, or e-mailed at
jasper@mountaineagle.com.

This was prudent, because by the time Atrios posted the URL on his blog, the Daily Mountain Eagle's server was buckling under the strain from all the web hits it was getting. And e-mail and phone messages were flying into Ms. Sanford's office -- more than I'll bet she's ever had in one day, let alone one week.

But that's not all.

An enterprising reader decided to contact the advertisers on the paper's web site -- or at least as many as he could find on the web site, what with the server undergoing heavy stress.

And several readers who wrote to Ms. Sanford made a point of referencing some Biblical points of law, just as Ms. Sanford does.

Except somehow, I don't think she'll like knowing that the Bible celebrates polygamy (Gen 29:17-28; II Sam 3:2-5), or a man taking 'concubines' in addition to his official wife or wives (II Sam 5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chron 11:21), or executing brides who are not virgins when married (Deut 22:13-21). And while she may or may not agree with the Bible's refusal to permit divorce (Deut 22:19; Mark 10:9), she almost certainly isn't going to hold with being forced to marry, have sex with, and have children by her brother-in-law, should her husband die without issue (Gen. 38:6-10; Deut 25:5-10). Let's not even get into the whole issue of Lot and his daughters (Gen 19:31-36).

Somewhere in Jasper, Alabama, a bloodthirsty copy editor is probably wishing she hadn't typed what she did a few days ago.

And for that, we have Atrios and his alert readership to thank.