Atrios
American Dr. Duncan B. Black, known under his internet publishing pseudonym as Atrios, is the author of the popular liberal weblog Eschaton, which receives an average of over 100,000 hits per day. On June 29 2005, Atrios, reacting to possible Federal Election Commission regulations that he feared would impinge upon bloggers' right to support and solicit donations to political candidates, redesignated Eschaton, without change of content, "An Online Magazine of News, Commentary, and Editorial," rather than a blog. Atrios is also a regular commentator on Air America Radio's The Majority Report. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and their cats Wiley and Gizmo, whose pictures he often features on Eschaton.
He holds a PhD in economics from Brown University. He previously worked at the London School of Economics, the Université catholique de Louvain, the University of California at Irvine, and recently, Bryn Mawr College. Black is now a Senior Fellow at the media research group, Media Matters for America.
For a long time, Atrios (who apparently emerged from the Internet forums of The WELL) remained pseudonymous and joked that he was actually a high school gym teacher. However, during the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, he revealed that he had accepted a job at Media Matters for America and allowed his name and photo to be published. Black later said that he blogged psuedononymously as an academic to avoid attacks like those unleashed on Timothy Shortell.[1]
According to Black, the name "Atrios" is actually a (misspelled) reference to a character named Antrios in the play Art, who paints the central "white painting on white canvas" in the play.
Eschaton
The online magazine / blog, whose name is a reference to an imaginary sport (invented in the novel Infinite Jest) that Black considered a fitting metaphor for American political discourse, is perhaps the second most popular and influential among left-identified weblogs, after Daily Kos. Its style is snarkier and more personal, featuring generally short entries written almost always by Black - and very occasional guests - that range from satire to policy commentary to breaking news and links. Mockery of right-wing figures who are seen as buffoonish is a familiar staple. Posts are frequent, often coming at a rate of 10 or more per day.
Eschaton also means the last thing. Eschatology, a branch of theology, is the study of those phenomena associated with the end of the world. The Eschaton is conceived of as a boundaryless and causeless chaotic attractor that is drawing all space and time deeper into states of novel connection and complexity.