Dear Atlantic.com....

So I can't get to any actual stories on your site because I'm running an evil nasty ad blocker (so your pages load in a decent interval and I can actually find them under all the cruft).

Your page explains that you can "help" me whitelist your site so I'll see all of your wonderful ads, which you've worked hard to be sure are safe and reader-friendly. They weren't in the past--you were part of why I got the ad-blocker in the first place--and I can't help noticing that you don't say anything about them being annoying, intrusive, or disguised as editorial content (yes, I still remember your misbehavior in that regard).

Or, if "for any reason" I don't want ads (why wouldn't I? what's wrong with me? who doesn't love ads?) I can cough up approximately the cost of subscribing to the dead-tree version of your magazine, only without getting the dead-tree version.

Did I mention why I hit your site? You consistently produce reasonably accurate, guaranteed non-imflammatory articles that don't take much of a position on anything but do usually get the facts relatively straight. And I've been assigning 4 or 5 articles from your site every semester for one of my courses; that'd be the one with 120 to 150 students per semester.

I know math isn't your long suit, but try to work that out.

So, since you don't care to have me viewing your website, I guess I can stop doing that; you don't offer much that can't be found elsewhere (though I'll miss Coates' writing, but he also shows up in other places).

So enjoy your sanctimony, er, I mean sanctity, and purity, and how you've driven away people who use those nasty old ad-blockers, as you ride that shipwreck all the way to the bottom.

And why am I being so snarky about it? Because apparently you can't raise the money to keep the website going without being annoying (nobody likes a bully), but somehow you still have funds to send your writers off to a week-long junket in Aspen every year. So you'll pardon me if I'm not dripping with sympathy.