If you’re seeing this message then you’ve successfully made it to the new Shameless web server. Nothing’s changed with the site—just a whole lot of technical housekeeping on our end. Now back to your regularly scheduled program, already in progress.

Do you know Allison Stokke? Hundreds of thousands of internet users do. Up until recently, if you did know Stokke, it was probably because of her athletic accomplishments; she’s a high school senior with an outstanding track and field record and an athletic scholarship to a state university. But now those accomplishments have arguably been overshadowed by a picture of her from a year ago that was posted to the internet. It’s not even a particularly notable photo; it’s just Stokke fixing her hair at a track meet. But because Stokke is a fit and attractive girl, the photo got the attention of bloggers and forum posters, and within days Stokke’s picture was everywhere. Now she’s hounded by attention from photographers and media outlets all because of the photo:

“Even if none of it is illegal, it just all feels really demeaning,” Allison Stokke said. “I worked so hard for pole vaulting and all this other stuff, and it’s almost like that doesn’t matter. Nobody sees that. Nobody really sees me.”

We’ve gone over this territory before. It’s easier than ever for an embarrassing photo or a private video to be plastered across the web in a matter of days, and sometimes the side effects of that aren’t pretty. The issue is widespread enough that the Ad Council, an advertiser-supported non-profit advocacy group in the United States, created a public service ad campaign warning teens of the potential downsides to posting photos, videos and other personal information online. But the particular case of Allison Stokke seems slightly different.

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Here’s the poster for our upcoming launch party. Spread the word!

We’ve posted some more articles from the most recent issue of Shameless. Feast your eyes:

• Our cover story on the Miss G__ Project;


• A profile of folk-roots rocker and Winnipeg native Jessee Havey;


• Dr. Anne Katz’s tips on how to prevent HPV;


• and in The Last Word, we take on the word “chick.”

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Forbes appears to be in quite a spot of trouble after a controversial article from Michael Noer about the apparently dim prospect of marrying “career” women. The article, originally posted August 22 but subsequently taken down and reposted with a counterpoint,, contained some choice tidbits seemingly designed to raise the ire of working women everywhere:

While everyone knows that marriage can be stressful, recent studies have found professional women are more likely to get divorced, more likely to cheat, less likely to have children, and, if they do have kids, they are more likely to be unhappy about it. A recent study in Social Forces, a research journal, found that women—even those with a “feminist” outlook—are happier when their husband is the primary breadwinner.

“Those with a ‘feminist’ outlook” shot back in droves. Boing Boing archived parts of the article after Forbes took it down. The blog Pandagon saved the accompanying sidebar that still has not resurfaced on the website. Another blog, Feministe, fired off a point-by-point riposte. Jennifer Saylor took the simpler route of merely changing all the gender pronouns to create Don’t Marry Career Men. And Salon managed to elicit responses from the likes of Gloria Steinem and Travelocity CEO Michelle Peluso. Ah, but Jack Shafer at Slate would like to remind you that the article isn’t all that offensive, chastising women ready to “break their nails pounding out angry e-mails to me” while at the same time debunking some of Noer’s points. Maybe if he dropped the attitude his point would come across clearer.

This isn’t the first time one of Noer’s articles has come under fire. (While other bloggers have noted that “The Economics of Prostitution” was taken down along with “Don’t Marry Career Women,” it appears to be back on the Forbes site.)

New content from our latest issue, set to hit newsstands and mailboxes momentarily, is now up on the website! Check out the advice column on sexual harassment, which includes a page of additional resources that we couldn’t get into the print edition. We’ve also got this month’s mixtape courtesy of Controller.Controller’s Nirmala Basnayake, who not only sent us a pretty CD of her selections but also a set of liner notes. And of course there’s the monthly letter from the editors—this month, the eds look back at a glorious two-year reign.