It had all the details of a perfectly tailored meta meme. Working mom wrenches herself from warm bed, heads to a NYC airport in the dark, watches the last vestige of her plane comfort (Burt’s Bees lip balm) get confiscated, and doesn’t even finish her coffee before it’s time to board. But, she does get to watch a TV news update, featuring the Forbes.com writer (male, of course), who took such an offensive posture that masses of psychotically busy working women were inspired to find a non-existent second to get to their keyboards and fire into the ether. And honestly, crackberry web-browsing being slightly more efficient, I might’ve joined them before a well-meaning flight-attendant turned me off. Who, incidentally, wouldn’t have been there in the ideal world of said Forbes writer. I mean, the reasons - economic, political, cultural - of why his premise is insane, not to mention, inane, are too long and tedious to list.

So. People wrote emails. Posted comments (thousands of them). Just another day, right? Mass opinionating. So what? Well, the story got pulled.

Let’s talk about that. Snakes on a plane plot-changes, check. American Idol chosen, done. CNN.com vote cast, yep. But in this case, we’re not talking entertainment or user-choice. We’re talking old media. Uniquely patriarchal, financially-based old media. And when that particularly stodgy magazine not only ripped down the story, but Mr. Forbes himself apologized, a small barely perceptible crack appeared in the glass ceiling, and the real power of human outcry became evident.

The posting/re-posting of the male vs female point of view will keep feminists, genderologists and humorists busy for awhile. But the real story has to be how this week, a whole lot of people took an old media pundit to task. The peeps took to their keyboards. And, old media (rather rapidly) responded.

How sacred are online stories? Apparently, when enough outrage is voiced, not so much.