Finally, the erstwhile gentler sex of the lactating variety suffered grievous insult when another airline asked a nursing mother to exit a plane for ``indiscreet nursing.''

Emily Gillette was sitting by a window in the next-to-last row, with her husband planted between her and the aisle, when the attendant proffered a blanket. When Gillette declined to cover herself -- and her 22-month-old child -- a gate agent asked the family to deplane.

Gillette has filed a complaint with the Vermont Human Rights Commission against both Delta Air Lines and Freedom Airlines, which was operating the Delta flight from Burlington to New York City.

Insult one lactating mom and you insult all breast-feeders, apparently. Some 30 parents and their children demonstrated their solidarity with Gillette by staging a ``nurse-in'' at the Burlington airport.

Sidebar to politicians: Forget soccer and security moms. Think lactating. Breast-feeding moms are increasingly assertive, they're organized, and they're endowed with a peerless arsenal known to be especially effective against men. And, they make milk.

To all, of course, apologies are due -- and have been delivered. But shouldn't they also be accepted without our having to clutter courtrooms with weeping couches?

Society has a way of sorting these things out. Racist comedians die slow deaths when no one books their shows, while airlines that unwisely discriminate pay in lost customers.

Of all these self-proclaimed victims, it seems, Gillette's child has the greater claim. Who, after all, would deny a hungry baby her nums-nums? And where would they have her sup -- the loo?

Despite the extreme silliness of these inflated reactions, I find them oddly gratifying. As we're negotiating hurt feelings at home, imams elsewhere are debating the merits of female genital mutilation, while sectarian Iraqis simply blow each other up and radical Islamists answer insults with honor killings.

All things considered, I'd rather be embarrassed in America.