To: B.L., From: T.M., Re: Your Recent Actions -- Cease and Desist. I Do Not Require Your Assistance. You're Just Embarrassing Yourself

Nicole Coombs, 22, says she was discreetly nursing 4-month-old Brahm at the Starbucks at 1451 Ocean Dr. when a manager ordered her out May 18.

But Starbucks spokesman Alan Hilowitz described a different sequence of events. He said Sunday that a store manager asked Coombs to leave when she refused to stop changing her baby's diapers on a table inside the coffeehouse.

''She continued to change her baby and then she was asked to leave. There was no mention of breast-feeding whatsoever,'' Hilowitz said. ``We welcome nursing mothers in all of our stores. We always have.''

Coombs maintains that the reason for her ouster was breast-feeding, not diaper-changing.

''Yes. I did change him inside after I breast-fed him, of course,'' Coombs said Sunday. ``But that's not why he asked me to leave.

Um, yeah, see, but it sure sounds like it was.

I hate to take the side of "The Man" against that of one of my comrades in the revolutions* against oppression in race, class, and gender, but sweet suckling Jesus! Come on!

You were "discreetly" breast-feeding?! Do you mean as in "careful and circumspect in your actions to avoid causing offense," "intentionally unobtrusive?" If you do, comrade, let me say in regards to your efforts, based on that picture, "Not so much."

But that's beside the point. If Brahm needs nourishment in Starbucks, by all means, nipple the lad up. That's your right: Go for it.

But you don't have a right to turn the dining area into a diaper genie. Hey, I'm sure, little Brahm's bowels produce the most adorable ass slag, but you'll have to forgive me if I don't want a skidmark to be the stain on my macchiato. Take the kid to the bathroom and the Koala Bear Changing Station, therein.

Trust me, the leering pervs will be waiting to stare at your boobs when you return.

I won't be. As you pointed out, there are top-less people in thongs walking 15 feet away, and as long as there's a possibility that one of them might decide to come in for a Frappacino, I'll be getting my over-priced lemming juice to go.

See? I don't have anything against mothers, not at all. It's more like you suggested in the concluding paragraph of that article: I fear The Titty.

*For all of you wondering, "So how's that revolution thing working out for you?" let me say, we're a academic journal article, a Milquetoast march with paper mache Cheney mask, or an NAACP boycott away from total emancipation, smart ass. I'd be nicer if I were you.