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06/18/2007: "Your Tax Dollars At Work"
For whatever reason, our society has lost the ability to compromise. Somehow over the last 100 years or so, we've forgotten how to develop an answer to a problem that isn't either black or white - grey just doesn't exist anymore. It's just too hard - or too contentious - to develop policies that actually look at an individual case and judge it on it's merits, so we develop sweeping policies that deprive everyone equally. That's why we see zero tolerance policies where a 5-year-old is expelled from school for pulling a girl's hair, or a child's water-bottle is confiscated at the airport ... or women in NYC can prance around topless ...
A woman arrested for exposing her breasts has accepted a $29,000 settlement from the city, her lawyer said.
Jill Coccaro, 27, was arrested on a topless stroll two years ago, despite a 1992 state appeals court ruling that concluded women should have the same right as men to take off their shirts.
Her attorney, Jeffrey Rothman, told the Daily News that his client won the civil rights settlement from the city, which did not admit or deny wrongdoing.
"We hope the police learn a lesson and respect the rights of women to go topless," Rothman said.
She told the newspaper she had gone bare-breasted after running the 2004 city marathon without police bothering her.
"I've always just felt that was something natural," Feeley said of going topless. "I've kind of always done it out of practicality."
Feel free to insert your favorite statement about the decline of social mores here.
If we still understood the art of compromise, then we'd be able to apply some common sense here, and recognize that for as far back as written history exists, advanced societies have had their women cover their breasts. But we can't. Is it discriminatory to force a woman to cover herself? Sure. But is it reasonable? Sure. This is just one woman who can't handle the concept of compromise trying to impose her off-kilter values on the rest of us, while everyone else doesn't have the backbone to stand up and say, "Man ... is this dumb!"
As for me, I'm fine with topless women running around, so long as they understand I may never look them in the eyes again ... 
