Idle threat of the week

After four days of football and tryptophan, the panel of judges met Sunday night. Not surprisingly it was a hazy affair and we quickly decided to institute the "holiday rules," which encourage the panel to go after the lowest hanging fruit possible.

Fortunately for the sluggish panel a small, shrieking Asian women reemerged to fit that bill.

Yoko Ono Lennon, as she now calls herself, finally adopting her husband's surname 26 years after his death, has threatened to heal the world.

From a full-page ad she took out in New York Times yesterday she implores her fellow travelers to use the anniversary of her late-husband's assassination to achieve world healing by begging forgiveness from the world's poor and suffering.

What world-healing advocates don't realize is that, over time, a fully-healed world would become naive to the darkness that lurks in the depths of humanity. Like a home-schooled Jehovah's Witness unleashed during senior-year spring break in Mexico, the fully-healed world would eventually find itself lying in a pool of vomit with sharp pains in odd places.

But don't worry, Ono Lennon's plan for world-healing has a zero percent chance of having the slightest impact. Among many other things, it seems to require direct contact with the poor and suffering. Even if the panel knew where to find these unfortunates, it was generally agreed their noxious smell would melt away any enthusiasm for presenting them with an apology.

Ono Lennon does owe the world something for contributing to the break-up of the greatest band of all-time, and nudging the Fab Four towards a tragic path that has led to 50 percent of them being dead and another 25 percent suffering the wrath of a vengeful one-legged former prostitute.

But Ono Lennon's harebrained plan for world-healing is further proof this always misguided goal should be left only to the standbys: Prayer, dinner toasts, and the ruthless detachment of James Baker.

On the bright side Ono Lennon, whose album drops in February, has already charted Idle Threat of the Week for November 20-26.