Please, judge me

SALT LAKE CITY - The 2002 Winter Olympic games are finally over, except for curling, which hopes to wrap up by May. Thousands of visitors are leaving Utah, taking with them a lifetime supply of fond memories and soiled underwear. But the nonstop craziness of the last three weeks has forever changed the moral tone of this once-stodgy state, as evidenced by the Utah legislature's unanimous vote Saturday to legalize the sale of heroin in elementary schools.

Yes, it has been quite a party, right through the upbeat Closing Ceremony, which featured Vice President Dick Cheney leading the crowd in the macarena, after which the rock band Kiss extinguished the Olympic flame via a technique we cannot describe in a family newspaper. The climax of the evening was a spectacular display of what the International Olympic Committee insisted was ''friendly fire'' between the Russian and Canadian biathlon teams.

Which brings us to the judging controversies that plagued these Games. Many people feel the only solution is to eliminate the sports that require subjective judging. This is a great idea, except for one thing: It's stupid.

Listen. For normal, non-Nordic humans, judging controversies are THE MOST EXCITING PART of the Winter Olympics. If you eliminate the judged sports, you're left with the sports in which 300 Norwegians and Finns (who are the same as Norwegians) take turns sliding across or down some frozen surface, all finishing within three-thousandths of a second of each other. Not only are these competitions dull to watch, but when the Norwegian/Finns TALK, they all seem to be reading statements generated by the Bore-O-Matic machine:

Is that what you want from the Winter Olympics? A bunch of guys named ''Jens'' emitting quotes that could sedate cattle? Of course not. You want scandal! That's why the solution for the Winter Olympics is to have corrupt, biased judges for ALL the sports. Imagine how this would affect, say, the bobsled competition:

FIRST ANNOUNCER: The Swiss team's time is 47.098948727 seconds! A world record! Now we'll wait for the judges' scores. . . . UH-oh!

SECOND ANNOUNCER: Very low marks from the French judge, Bob. She's making it clear that she does NOT care for those pastel helmets.

FIRST ANNOUNCER: So the Italian sled remains in the lead, despite the fact that it crashed in the third turn and is now in pieces the size of Legos.

Wouldn't that be great? All controversy, all the time! Other than that, I think the Winter Olympics are perfect. I also think Utah did a fabulous job as host, although I would not want to raise children here, what with the declining moral tone. I am eager to get back to Miami, where we don't allow heroin until junior high.

So now I'm going to sign off as your Salt Lake City correspondent and leave you with this final thought on the 2002 Winter Olympic games: The snow was cold. I stayed indoors.

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If you eliminate the judged sports, you're left with the sports in which 300 Norwegians and Finns (who are the same as Norwegians) take turns sliding across or down some frozen surface, all finishing within three-thousandths of a second of each other.

Dave is onto something here. Dump the time clocks. Have judges decide who made it down fastest.

Dave is onto something here. I started thinking about the judged sports, and there would Alpine skiing left and cross country, and long track skating... No TV ratings in those sports by themselves for an Olympics.

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