Be careful with that bare-bones argument -- someone could lose an eye

Is there really so little woe weighing down the world at the moment that governments across the globe are considering it a prudent use of their time to attempt to get the various international Fashion Week runway shows to bar "overly thin" models from walking out designs?

Madrid has already done it, London is resisting it and now, in what is surely a sign of approaching aesthetic apocalypse, they're debating it for Milan.

Madrid fashion organizers have taken the unprecedented step of rejecting underweight women, saying they wanted to project an image of beauty and health -- not a waif-like look.

The new Spanish rules say models with a body mass index (BMI) -- a ratio of height to weight -- below 18 are not allowed to appear at the shows. ... In effect, models who weigh less than 125 pounds are prohibited from working the runways.

All right, sorry if I'm bursting anyone's voluptuous little bubble here, but a BMI of 18 is not borderline anorexic. Hell, mine is around 18, and I'm not some sickly sack of sinew spelunking myself across the floor by my flaking fingernails or letting furry woodland creatures nest in the hollow under my ribcage to symbiotically warm me. Instead I get taken for a ballet dancer, about the most freakishly in-shape breed of human there is, about once a week on my way to work. I would love to see someone tally up all the famous and indisputably fit-looking models who would be shown the door if this nonsense came to pass industry-wide.

Speaking of which, given that willowy wraiths have been wafting about the annals of fashion for decades now, why is a crackdown suddenly necessary? Why else:

Madrid's regional government imposed the rules on fashion week to protect the models as well as teenagers who may develop anorexia as they try to copy underweight catwalk stars.

Oh, please -- that spiel gets more, uh, spielen than phony Iraq/Sept. 11 connections, and that doesn't make either worth listening to. But wait! Here comes a corroborating voice with about as much authority on fostering individuality as President Bush has on celebrating "Constitution Day:"

Supporters of the ban were joined by 'Harry Potter' author JK Rowling, who told London's Evening Standard she did not want her children to grow up to be "empty-headed, self-obsessed clones."

Yes, take it from the woman whose works have sold millions, grossed billions and been called "the first literary status symbol for the young" that was already being read by a solid majority of kids back in 2001 - originality is where it's at.

Bottom line, if you're going to kick a model off the runway for her weight, don't do it because of some supposed benevolent concern for the health and well being of that perpetual proportion of the populace consisting of vacuous human herd animals who, if they weren't starving themselves, would just be engaging in some other form of socially motivated self-destruction.

Do it because, just as they do on the disproportionately plump, the clothes look like crap on animate skeletons.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go savor my daily ration of a Listerine strip on a saltine.