runaway process

[Acheron <acheron mnj ml org>]

>From what I've read from the list, I'm not sure this is the correct
place to ask questions like this, but I can't find any other place for
it. I've searched the archive and dejanews and metacrawler, but can't
find a reference to this problem.

I'm running the the GNOME packages in the current Debian slink distro
with Windowmaker and xdm. When I log out, then log back in again, I end
up with a process running like this, using more or less 100% of cpu
resources (I wrapped it, but it's all one line from ps -ax): 

270  ?  R  639:29 panel --discard-session
11d15b660a00009074838450000012994000

As you can see, this process was running in excess of 10 hours, and I
still had to just kill it when I reentered x. What might be wrong?
Anyone have a workaround? 

-Jonathan