cron pile up! Lot's of "cron: running job (cron)"

[Rudy]

cron jobs seem to get stuck.  Not always, but within a day, there are at
least 20 stuck.  It is not always the same cronjob that does the
sticking.  :)   When this occurs, I can run ps ax| grep cron and get a
bunch of lines like this:

51921  ??  D      0:00.00 cron: running job (cron)
51922  ??  IVs    0:00.00 cron: running job (cron)
52544  ??  D      0:00.00 cron: running job (cron)
52545  ??  IVs    0:00.00 cron: running job (cron)
54418  ??  D      0:00.00 cron: running job (cron)
54419  ??  IVs    0:00.00 cron: running job (cron)
54667  ??  D      0:00.00 cron: running job (cron)
54668  ??  IVs    0:00.00 cron: running job (cron)
55835  ??  D      0:00.00 cron: running job (cron)
55836  ??  IVs    0:00.00 cron: running job (cron)

What is going on?  Please help me remedy this situation.

The PID numbers next to cron's with a STATE of "IVs" show up in
/var/log/cron, for example:

# grep 54668 /var/log/cron
Dec  2 22:32:00 pita /usr/sbin/cron[54668]: (root) CMD
(/root/bin/raid-status.sh CRON)
# grep 55836 /var/log/cron
Dec  2 22:40:00 pita /usr/sbin/cron[55836]: (root) CMD
(/root/bin/10minutes.mail.sh | mail -E -s "[ERROR]
mail.monkeybrains.net"  example at example.com)


If I run 'lsof' I can find these open handles:

cron      54668             root  cwd   VDIR       0,80        512   471040 /var/cron
cron      54668             root  rtd   VDIR       0,77        512        2 /
cron      54668             root  txt   VREG       0,82      32496   122864 /usr/sbin/cron
cron      54668             root  txt   VREG       0,77     162712    49929 /libexec/ld-elf.so.1
cron      54668             root  txt   VREG       0,77      44788    49922 /lib/libutil.so.5
cron      54668             root  txt   VREG       0,77     941952    49923 /lib/libc.so.6
cron      54668             root  txt   VREG       0,82      19277   826439 
/usr/local/lib/nss_mysql.so.1
cron      54668             root  txt   VREG       0,82     413626   826986 
/usr/local/lib/mysql/libmysqlclient.so.15
cron      54668             root  txt   VREG       0,77      64604    49928 /lib/libz.so.3
cron      54668             root  txt   VREG       0,77     107432    49918 /lib/libm.so.4
cron      54668             root  txt   VREG       0,77      28648    49916 /lib/libcrypt.so.3
cron      54668             root    0u  PIPE 0xca02c660      16384          ->0xca02c718
cron      54668             root    1u  PIPE 0xcc473250          0          ->0xcc473198
cron      54668             root    2u  PIPE 0xcc473250          0          ->0xcc473198
cron      54668             root    5u  unix 0xc6665858        0t0          ->0xc67e89bc
cron      54667             root  cwd   VDIR       0,80        512   471040 /var/cron
cron      54667             root  rtd   VDIR       0,77        512        2 /
cron      54667             root  txt   VREG       0,82      32496   122864 /usr/sbin/cron
cron      54667             root  txt   VREG       0,77     162712    49929 /libexec/ld-elf.so.1
cron      54667             root  txt   VREG       0,77      44788    49922 /lib/libutil.so.5
cron      54667             root  txt   VREG       0,77     941952    49923 /lib/libc.so.6
cron      54667             root  txt   VREG       0,82      19277   826439 
/usr/local/lib/nss_mysql.so.1
cron      54667             root  txt   VREG       0,82     413626   826986 
/usr/local/lib/mysql/libmysqlclient.so.15
cron      54667             root  txt   VREG       0,77      64604    49928 /lib/libz.so.3
cron      54667             root  txt   VREG       0,77     107432    49918 /lib/libm.so.4
cron      54667             root  txt   VREG       0,77      28648    49916 /lib/libcrypt.so.3
cron      54667             root    0u  VCHR       0,26        0t0       26 /dev/null
cron      54667             root    1u  VCHR       0,26        0t0       26 /dev/null
cron      54667             root    2u  VCHR       0,26        0t0       26 /dev/null
cron      54667             root    3u  PIPE 0xca02c660      16384          ->0xca02c718
cron      54667             root    4u  PIPE 0xca02c718          0          ->0xca02c660
cron      54667             root    5u  unix 0xc6665858        0t0          ->0xc67e89bc
cron      54667             root    6u  PIPE 0xcc473198      16384          ->0xcc473250
cron      54667             root    7u  unix 0xc67e86f4        0t0          ->(none)
cron      54667             root    8u  PIPE 0xcc473250          0          ->0xcc473198

What is going on?  Is my libnss_mysql acting up?

Rudy