Muggsy's Brain

Marty Sundvall (12/12/1965 - 5/13/2012) WARNING: Some of this post may be too graphic for some readers. My friend Marty was looking pretty bad back in February. His legs and feet got so swollen he couldn't even tie his shoes and his skin and eyes were taking on a sickly yellow hue. In his words: I had been feeling weird for a couple weeks. In that time my energy was zapped, I was very disoriented, my abdomen and feet started to swell and my eyes were an ugly shade of yellow. Being a stoic Minnesotan, he ignored it and continued life as usual, teaching classes at SCSU and the Minnesota School of Business, and having a few cocktails at the White Horse. But his Saturday and Sunday sojourns to the bar left him feeling sick and he was in bed by early Sunday evening. Monday morning he could barely walk. I got up in time to catch the bus to St Cloud State and opted to tough it out. Well, the bus stop is probably 500 feet from my office and I had to stop 4 times to be...

Have you ever heard of "lane splitting"? Some motorcyclists believe that their small size and agility makes driving in between cars on multi-lane highways an acceptable behavior, especially during traffic jams and slowdowns. In most states such action is illegal, and for good reason. In other states, however, it is perfectly legal. I think it's dangerous and stupid. The risks are plentiful, any bicycle rider who has gotten "doored", any pedestrian who has been (or nearly been) hit by a driver who looked one way but not the other, any highway driver who has been nearly sideswiped by someone changing lanes can tell you that drivers, for the most part, don't pay attention to things unless they're right in front of them -- and there are a lot of drivers who don't even do that. Any motorcyclist who engages in this behavior is putting their very lives into the hands of other drivers. Why is lane splitting dangerous? Because of this: Granted, you...

The following is an adaptation of a list from the Rational Enquirer (Vol. 6, No. 4 if you can find it), a now defunct skeptic magazine as near as I can tell. Regardless, it sums up my way of thinking about "mystic woo," such as dowsing, numerology, telekinesis, ESP, UFOs, homeopathy, and any phenomenon that uses the word "psycho" as its prefix, such as psychokinesis and psychoenergetics. Adherents to the above mentioned pseudo-sciences and their followers will often claim that they have some sort of "proof" of their claims. However, much of what they present is anecdotal at worst or just bad science at best. These questions need to be asked before a claim can be given any consideration: Has the subject shown progress? Does the discipline use technical words such as "vibration" or "energy" without clearly defining what they mean? Would accepting the tenets of a claim require you to abandon any well established physical la...

One of the things that has always bothered me in the world of "woo" is the bandying about of the terms "energy" and "toxins." Energy, in the world of "woo" is a positive or negative influence, it can effect one's emotions and health, and can have an effect others. A bad day can be attributed to "having bad energy," an illness can be caused by "a blockage of energy flow," and getting picked last for the kickball team can be blamed on either your own "bad energy" or that of the people doing the picking (losing the game could be blamed on "bad energy" on the part of the whole team).  I'll address "toxins" later. In science, specifically physics, energy is: ...the capacity of a physical system to do "work," the product of a force times the distance through which that force acts. In physics, energy is a term to express the power to move things, either potential or actual. Ener...

Around Halloween ghost stories come out of the woodwork and get told and retold, news organizations send reporters out to the area’s “most haunted” places and do fluffy, one-sided “news” reports about the ghosts that people have “seen” or “experienced.” I saw one recently that took place at one of my favorite venues in St. Cloud, the Pioneer Place Theatre/Veranda Lounge . Now I hear tell that there is going to be a “documentary” made about the so-called “ghosts” that “haunt” the place. The theatre’s artistic producer and all around great guy, Dan Barth, was interviewed and he stated that the theatre had hired four different psychics to come in and each of them said that, yes, indeed the place was haunted. One of them said there were four ghosts, I don’t know if any of the others came up with a specific number, but four has become the accepted number. Now, I will say nothing bad about Dan, he is one of my favorite people in the world, but I will say something about supposed psyc...

No two of my chili recipes are the same, they are variations on a theme, but this one I just had to share. You will have to take it as given that the peppers are all fire roasted, skinned, peeled and diced. Ingredients: 1 poblano pepper 1 cherry bomb pepper 1 serrano pepper 1 jalapeño pepper 1 medium onion, diced 2 cloves garlic, chopped 1 can chili beans 1 can red kidney beans 1 can diced tomatoes 1 cup whole kernel corn 1/2 cup cashew nuts 1 lb. 80/20 ground beef 1 slice bacon, diced 1/2 tbsp chili powder 1/2 tbsp ground cumin 1/2 tbsp cilantro 1 tsp salt 1/2 tsp black pepper 1/4 tsp turmeric 1/8 tsp cinnamon 2 bay leaves 1/2 can (6 oz.) Coca Cola Heat a large, deep pan and add the bacon, fry it until the fat just starts to melt. Add the peppers, onion and garlic, sauté until the onions start to turn translucent. Add the ground beef and bay leaves, brown the beef. Add the dry ingredients (chili powder, etc.) and stir. Add the cashew nuts and stir....

I ran into an old friend recently, back "in the day" I wanted badly to be her boyfriend but that never worked out. I hadn't seen her in years and she's still as pretty as she was then. She's also still a big proponent of what I call "mystical woo" and that just doesn't sit right with a skeptic like me. Let's start with the so-called "Law of Attraction," wherein a person thinks of something and that thing happens, or a person thinks of someone and then sees that person for the first time in years. Obviously, that subject came up, especially the second part. The first thing you need to know about the "Law of Attraction" is that is was made up around the turn of the century by William Walker Atkinson, an attorney, merchant and publisher -- you will notice a profound lack of the word "scientist" in his list of occupations. Like many people, he looked for some divine or mystical principal that drives something as s...