The Munger Mission: Another Excuse for Bikers to Get Out and Explore the Munger Trail

“Bicycling is a big part of the future. It has to be. There's something wrong with a society that drives a car to work out in a gym.”—Bill Nye

One of the items in Duluth's 2035 planning for the future of the city is making more bike lanes so that it's easier and safer for bikers to get around town. Tuesday, while I was in town doing errand, I saw that there has been a lot of reconfiguration taking place on Superior Street. Bike lanes are being added and newly painted lines for parking cars more efficiently have been added. 

All about the city there are hiking and biking trails. On any given day you can see biking and hiking along the Lakewalk, with extensive trails all the the up the waterfront. On the Western end of town these bike trails stretch South to the cities of Carlton, Moose Lake and even Hinckley. That portion is called The Munger Trail. 

THE MUNGER MISSION
This year, Joelene Steffens of Carlton Bike Rental & Repair has created special event to encourage people to experience the rewards of biking Minnesota's Willard Munger Bike Trail. It's been dubbed The Munger Mission.

The concept is fairly straightforward. Purchase a starter kit, which has maps, mission instructions and goals. Your primary objective will be to take photos of yourself with your bike in front of the three bike shop locations in Moose Lake, Carlton and Hinckley and share them on one of your social media platforms or website. Upon completion you'll receive a Munger Mission Accomplished T-shirt and become eligible for bigger prizes.

EdNote: Although the business is a bike rental shop, you do not have to rent a bike from CBR&R to participate in the mission.

Photo by Chris Henry on Unsplash

On May 18 the Duluth News Tribune featured a story titled "Munger Mission" aims to get riders out on the trail. The story by Jamey Malcomb begins, "Bicycle shop owner hopes to encourage people from around the state to use the Munger Trail and patronize the businesses along its route."

If you live anywhere between Hinckley and Duluth it is easy-peasy to get to one of the three CBR&R locations as a starting point. The Carlton location was initiated in 2011 with a ribbon cutting ceremony that included the late Congressman Oberstar. Congressman Oberstar was a noteworthy supporter and advocate for trails and biking.

I've not personally biked the trail from Carlton south, but I can tell you from experience that the trail running along Jay Cooke State Park is beautiful any time of year, spring, summer, fall and winter. Biking in winter is somewhat hazardous however. The Munger Mission began June 1. You can start any time and have until the end of September to completer your tasks.

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You can sign up online or, if you prefer, at one of their stores. Addresses for the store locations can be found on the CBR&R home page at carltonbikerental.com.

Oli Braithwaite of Stars & Catz on the Power of Music

Oli Braithwaite, founder Stars & Catz

If you ever need scientific ammunition to lend support to your conviction that music has power to improve peoples' lives, look no further. Oli Braithwaite, founder of Stars & Catz, has assembled more than 200 research papers on the power of music to bring hope and healing. Listening to music and learning to play an instrument have many other benefits. Music improves our mood, improves our memory, reduces anxiety, distracts us from pain, lowers blood pressure, and much, much more. 

Earlier this month Oli Braithwaite, after stumbling upon my interview with Henry Wiens about the power of music to heal and give hope, reached out to ask if I might put a link from that page to his web page featuring the aforementioned research papers. When I saw the page I wanted to do more than a link. An interview with Braithwaite seemed in order. 

Stars & Catz is much more than a repository for music research. In fact, that's just a side alley. Connecting students and teachers is a bigger part of his vision. When all has been boiled down to its essence, the message is clear. Music ought to be part of all our lives, for the sake of our mental, physical and spiritual health.

EN: You are something of an evangelist for the power of music. How did this come about for you?

Oli Braithwaite: As a musician, music teacher and then the author of the articles on Stars & Catz, I have always found music to be a powerful and essential part of life and an end in itself. But what came to my attention as I researched and wrote on ever widening music topics is that the scientific community is publishing a steady stream of studies supporting various benefits of music beyond the experience of the art itself, and that these benefits are significant.

Since I’m also interested in the mind and the human condition in general, I was naturally curious about these additional benefits. When I tried to find a single, central place that summarized and categorized all (or at least many) of the most important music related studies, it became clear that no such page existed on the internet. I knew the value that such a page would have for the wider music education community, teachers and students, so I undertook to put it together and publish it on Stars & Catz. That’s how our page on the benefits of music and music education, with over 200 studies, came into being.

EN: When did you begin Stars & Catz, and what is the story behind the name?

OB: The name is a bit weird, right? We wanted something a bit different because there are so many generic names around. How it came about was that we originally started in 2010 with only two instruments, guitar and piano. So students had the opportunity to become a ‘guitar star’ or a jazzy ‘piano cat’, hence Stars & Catz. When we expanded beyond those two instruments, we decided that being a star or a jazzy cat still applied, so we kept it.

EN: How does Stars & Catz fulfill its mission to help people realize their music dreams?

OB: We achieve this with three core pillars:

1. A free suite of music tools including, for example, this online metronome

2. Our learning hub articles, mostly catering for beginners in various instruments and singing

3. A teacher matching service to find either a local or online music teacher

EN: What prompted you to begin assembling all these research reports on the impact of music?

OB: As mentioned above, I realized that a comprehensive collection was missing from the web and knew how valuable it would be for music teachers, students and just anyone writing about the benefits of music. I also knew we’d be able to do justice to it, so we rolled up our sleeves and set aside the time (many weeks) needed to do the job properly. We also intend to update the page annually, if there’s enough interest in it.

EN: The list of benefits from music is impressive. What are the most surprising to people?

OB: Great question. The general reaction to the page as a whole is ‘wow’ and then people tend to

comment on the sheer weight of evidence and the wide range of benefits derived from listening or playing music. Most people, aside from music teachers, simply aren’t aware of the power of music on the human mind and body. I don’t tend to get specific feedback on which benefit was most surprising though. For me, it was definitely music’s ability to boost the immune system that was most surprising.

EN: Anything else you would like to add?

OB: If anything is clear from the body of scientific work on the benefits of music, it’s that it really doesn’t matter what age you are, learning a musical instrument or singing is a wonderful and potentially very beneficial thing to undertake on many levels.

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Key Links

About Stars & Catz

The Benefits of Music & Music Education (200+ Studies)
242 Music Quotes to Share & Inspire

Quiet Heart Comfort  

Armory Arts & Music Center

Copyright 2021 Stars & Catz PTY LTD 

Healing Our Sick Health Care System

I was recently sent a review copy of Dr. Robert Gumbiner's Healing Our Sick Health Care System - A Solution to America's Health Care Crisis. It's a another proposal for universal health care, and many voices will be raised against the idea when it returns to the table for discussion inside the beltway. But let's face it, the realities are disturbing. Michael Moore's film Sicko showed some of the reality. People's lives are being destroyed by our current system of "for profit" hospitals, drug companies and insurance companies. It's a gigantic racket, but these racketeers are not going to jail for their crimes. Rather, they are buying condos in the Caymans.

According to Gumbiner, the health care system is a dysfunctional mess with entrenched special interests. But our legislators in Washington do not have the courage to overturn the applecart, and are tacitly committed to maintaining the status quo because it is "safe." As with most other major issues on the table, there's a lot of jawboning going on, but the masses suffer.

Americans believe they have the best health care in the world. But as Gumbiner writes, "How can it be the 'best' when adequate health care is unavailable to millions of people?"

Like many such books, this one begins by citing stats about our current situation, followed by a chapter outlining the history that has lead to us to where we are today and why small reforms will not solve our major problems.

I once heard a story that illustrates the problem. A man was fleeing from an adversary and came to a place where there was a twenty foot gap and five hundred foot drop. He could either find a way to make the twenty foot leap, or take two to three smaller steps. We all know what the result of small steps over a twenty foot gap would bring.

One of the biggest arguments against universal health care is that we as a nation could never afford it. But in point of fact, Gumbiner notes, more than two-thirds of all Americans have some or all of their health care paid for by taxpayer dollars. This includes, federal, state, county and local employees plus our military personnel, Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries. In short, the picture very different from the one we are mislead to believe.

Alas, if the situation makes you ill, you are not alone.

Seriously Bad Stuff

Last week I learned some information that was pretty scary to me about local hospitals and the new strain of infection many are spreading that is resistant to antibiotics. The hospitals send people to nursing homes after surgery, and a lot of people are arriving at the nursing home with this infection that they picked up at the hospital. The patient dies from the infection at the nursing home, which then blamed for unclean conditions. But only the patients coming from the hospital are dying.

As a result, most of the nursing homes in the region refuse to accept patients who are recovering after having been at the hospital. Why? Because they do not want to get a bad reputation when in fact it is the hospitals doing the dirty work. It is the hospital spreading this incurable infection.

How serious is this problem? Check out these stats from a Fort Worth article: "An estimated 2 million Americans annually get one of a variety of drug-resistant infections, leading to about 90,000 deaths, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate. Of those afflicted, 87 percent catch the infection at a healthcare facility, the CDC says."

These are only estimates. It could be worse. My daughter shared that five students at her small Midwestern college have died from this "superbug." She had us pray for a girl whose leg was amputated to keep the infection from spreading to the rest of her body.

This is seriously scary stuff, if you ask me. Here's a darn good reason to eat healthy and stay fit. If you go to the hospital for a procedure, it just might kill you.