Cartoonist Scott Kurtz decided to do an additional week of satirizing the "Crossing Over" show. Yep, lots of material there to work on. Here's another one....

Last week in Garabandal, Spain, some 200 Dutch and Flemish religious faithful gathered to witness a major promised miracle. Now, this town is not without a reputation in the miracle business. Back in 1965, the authorities there (Garabandal is so small — 300 persons — they don't even have a doctor in town, nor a pastor) had declared that according to Conchita, a local girl who said she had chatted with The Virgin several times during the 1960's, a major miracle would occur on a Thursday of that year. No miracle was noted. Now, along came a Professor Rutton just last week, president of the "White Thursday" organization of miracle-mongers, and promised that on Thursday every sick person in the area would be wonderously healed at 8:30 p.m. The time came and went without incident. Hmm.

The believers stood on a steep slope outside the village to wait for the miracle that Rutten had assured everyone during a mass several hours earlier, would occur. Amazed at the failure, Rutton said, "I am honestly mistaken. I cannot explain it. My reputation is damaged." In my opinion, that's not so. Everyone will make rationalizations, excuses that we skeptics could never invent nor anticipate will be developed, and the same crowd will be back again another time, with the same expectations. It was ever so. No amount of disconfirming evidence will ever discourage the true believer, and no town gives up its miracles easily.

The Professor said he was not concerned about any possible emotional damage he might have inflicted on the sick people who had been so devastated by their disappointment. "You cannot explain something that you don't understand," he said. Oh yes you can, Professor. How about an ego-driven individual who likes to think he can communicate with some deity or other, but who is self-deluded? Even Conchita, perhaps miffed by this incursion on her territory, opined that Rutten was a liar. But Conchita, your miracle wasn't such a success, either!

The expression "pompous ass" springs to mind here.

Reader Daniel J. Hanson, hearing that I have a certain interest in ridiculous patents issued by that giddy bunch in Washington, suggested I go to http://www.uspto.gov and look up number 6,368,227. I expected something inane, but the US Patent Office has now exceeded all my expectations. When I found out they'd issued a patent recently on "toast" and on a variety of the peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, I was sufficiently stunned, but this one is The Winner in the Stupid Field, hands-down. I cannot, in my widest imaginings (and I'm adept at that art, I assure you) come up with any means of turning a profit on 6,368,227, unless the intent is to close down playgrounds all over the globe.... Look it up, but be seated when you read it....

Reader Jim Kutz drew our attention to the following alarming news. A very respected hospital, the Savannah, Georgia, Memorial Health University Medical Center, has leapt into the quackery quicksand in style. The hospital has joined Dr. Deepak Chopra, best-selling author and holistic health guru, to create a center where patients can take advantage of the latest in medieval medicine. For example, they can subscribe to something called "Shirodhara," in which warm herbalized sesame oil is dripped slowly onto their foreheads. Hey! That ought to do it!

In March of last year, another competing hospital in Savannah opened a "Center for Wellbeing," where people clamored to be treated by aromatherapy, where good-smelling stuff is supposed to cure them. Another giant stride back into the 14th century! It seems evident that hospitals in search of paying patients and a competitive edge are increasingly offering their patients some form of "alternative medicine," and this move backwards in medical science is obviously a financially-inspired one. Right here in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, we have the "Center for the Healing Arts" associated with the excellent and very reputable Broward General Hospital system, so we're no strangers to "healing touch," hypnosis, Feng Shui, "energy balancing," "self-healing imagery," and "mandala" quackery. Presently, we're told by the American Hospital Association, 15.5% of all hospitals in the USA offer these novel items, and hospitals of all sizes are continuing to open "alternative" or "complementary medicine" centers. To quote the AHA, "With a market that has been estimated at around $27 billion and affluent customers who generally pay full price for these services up front, hospitals are eager to try alternative medicine. Many see their forays as an extension of their mission, but it is the money that has drawn the interest." The programs are offered by hospitals as well as academic medical centers like Beth Israel Hospital and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, Duke, and Stanford, and consist of "relaxation therapies," acupuncture, "polarity therapy" — an hour-long session of hands being placed on the body to unblock energy, biofeedback, Chinese face-lifting — a technique that uses acupressure to help get rid of wrinkles and ease headaches, and "remote healing" — the sending of therapeutic prayers to someone far away.

By jumping into quackery, Savannah Memorial aims to be a destination on the Eastern Seaboard, drawing tourists and affluent retirees from the region. Affiliating themselves with Chopra, the center is capitalizing on the best-known name in ayurvedic (medieval) medicine. "What Dr. Chopra gives us is immediate brand," said Scott Regan, senior vice president for marketing and strategic planning. But, he said, "the Chopra name brings instant credibility or lack thereof, depending on which side you're on."

Memorial expects to invest about $250,000 in the center for the first three years, including licensing Dr. Chopra's name — not an inexpensive endorsement! — and training about a dozen staff members in his methods.

This is a shameful, unethical, unproductive, disgraceful, move by a major medical center that is charged with providing genuine assistance and services to its customers, and has chosen to deceive and cheat them by serving up attractive and expensive quackery. But the money will roll in, to the hospital and the funeral parlors who will handle the services of those who trusted the hospital.

Since the David Blaine TV Specials are in re-runs now, I'm receiving much e-mail with requests to explain his "levitation" stunt. This consists of Blaine appearing to rise straight up in the air a few inches, out in the open, while being observed by spectators standing quite close to him. Now, as regular readers will know, I'm not about to reveal the secrets of legitimate performers of the art of magic. Though David and I had a friendly relationship at one time, I regret to tell you that he's now gone "to the Dark Side," in that he has signed a statement that Uri Geller's claims are legitimate. Geller has a way of extracting such declarations from naive folks, and somehow David let himself be talked into such a deed.

David Blaine knows better, of course. His basic method of performing his mind-boggling divination of words, for example, is based upon the same techniques used by Mr. Geller. But, to his credit, David does not claim that he himself has genuine psychic powers. Why he ever chose to endorse Geller, can only be guessed. In my opinion, it was a bad career move for him to make, but it was his choice.

I'll give you a few insights into Blaine's "levitation" demo. First, it's known in the magic trade as the "Balducci Move," or "Balducci Levitation." A well-known contributor to magical literature, Ed Balducci never claimed to have originated the trick, but he did popularize it. Second, in an actual street performance, only a few persons (or one camera!) correctly located, can enjoy the effect. Others who are not properly positioned, see clearly how it's accomplished. And, in a TV presentation of the item, there is often a good deal of "creative editing" used....

If you really want to know the whole story, you can perhaps over-inform yourself a bit at: http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/Stage/7308/balducci.html but I trust that you will still continue to enjoy David Blaine's excellent work as a magician. His off-stage (off-street?) choices are of course another matter, and I leave him to those.

Need I tell you? Geller's at it again. He never gives up. You can look into a British football site at www.football365.com to see his latest novel way of improving the performance of the Reading team. When Geller is hired by a football team to help their chances of winning, wise folks bet on the other team right away. We've discussed this on this web page previously. The latest:

Although the "Exeter City crystal burying incident" mentioned last week did occur, it appears to pale into insignificance compared to the meddling buffoon's antics at the Madejski Stadium. The absolute idiot regularly embarrasses the Reading hordes by forcing them to hold up coloured cards with no obvious effect. The Dom Joly of celebrity fandom, Geller is now said to spend the majority of his time engineering increasingly elaborate scams he can play on a petrified Reading faithful.

Dom Joly is a bizarre clown comic for children on British TV, in case you didn't know.

Captain David Beckham is a UK soccer star who suffered a broken left foot when he was tackled recently during a game. There's been much anxiety over whether he'll be able to recover in time for the team's first World Cup game on June 2. Just guess who offered to speed up the healing process? Yep. Spoonbender Geller has proposed using the nation's willpower by having TV viewers touch their TV screens and concentrate on mending the star's broken bone when he appears next on TV. Considering Geller's previous efforts to assist footballers, I'd advise Beckham to resist such offers.

In the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine appears this article, which asks, "Can homeopaths detect homeopathic medicines by dowsing?" A randomized, double- blind, placebo-controlled trial is described, in which leading lights in the homeopathic firmament from the Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital and the Institute of Psionic Medicine were involved. It said:

Dowsing is a method of problem-solving that uses a motor automatism, amplified through a pendulum or similar device. In a homeopathic context, it is used as an aid to prescribing and as a tool to identify miasma or toxin load. A randomized double-blind trial was conducted to determine whether six dowsing homeopaths were able to distinguish between Bryonia in a 12c potency and placebo by use of dowsing alone.

The homeopathic medicine Bryonia was correctly identified in 48.1% of bottle pairs . . . . These results, wholly negative, add to doubts whether dowsing in this context can yield objective information.

About 50% would have been expected by chance alone....

Last week, police in Bavaria and neighboring Austria were swamped with calls from worried locals who reported seeing the sky "lit up like daytime" and hearing a violent explosion. One farmer's wife in Friesing, Bavaria, said she witnessed bright flashes of light and heard a loud noise as she put her daughter to bed, but said she believed it was local youths causing a nuisance. The Bavarian interior ministry said that hundreds of worried people called them to report UFOs, described as a series of flashes that looked like lightning.

Well, there certainly was something to report, and it wasn't swamp gas. The "UFO" reports have been solved by the discovery of a "fresh" meteorite. The Bavarian farmer's wife who heard the late-night noise, next day found a three-foot-wide crater in her vegetable patch, and a meteorite bigger than a tennis ball was at the bottom. Munich Institute for Geology experts estimate the meteorite — one of the "stony" variety — weighed over 100 kilos [220 pounds] before it hit the atmosphere (as a meteor) at a speed of almost 200,000 km/hr [125,000 m.p.h.] — or 56 km/sec [35 m.p.s].

Here we have the scrap that remains of a huge chunk of stone fallen from deep space after perhaps billions of years wandering about, all to end up in a German vegetable garden. Holding such an object, can't the romance of that incredible locus and history get to you? From eternity to your hand, all from an unknowable beginning, a journey that was begun.... Well, you get the idea. Who needs a UFO?

Just read this to taste pseudoscience at it's finest. It's part of an interview with a character touting yet another variety of "tuned" water and its miraculous attributes.

RB: When we eat food, the food we eat we actually breathe out the next day as carbon dioxide. The food we don't absorb we pass out on the toilet, the food we absorb is broken down into carbon dioxide in our body. Now in the process of that carbon dioxide coming through the body, it does damage — it's in Alzheimer's disease, to osteoarthritis to osteoporosis. What you are doing in this water... there's magnesium bicarbonate. The bicarbonate is taken into cells and the dioxide dies inside the cells. It's not clear water and I don't know if we can pick this up [showing a container of water] but it has got little bits in it. You need to shake it up before you drink it. I'm trying to show the folks at home these bits. If you look at it, look down the bottom there, you can maybe see what looks like what would be... they are carbonates. We shake them back into bicarbonates — we have to prepare the product before they drink it.

Interviewer: How much do you have to drink before you get the effect?

RB: We're not claiming clinical trials. There is very strong medical evidence written up in very, very top-ranking medical journals that bicarbonates do have these effects — the New England Journal of Medicine. As a preventive, we say drink one to two bottles a day as a preventive at least. If people have diseases and want to try it to see if it works for them two, to three bottles a day.

Interviewer: Do you take it with your doctor's advice?

RB: It's only water. I suggest people that are taking it as a medication not to take it until they see their doctor just in case the doctor doesn't want them to drink so much water. So always consult your doctor if you are sick, always. But if you drink water, and nutritional authorities tell us to drink one to three liters a day, it might be this water. We've seen benefits for people with a number of diseases. Once you get clinical Alzheimer's disease, parts of the brain have degenerated, part of that's not going to come back. We're pushing it to prevent all those diseases that have carbon disease concentration. As a preventive that's fine. . . . I can't promise anything. They have to try it and see how it goes for them.

Interviewer: How much is a bottle?

RB: It's $30 a case. It comes in a case of 24 bottles. We're just people trying to get this out there, so it's about a bit over $1 a bottle. . . .

Interviewer: I think I'm convinced. I'm going to try some.

The interviewee was Dr. Russell Beckett, PhD., who will be believed by the uninformed. Any student delivering such nonsense would be given a poor mark on a test paper, but PhDs can say anything they want, it seems....

I must say that I've been more than fortunate asking cartoonists and authors to grant me permission to publish their work here on the web site. Scott Adams, Scott Kurtz, Richard Dawkins, Dorion Sagan and many others, and now Mark Evanier of www.povonline.com (do look in!) have happily agreed to grant this favor. Mark has gotten me in touch once again with Sergio Aragon�s of Mad Magazine fame, and after announcing that he has long been a fan of this site and our work, he suggested we use the following, from his pen back in November of 1995, dealing with "psychic" Peter Hurkos, who we have featured here on the web page. We accept with great delight. I must comment that, as Mark admits, the actual exchange given here between the star and Peter Hurkos has been approximated, but from my experience I can tell you that it's not too far off a typical Hurkos performance. I urge you to accept Mark's advice about doing a two-person reading here....

Many years ago, when I apprenticed in the funnybook business with the great Jack Kirby, he and I co-wrote a story called "The Psychic Bloodhound." . . . The story was inspired by some articles Jack had been reading about a gent named Peter Hurkos who was often billed as "The Psychic Detective." The typical Hurkos tale involved baffled police, a crime that could not be solved or an item that could not be found, and him being called into the case and, via psychic powers, announcing the whereabouts of the missing evidence or person or whatever.

If you believed in such a thing as Psychic Powers, Hurkos was a walking example, and if you didn't believe in them, the stories of his incredible deeds made you wonder if maybe there wasn't something to this psychic jazz.

At the time, I was also occasionally writing for a science-fiction/horror movie tabloid called The Monster Times. Shortly after the above comic book tale was written, I received a last-minute call from the editor of said tabloid, asking me to fill-in for another of their correspondents that evening at a Los Angeles movie premiere. I agreed and, three hours later, found myself picking up press credentials at the gala world debut of a cheesy exploitation film called Flesh Gordon.

The whole evening was a disaster, in part because I found the movie about as entertaining as watching tapioca pudding age and pull away from the edge of the dish; also because of an unbelievable crush of cameras and fans and badly-costumed costume folks; also because someone had the brilliant idea that the V.I.P.-type guests and the Press should be seated up front, like in the first three rows. (This was the kind of movie best viewed from way back, preferably facing away from the screen.)

I found myself seated amongst the alleged celebrities. On my left was a young lady whose dress had less material than Andrew Dice Clay. She was loudly proclaiming her credits in X-rated movies and pointing out other people in the audience with whom she had, uh, performed. I made a mental note that she seemed like a good subject for a heart transplant because, obviously, her body had never rejected an organ.

Then I turned to the right and found seated there, a bonafide star of some magnitude: Larry "Buster" Crabbe, star of various movies and serials past, including the original films of the original Flash (not to be confused with Flesh) Gordon. To this day, I am uncertain how they got Mr. Crabbe to show up at this event but, gathering from his demeanor and muttered comments, I would guess that somewhere, someone had firearms pointed at his mother.

During the entire film, he sat, more rigid than any of his screen performances, mumbling at how offensive he found everything on the screen in every way that one can be offended: morally, artistically, esthetically...even financially. Our mutual ordeal was made all the more excruciating by several pre-film ceremonies. Most were boring speeches by boring people with tenuous connections to this boring film, but one exchange was so wonderful, so hysterical that it made the whole event worthwhile, at least for me.

To this day, I am able to summon up a smile and slight giggle by recalling the moment. Rather than attempt to recreate it here for you, I am going to ask your help, and you'll need a friend to aid you with this. Together, the three of us — you, me, and your friend — will replicate one of the funniest things I have ever seen in my life. If you do your part well, you will feel as if you were actually there and you will experience some of the outrageous joy I felt at that moment. . . .

Okay now, I have to set the scene for your performance:

We are in a cramped, overstuffed, underventilated movie theater in Westwood, California. People are packed into this place like a Sergio Aragon�s crowd scene. We've been here for hours, it seems, and they haven't even gotten around to running the danged movie yet. (And they'd better get on with it: The actress to my left is due for her six-month silicone lubrication.)

We'd all like to walk out but this is a premiere and most of those present have some vested stake in either viewing the movie or making sure that others view the movie. So no one wants to walk out on it, even before it's begun. We are praying the M.C. will say, "Okay, time to run the movie," but instead, he keeps announcing one more speech, one more dedication, one more thing to keep us here until this movie is released on Laserdisc. (At the time of this incident, the Laserdisc had not yet been invented...but there were moments when I felt like it would be, before I ever again saw sky.)

Finally, just when we all think he's about to thank everyone for coming and give the command to roll film, he proclaims that there will be a psychic reading by the great Psychic Detective, Mr. Peter Hurkos.

There is silence in the house.

And not because they are all in awe over the announcement.

The stars of the movie are summoned to the stage to meet and be "read" by Peter Hurkos. Also summoned to the stage is the legendary, medal-winning, wishing-he-were-anywhere-else Buster Crabbe. Peter Hurkos is a portly little man whose psychic abilities, whatever they are, obviously do not extend to knowing that his hairpiece looks like a Lhasa Apso. He gives the stars of Flesh Gordon a quick reading and proclaims that they will be big stars and that this film will be a smash hit. Which right there oughta be cause for Dionne Warwicke to strip him of his Psychic License. Then he turns his attention to Buster Crabbe. He asks to hold a personal item of Mr. Crabbe's and Buster grudgingly forks over his wallet. Hurkos begins rubbing the wallet as Crabbe eyes him to make certain he is pocketing none of its contents.

For our dramatization (and I'm not kidding; get a friend and read this aloud. It'll have five times the impact if you do), you will play Peter Hurkos and your friend will play Buster Crabbe. Your friend has the easy part. Until his last line, he just has to keep saying, "No." In the scene, he is the one who says "No" to everything and he does not have to do it with any depth or feeling or presence. Remember, he is playing Buster Crabbe. Mr. Crabbe was a handsome man, a wonderful athlete and probably a very nice person but Laurence Olivier did not feel threatened when Buster read lines. In fact, it will help the overall effect if your friend can deliver his part with as little emotion as possible.

You have the tougher role, but then, you have most of the talent. You play Peter Hurkos and the most important part of your performance (Look, Ma...I'm a director) is that you must be absolutely serious and believe intensely that everything you are saying is true. If you can toss in a slight Dutch accent, fine, but it is not mandatory. You are on stage in front of hundreds of people and you are massaging Buster Crabbe's wallet. In what follows, you have the first line, your friend has the second and you alternate from there.

Okay, here we go...

I see...I see that you are contemplating a major change in your residence...moving to another home...

No.

You are contemplating a major change in your residence...remodelling your home...

No.

You are contemplating a major change in your garage...

No.

You have, in your garage, a red 1966 Buick Skylark...

No.

You have, in your garage, a red Buick Skylark...

No.

You have, in your garage, a red Buick...

No.

You have, in your garage, a red car...

No.

You have, in your garage, a car...

No.

You are considering buying a car...

No. You are considering buying a coat...

No.

You are considering buying a cat...

No.

You already have a cat...

No.

You have a dog...a Doberman Pinscher...

No.

You have a German Shepherd...

No.

You have a Cocker Spaniel...

No.

You have a Chihuahua...

No.

You were once bitten by a Chihuahua...

No.

You were once bitten by a dog.

No.

You used to have a dog.

No.

Your children used to have a dog.

No.

Your children want to have a dog.

No.

Your children used to want a dog.

No.

You have children.

No.

You want to have children.

No.

You like children.

No.

You've talked to some children.

Well...yes.

Ah, yes, I knew it!

At least, it went something like that. Halfway through, I was under the seats, laughing so hard I thought I'd bust my spleen, wherever that is. All I remember is that Hurkos made about eight thousand guesses, getting increasingly more general, until one finally connected. And when one finally did, he acted very, very proud, like he had just indisputably proven his psychic abilities.

He reminded me of the person at every party in the sixties who tried to guess our zodiac sign, got it on the tenth or eleventh guess and would then go, Yes, I can always tell. (If you are too young to have attended a party in the sixties, trust me: This person was at every one of them. Sign-guessing was more prevalent than guacamole dip. And about as accurate.) I don't mean any of this to belittle psychics or astrologers or even guacamole; I don't believe in any of the three but, hey, if it works for you...

I don't even mean to belittle Mr. Hurkos, may he rest in peace. Even if you could convince me that there's such a thing as psychic power, I'd still doubt that everyone who claimed to be able to do it could do it or that they could do it every time they tried. Perhaps, away from hostile audience vibes and former Olympic athletes, Peter Hurkos could zero in on a lost child, an errant murder weapon or even Michael Dukakis. But that night at the premiere, he couldn't read a Dr. Seuss book.

I went back to Jack Kirby, who believed in psychic powers — or perhaps it would be better to say that he wanted to believe. I told him all about the evening and reenacted the Hurkos/Crabbe exchange. I also told him about seeing the movie, likening the experience to a root canal performed with the Popeil Pocket Fisherman.

Jack had the best comment about it all. He always did. He said, I'm disappointed to hear that about Peter Hurkos. I guess it proves his psychic powers weren't working. Yeah, I said. If he were psychic, he would have known something about Buster Crabbe. Never mind Buster Crabbe, Jack replied. If Hurkos were psychic, he'd have known enough to stay away from the movie.

Thank you Mark. Now I can't wait to make in-person contact with Sergio again. These cartoonists are great folks....

For the latest "progress" in the art of dowsing, and how it's costing US taxpayers a fortune, go to http://www.time.com/time/columnist/jaroff/article/0,9565,231110,00.html and read.

Yeah, I mis-spelled "Aerosmith" last week, and it was the group "N*sync" that wants to send a member into space. Sigh. Don't tell Alice Cooper, please.....