WARNING!
there's no going back now. this change is *huge* but it was overdue.
WARNING!
the database backend is now mysql. modules that should use a database
but don't yet were left untouched, they'll come later. scripts haven't
been converted yet, though i'm pretty sure i'll need to soon.
while i was going through everything, connection/cursor idioms were
cleaned up, as were a bunch of log messages and exception handling. this
change is so gross i'm happy things appear to be working, which is
the case --- all modules are lightly tested.
Brian S. Stephan