I wasn't paying careful enough attention and allowed Fink to create five or six new users, one of which was called "mysql". I already had a mysql user in order to run a MySQL server, but the new user Fink created overwrote that user, breaking my MySQL installation.
It is easy enough to remove that user, and recreate a mysql user, change the ownership of the correct files, and restore your MySQL installation, however, DO NOT use the Users preference pane in System Preferences to remove any of the users!
When Fink creates the users, if you check NetInfo, you'll see that each user's home folder is "/". Not good. Mac OS X assumes that when you remove a user, you, the admin, should take over the ownership of the former user's files. However, its not too smart about how it changes the ownership. Starting at the mysql user's home folder, /, OSX chowned EVERY SINGLE FILE stemming from the root directory to now be owned by me, nelsonj. To delete the user, you gave OSX root access, so it was able to change the ownership of all files, even those owned by "root". Things immediately ceased to work. I had to log out and log in as root (su and sudo don't work without the proper file ownerships). Tehn I had to change the ownership of everything back to root, then specify certain directories and change them back to my own. It's still not working 100%.
The lesson is either don't let Fink create new users, and/or don't use System Preferences to delete the users!
[Editor's note: I can't confirm this situation, as fink has never created a user on my system, but I thought a warning may be in order given the description of the situation! If you have further information, please post what you know about fink and user creation.]

