Seasonal Flu Shots Available.

The Jasper Couonty Health Department has scheduled a seasonal flu (not H1N1) and pneumonia immunization clinic for Thursday September 17, 2009 from 12:30 to 3:30 P.M. The clinic is for residents of Jasper County (outside the city limits of Joplin) 19 years of age and older.

Children’s vaccine will be available at a later date. Vaccine is not available for pregnant women.

Those that have Medicaid (Missouri Health Net) or Medicare part B should bring their cards to their appointment. Medicare part D will not be billed by the Department.

The cost of the flu vaccine is $15.00 and the pneumonia vaccine is $45.00.

Call the Jasper County Health Department at 358-3111 or toll-free at 877-879-9131 to schedule an appointment.

Public Works to Meet.

The City Council Public Works Committee will meet this evening at 5 p.m. at the Carthage Recycling Center at 1309 Oak Hill Road to discuss changes to the City Code concerning solid waste.

Stimulus Spending Slowed During Summer

by Christopher Flavelle, ProPublica -

The pace of stimulus spending on new grants and projects has slowed in recent months, despite a pledge by the Obama administration to get money out the door more quickly, USA Today reports. According to the paper, the government allocated an average of $1.3 billion a day for new grants and projects during the stimulus’s first hundred days. However, since then, the pace of that spending has fallen to about $1 billion a day. The administration says that when tax cuts are included, the overall pace of stimulus spending actually increased slightly, and White House spokeswoman Liz Oxhorn called USA Today‘s approach "selective accounting."

The stimulus is good news for gun manufacturers. The Christian Science Monitor reports that gun sales to law enforcement agencies have increased 32 percent, and gunmaker Smith & Wesson said sales were up 30 percent in the first quarter. Stimulus money for police departments helped drive that increase, according to the Monitor: Police in Jeffersonville, Ind., are spending $63,000 to buy 74 new assault rifles, while police in Barre, Vt., are buying six handguns, 21 Taser guns and five shotguns. The article quotes a gun culture expert as saying that President Obama has become "gun salesman of the century."

Finally today, the stimulus has helped revive small-business lending [3], The New York Times reports. According to the Times’ Robb Mandelbaum, small-business loan approvals increased from about $165 million a week at the beginning of the year to almost $400 million by August. Karen Mills, the administrator of the Small Business Administration, told Mandelbaum that much of the credit goes to the stimulus, which increased the percentage of small-business loans guaranteed by the federal government. However, Mandelbaum asks what happens in December, when the $375 million appropriated to the SBA by the Recovery Act is projected to run out.

I hate shoppin’ for bacon. For some time I thought I was the only one who tried to get a little meat on the slice. Since they started puttin’ the little flap on the package so you could get some idea of what you were gettin’ a few years ago, I’ve don’t think I’ve picked up a package of bacon where the flap wasn’t pulled up.

Seems that by the time I get to pickin’ out a package, they’ve all been picked through. All that’s left are the packs that nobody else wanted. I’m always left wonderin’ if someone else got that one decent package they throw in ever now and then.

Prob’ly, like me, they figure out there ain’t no difference anyway, close their eyes and grab a pack and live with it.

This is some fact, but mostly,

Just Jake Talkin’.

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To Your Good Health

By Paul G. Donohue, M.D.

Murmurs Not Always Serious Heart Trouble

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: During my recent physical exam, my doctor said I had a heart murmur but not to worry about it. I decided to go to my heart doctor anyway. He did an EKG -- normal. I had a stress test last June -- normal. He states that many people my age, 87, have heart murmurs. He said he would watch it.

Do I have a dangerous heart problem? I play tennis three nights a week and exercise with weights a few times a week. My weight is perfect for my height. I sleep well. My wife cooks without salt, and we watch our sugar intake. I take one pill for high blood pressure and one pill for an enlarged prostate gland. -- R.E.

ANSWER: An 87-year-old with a dangerous heart problem could not play tennis three times a week and lift weights even a few times a week. You have no symptoms. You have a normal EKG and had a normal stress test. Your heart health must be good.

When doctors listen to hearts with a stethoscope, they hear a "lub-dub" sound due to the closing of the four heart valves. Murmurs are noises heard between those two sounds. Often they indicate narrow or leaky heart valves. The murmur comes from a disturbance in blood flow due to the abnormal valve. It creates eddy currents in the blood, which generate sound. However, eddy currents arise for other reasons, some of which have nothing to do with heart valves. Older people often have such sounds, i.e., murmurs. Those sounds are innocent murmurs.

Even if your murmur is a sign of valve damage, the damage must be slight. You have no symptoms. You are more active than people half your age. The chance that a slightly damaged valve in someone 87 years old would progress to a dangerously damaged valve is most unlikely.