Today's Feature

Council Meeting This Evening.

Carthage City Council will meet in a regular session this evening at 7:30 p.m. in the Council Chambers of City Hall.

Items on the agenda include the second reading of the City’s phone contract with AT&T. Changes in the billing procedure will allow the City to reduce the number of lines required for the Plexar II rate. The Plexar II rate reduces the phone service bill by approximately 50%. This ordinance would allow the City to eliminate the current joint billing with Carthage Water and Electric Plant and McCune-Brooks Hospital, and pay only for City office lines and the lines used by the Carthage Public Library.

Other items on the agenda include the first reading of the ordinance allowing the City to collect from prisoners the costs of incarceration. The item is brought to Council by the Public Safety committee with a recommendation for approval. The rate discussed by the committee was $30 per prisoner per day.

This will also be City Attorney David Mouton’s final meeting. Mouton was elected Division III Judge in the November 7 election and will be sworn in on December 29th. A reception will be held after the meeting.

Stench Report:

Friday,
12/22/06

No Stench Detected on Carthage Square

Now there is the possibility that I live in a constant state of the ailment and just don’t notice the difference. I’m more likely to think it’s more a matter of expectations.

A friend a mine, as a child at his grandmother’s for Christmas, opened his gift and found a pair of socks.

"Dang," he said as he threw them on the floor, "I’d rather had the money."

Most likely the grandmother felt a little twinge of the blues right away, not waitin’ for the "post" to set in.

I suppose it takes a little more maturity to really appreciate a good pair a socks for Christmas.

This is some fact, but mostly,

Just Jake Talkin’.

MRIs, CAT Scans and Sonograms

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: Will you tell me if an MRI and a CAT scan are the same? -- P.B.

ANSWER: X-rays were the first invention that enabled doctors to look inside the body without having to cut it open. They were and still are one of medicine’s most valuable tools for making a diagnosis.

New techniques for exploring the body’s interior arose in the last part of the 20th century. CAT scans -- computed axial tomography -- yield pictures of inner anatomy with computer-generated views of internal structures gained from X-ray beams passed through a multitude of "slices" of the body. CAT has now become just CT scan. CT scans are excellent ways of imaging bones and bleeding in the brain, among other things.

MRI -- magnetic resonance imaging -- produces pictures of internal organs without any radiation. It employs powerful magnets to generate images. It’s especially valuable for delineating "soft" tissues like the scars that multiple sclerosis makes in the brain and spinal cord. Because of the magnetic fields, MRI can’t be used for people who have metallic joints or implanted metallic devices.

Sound waves are used to capture pictures of internal organs too. They’re called sonograms or echograms. Echocardiograms, for example, give great pictures of the heart and its valves.

All these devices produce pictures of the body’s interior, but they do so in different ways, and they have different applications.