Today's Feature

Amendment for Lodging Tax.

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

Items on the agenda include the second reading of an ordinance amending the 2006-2007 fiscal year operating and capital budget. City Administrator Tom Short noted during the first reading of this ordinance at the previous Council meeting that the lodging tax funds had been received and were higher than anticipated. This amendment would allow for the acceptance of the funds.

The Council is also scheduled to hear an ordinance for annexation at 3133 South Grand Avenue as requested by Patrick Worley and as recommended by the Planning, Zoning and Historic Preservation committee.

Auditions at Stone’s Throw.

Audition dates for the Musical "The Fantasticks" will be held Sunday, July 15 and Monday, July 16 at 7:00 p.m. at Stone’s Throw Theatre. Needed are 7 men (ages ranging from teenage to 60’s or 70’s) and 1 teenaged girl. Requirements are a prepared song from the shows. Recorded samples are available at http://www.thefantasticks.com

Cold readings from the script will be conducted in small groups. A choreographer will teach a simple routine to be repeated by each individual as a dance audition. The show is scheduled for September 6 through 9 and 13 through 16.

Scripts for "The Fantasticks" are available for checkout during regular office hours at the theatre. The box office is open from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.

I’ve been to a state fair or two.

My best recollection of a fair attraction is the clown at the water tank.

"High and dry, I’m sittin’ high and dry," he would heckle passersby. If he happened to get someone’s eye he would really turn on. He would then publicly ridicule the unfortunate dupe until he’d have ta plunk down a dollar or two just to show his girlfriend how ta deal with loud mouth clowns at the State Fair. Typically after five or eight dollars worth, the guy would walk away with the assurance the clown wouldn’t be wantin’ any more a that.

Climbin’ out of the tank, the chatter would start all over. A little soggy, but eight or ten dollars richer, the Clown looked for his next victim. "High and dry, I’m sittin’ High and Dry."

This is some fact, but mostly,

Just Jake Talkin’.

To Your Good Health
By Paul G. Donohue, M.D.

Approaches to Treatment of Spinal Stenosis

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: I am writing about spinal stenosis. Do many people have it? I am 74. I understand it comes from calcium deposits. Is this correct? Is the process stoppable or reversible? Can glucosamine can reabsorb the calcium. -- A.B.

ANSWER: Our backs are a series of bones (vertebrae) stacked one on the other like a tower of building blocks. A tunnel -- the spinal canal -- runs through the middle of those bones. In it is the spinal cord, which connects with the brain in the back of the head and continues to stretch to the lower back. It ends about the middle of the lower back. Throughout its course, it sprouts nerves. It looks like a potato that’s sprouting eyes, but the spinal nerves come off in a regular pattern and they continue to emerge from the backbones almost to the end of the spine.

Anything that narrows the spinal canal (spinal stenosis) or that narrows the exit passages for spinal nerves presses on the cord or nerves and causes pain. The pain often intensifies with walking. Bending forward at the waist opens the canal and the passages for spinal nerves, dampening pain.

Calcium spurs and calcium deposits are one kind of spinal stenosis cause. Thickened back ligaments are another cause. So are bulging discs -- the shock absorbers between adjacent backbones.

Not all spinal stenosis gets worse. Many people with the condition either improve or stay the same. I have not heard of glucosamine as a treatment. I am skeptical about that. Injections of numbing agents together with a cortisone drug -- epidurals -- can lessen pain. If pain interferes with life, surgically widening the spinal canal and the nerve exits can solve the problem.