Today's Feature

Will Review Settlements.

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 approving a settlement agreement with AT&T Mobility and assigning a percentage of the settlement proceeds to the Missouri Municipal League. If approved, this will be the third company that has settled during the class-action lawsuit against wireless phone providers for back taxes, the first two being Verizon and U.S. Cellular. Council is also scheduled to hear the first reading of an ordinance approving a settlement with Sprint, as part of the same lawsuit. If both settlements are approved by Council the City will net approximately $273,000 for two years’ worth of back taxes from the four companies.

Council will also hear the first reading of an ordinance authorizing the Mayor to execute a Performance Agreement between the City and Schreiber Foods, Inc. to provide certain incentives for the construction of new and expansion of existing facilities for certain industrial, warehousing and manufacturing purposes. This item is brought to Council by the Enhanced Enterprise Zone Board.

I always got a kick outa those commercials that have the multi-use gadgets. Slices, dices, peels and mashes type a gadgets.

I grew up around gadget uncles and other family members. I personally always like to have good tools, but usually tools that did one job and did it really well.

It always seemed like the more uses a gadget had, the less likely it would be to do any one thing as well as it should.

The knife with a spoon and fork on it for instance. Lookin’ at it, you’d think it was a great idea. The problem is usually when I’m usin’ a fork, I need a knife ta cut with. That’s somethin’ that ya can’t do with that particular gadget. So you’ve got to choose; use the knife or use the fork. One of ‘em is gonna be useless.

This is some fact, but mostly,

Just Jake Talkin’.

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

Urinary Infection? Blame Your Colon

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: I spent five days this month in the hospital with a urinary tract infection. The medical team could not tell me where I caught the infection. One answer was that the E. coli germ, which we have in our bodies, travels to other parts of the body and infects them. -- P.M.

ANSWER: The "urinary tract" is the kidneys, the ureters (the tubes draining urine from the kidneys to the bladder), the bladder (the storage receptacle for urine) and the urethra (the drainage channel from the bladder to the outside world). Lower urinary tract infections are infections of the bladder, urethra or both. They usually can be treated at home with antibiotics. Their symptoms are frequent urinations, burning upon urinating and pain in the low abdomen.

Upper urinary tract infections involve the kidney. They are more serious and have more dramatic signs and symptoms, like high fever, chills, sweats and flank pain. They are mostly treated in the hospital with intravenous antibiotics.

Where did your infection come from? Probably from your colon, which teems with bacteria. E. coli is one of those bacteria. E. coli can often be found on the skin of the rectum and in adjacent structures. From there, it’s not a great distance to the urethra, the bladder’s drainage tube. Once it enters the urethra, it ascends into the bladder, and from there it can reach the kidneys.

An enlarged prostate, because it blocks bladder drainage, sets up men for urinary tract infections. Women get more of these infections than men because their urethras are shorter, and bacteria can travel up them easily.