The spotlight will be on grandparents, Saturday, September 13 as Baptist Health System’s Senior Plus program sponsors Walk on the Wild Side, a fun-filled, health conscious day at the Knoxville Zoo.
The theme of the day is exercise. “There is nothing healthier than a good stroll outside,” says Kristi Fisher, Senior Plus Coordinator. “Walking at the zoo just makes the exercise more fun!.
Walk on the Wild Side begins at 8 a.m. on Saturday and continues until noon.  Grandparents taking part in the event can take advantage of free refreshments, free blood pressure checks, fitness tips and free grandparenting information. Door prizes will be awarded throughout the morning and the first 1,000 Senior Plus members through the gates will receive a free gift. This year, in addition to the exotic animals and exhibits, those in attendance will enjoy musical entertainment.
For just $2 in advance ($3 at the door) Baptist Senior Plus members and children 12 years old and younger can enjoy the wonders of the Zoo one hour before the general public is admitted. Other guests of Senior Plus members can be admitted for $1 off the regular admission price to the Knoxville Zoo. Senior Plus members will also receive a 10 percent discount in all zoo gift shops.
Baptist Senior Plus is the largest senior membership program in East Tennessee.  Membership is free and members enjoy benefits such as discounts on prescription medications, a free subscription to PrimeTime magazine, free seminars, vision discounts, travel discounts, dental discounts and much more. 
To register for Walk on the Wild Side or to learn more about the event or about the Senior Plus program, please call Baptist’s Senior Services at (865) 632-5170.

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The recent execution of Paul Hill, who murdered Dr. John Britton and his bodyguard in Pensacola, FL in 1994, was a grim reminder to anti-abortion activists that crime does not pay. Hill, a former Presbyterian minister, shot the two men and wounded a woman in an ambush attack. He appealed to some fringe groups of the anti-abortion movement to follow his lead in condoning violence against abortion clinic doctors and other personnel. Some have expressed concern that Hill’s execution will make him a martyr and result in more violence. Hopefully, the action taken in Florida will be a deterrent for fanatics.
Abortion is, and always will be, a very emotional issue for both supporters and non-supporters. Many women who have unwanted pregnancies are very young, and not prepared for parenthood. An alternative to abortion is adoption. There are hundreds of approved adoptive parents across the country that are waiting for a child. In addition, there are many relatives of these young mothers who are responsible adults capable of providing a good home. It is unfortunate that so many select abortion as their choice.
Vigilantes such as Paul Hill are nothing but criminals in the eyes of the law. As a man of the cloth, he certainly knew what he did was a sin and a crime. There are no excuses when you murder someone in cold blood, no exceptions. It might be understandable if the persons he killed had taken the life of someone close to him, but it is still illegal. Mr. Hill paid the ultimate price for his actions, but I fear there are more like him that are just as dangerous and unstable.

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I’m a bad person. Despite all the warnings and really guilt-laden commercials from the Office of Homeland Security, I can’t seem to keep my emergency terror attack kit assembled.
I have a case or so of bottled water put away, but I keep using it as a back-up supply for the bottled water in the refrigerator. The result being that my emergency case is usually two-thirds empty and I have to replace it. Which may be a good thing: how long does water stay drinkable trapped in a hot plastic bottle anyway?
The flashlight continues to be a source of spare batteries for my camera, which seems to eat the AA packs at a phenomenal rate. My first aid kit may have the only band aids left in the house, so it’s running low as well.
In short, my terrorist attack survival kit is mostly being used up by everyday life. Makes me wonder where I found some of these items before I had the kit to “borrow” them from so conveniently.
One thing I did add to my kit was a pamphlet produced by the City of New York. It has detailed instructions on how to be cautious and aware of your surroundings, but it still confuses me. One classic example is the page that says, “If you find yourself holding a foreign substance, put it down and back away.”
Does this mean terrorists are going to put foreign substances in our hands while we sleep? Is a foreign substance the same as the foreign object that I’m forbidden from flushing in the bathroom of a tour bus or airplane? I’ve always wondered how the airlines determined they had a problem with people flying to Eastern Bangladesh to buy knick-knacks, just to flush them down the airplane toilets, presumably to watch them turn blue in that deep-died water they use. I guess only US items can be flushed in the airplane toilets to watch them turn blue.
But back to my terror attack survival kit: the book also has helpful hints for survival such as informing me that if I am in a building that has been exposed to radiation, I should go outside the building. But if I am outside and exposed to radiation, I should go into the nearest building.
It has me worried that my one-third case of bottled water may be in a building I have to go out of and that if I have to carry the box of water I won’t have time to pull the batteries back out of the camera to put them back in the flashlight.
It seems terribly complicated and frustrating. No wonder I hate terrorists.

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Pvt. Jessica Lynch fought fiercely and shot several enemy soldiers after Iraqi forces ambushed the Army’s 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company, firing her weapon until she ran out of ammunition,” The Washington Post breathlessly reported.
Citing accounts by “U.S. officials” the Post wrote that the 19-year-old supply clerk “continued firing at the Iraqis even after she sustained multiple gunshot wounds and watched several other soldiers in her unit die around her in fighting March 23.
“She was fighting to the death. She did not want to be taken alive.”
According to The Post the same official said “Lynch was also stabbed when Iraqi forces closed in on her position,” and added that initial intelligence reports even indicated that she had been stabbed to death.”
The whole story, the Post later admitted, was an outright lie, apparently concocted by some Pentagon flacks to help recruit more females into the armed services, and by militant feminists determined to abolish the rules forbidding the use of women in combat.
Pvt. Lynch was crushed when her vehicle turned over and fell on her, breaking numerous bones and causing serious internal injuries. Moreover, it is reported that she was probably unconscious during the entire firefight, and was neither shot nor stabbed.
Despite the fact that Jessica had done nothing heroic she has now been awarded a Bronze Star medal, the fourth highest decoration for valor in combat. And she’s signed a million dollar book deal.
For Mrs. Arlene Walters those unearned honors are a direct slap in the face for the mother of the soldier who actually did what Lynch was said to have done, and died doing it.
According to his fellow soldiers, her son, Sgt. Donald Walters was killed after mounting a lone stand against the Iraqis. Yet few, if any, of the Americans watching Private Lynch’s homecoming have even heard her son’s name. “The military tell us that everyone who was in her unit was a hero,” Mrs. Walters said. “In fact they have singled out Jessica Lynch as the hero, and they are not giving the recognition to my son that he deserves.
“The fighter that they thought was Jessica Lynch was Donald,” Mrs. Walters told Australia’s The Age. “When he was found he had two stab wounds in the abdomen, and he’d been shot once in the right leg and twice in the back. And he’d emptied his rounds of ammunition. Just like they said Jessica had done at first.”
Jessica Lynch’s million dollar book deal is an outrage. The whole story was concocted by some hack publicist in the very beginning and it turned out to be utterly untrue. Then on top of that they give her the Bronze Star for doing what? She did nothing.
Is this fair to other females in the military? For the Pentagon to use this hyped up fictional account to try to recruit more females into the armed services was just plain outrageous.
If she was any kind of soldier at all she’d take that money and put it into a fund to take care of the loved ones of her fellow soldiers who died in that ambush.
She should have turned down that medal – she did nothing to earn it and it is an insult to every member of the armed forces who was awarded that medal for heroism in combat.
I can’t avoid thinking about how Ronald Reagan, my father, turned down a promotion to major before he left the service in WW II. He said the promotion should go to men who were serving overseas, which he could not because without his glasses he was legally blind – the thought of him in combat horrified the family – we didn’t know who he’d end up shooting at.
My dad knew he wasn’t worthy of that promotion and he left the army as a captain. Jessica Lynch is a fine young American who has suffered horribly and deserves our sympathy for what she has endured and will endure as she goes through the painful process of rehabilitation from her injuries. But Jessica Lynch knows she did not deserve that medal, and she should have done the honorable thing and turned it down, along with that million-dollar book deal.

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