The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 12

THE COURIER-JOURNAL LOUISVILLE, Y. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1994. METRO Marzian outgunned in battle against pre-emption law Astronaut Mae Jemison autographed pictures for admirers after her speech at the Naval Ordnance Black History Luncheon in Louisville yesterday. "I would try to imagine, with all my young intensity, being up near the stars, among them," she told the audience of her dreams as a young girl. waning in some quarters, Karem said, its "clout is enormous" in Kentucky.

Some legislators cite Gov. Brere-ton Jones recent flip-flopping over repealing the law as an example of the measure's durability. Last fall Jones said he favored repealing the law. However, yesterday his press secretary, Mindy Shannon Phelps, said that Jones has changed his mind, because having different gun-control laws in different cities and counties would be a hardship for law-enforcement officers. Louisville Alderman Keith Allison is also interested By MARY O'DOHERTY Staff Writer State Rep.

Mary Lou Marzian has been a gun-control advocate for most of her 39 years. But the state law banning Kentucky cities from passing gun-control measures has been particularly obnoxious to the Louisville Democrat since March 31, when her 16-year-old cousin was accidentally shot and killed by a 15-year-old friend. The 10-year-old law was inspired and passed with the National Rifle Association's STAFF PHOTO BY LARRY SPITZER f- 4V 5 help. The so-called pre-emption law has been blasted by Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson and other politicians in the state's two largest cities. In December, a gun-control measure passed by the Louisville Board of Aldermen was struck in weakening the grip of the pre-emption law, but he too knows how popular it is.

He was pushing a proposal similar to Marzian's earlier this month but couldn't find a state legislator willing to sponsor it. (He didn't talk to Marzian until another legislator men Allison Marzian Unfinished journey Mae Jemison challenges listeners to explore their universe Key legislators say their efforts against the 10-year-old preemption law are futile. down because of ing world. Among her points: Our priorities are set by where we put our money and energy. Americans spend money on planes, bombs, cars, furs and going to the movies, "but we're not willing to put money into strengthening our character and our minds." Financing education through a lottery sends a message to children "that their education is a crapshoot." Even parents who choose private schools for their children have a stake in what happens to the public schools.

"We cannot afford to abdicate our responsibility for public schools providing an acceptable education for every child," she said. "If your child does not grow up to be an effective, contributing member of society, then my child does not have a good future no matter what kind of school I send him to." By LESLIE SCANLON Staff Writer Mae C. Jemison medical doctor, astronaut, former Peace Corps worker, entrepreneur remembers lying on her back on soft summer nights on the south side of Chicago, staring at the stars. She was a 6- or 7-year-old black girl whose mind was ablaze with dreams and questions. "I would try to imagine, with all my young intensity, being up near the stars, among them," she told an audience in Louisville yesterday.

"And I would wonder who lived there, what the stars were made of." In that day and age, in the early 1960s, all the astronauts Jemison had ever heard of were white men. So what made her believe she could fly into space a dream that came true in September 1992 on the space shuttle Endeavour, when Jemison, then 36, became the first woman of color to rocket into space. "I knew that as human beings, we all desire to learn about the wonderment of the universe around us, we all yearn to take part in adventures I could because I realized that my life was my responsibility, to live up to my ambitions It's my own life. It's my journey, "Jemison said. But she stressed that her journey is not over a person who doesn't keep growing and learning, she said, will "die, deteriorate, rot or stagnate." She told the crowd yesterday at the 1994 Naval Ordnance Black History Luncheon that, against the advice of some of her friends, she recently resigned from NASA to start a company to bring technology to the developing world.

And Jemison spoke her mind offering a blend of hope, challenge and self-assurance, her own potent recipe for survival in a fast-chang Television can be a powerful source of images, which can influence our ideas about what's acceptable in beauty, economics and career choices. Growing up, Jemison said she loved the adventure and exploration in science fiction movies but hated the way women and people of color were portrayed. "Whenever the monster or the aliens came, everybody would start running, right? And the woman would fall, and somebody would have to come save her. And if there was a yellow, black or brown person in the movie, they were killed in the first five or 10 minutes." When she became an astronaut, Jemison said, she set about to blast the images. She rode the Endeavour into the stars, "she did not fall down, and when the shuttle landed she walked off at the very end." tioned her effort; now the two have joined forces.) Allison wanted to carve out an exception for Louisville in the law a position he thought rural legislators might find more palatable.

But Allison said several legislators turned him down, including Democratic Rep. Leonard Gray; who heads the Jefferson County legislative delegation. Gray, whose district includes much of western Louisville, said he wouldn't sponsor Allison's proposal because he knew it had no chance. "The votes are not there," said Gray, who predicted that Marzian's proposal wouldn't even get out of committee. Marzian and Allison say her proposal might stand a better chance if it can be changed so it seeks only to exclude Louisville from the preemption law.

But Gray and Karem said any effort to tinker with the law would fail. the pre-emption law. The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council, eager to pass a gun-control measure of its own, urged state legislators last summer to repeal it. Now Marzian, who has been in office less than two months, is trying to wipe it off the books. She filed a bill seeking to repeal the law last week.

However, key legislators eluding Rep. Louis Johnson, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, where her bill was sent say it has no chance of passing. "It's politically undoable there is absolutely no support for that," said Senate Majority Leader David Karem of Louisville, one of a handful of legislators who opposed the law when it was proposed in 1984. The law is so popular, Karem and others say, because many Kentucki-ans believe the constitutional right to bear arms is absolute. And although the NRA's power is 1994 Kentucky General Assembly Wrestler found guilty of harassment charge Tim McCall, testified that he had advised Lawler to record telephone conversations about his case but warned him against initiating them.

Frank Mascagni, a former assistant commonwealth's attorney who tried yesterday to submit a legal brief of behalf of defense lawyers, said it apparently marked the first time a search warrant had ever been served on a lawyer's office in Kentucky. The Kentucky Education Reform Act came under fire from critics in both chambers of the General Assembly. Page 3 Gov. Brereton Jones warned that if legislators refuse to raise enough money with a tax on health-care providers, some people may lose their Medicaid benefits. Page 3 House Speaker Joe Clarke said a bill to overhaul the workers' compensation system will have to be revised because it doesn't do enough to cut costs.

PAGE 3 committee about the proposed stadium, which would be partly funded with $7 million in bonds included in Jones' proposed budget. Committee members had plenty of questions about other parts of the budget, but none about stadium bonds. Chairman Mike Moloney, D-Lexington, asked Swain and Chancey, "Since there have not been any questions which would indicate problems with that aspect of the budget, do you still think it's necessary to make a presentation?" Chancey and Swain smiled and said no. "There's an old rule in politics I've learned in Kentucky," Swain said as he left the meeting. "If you have the votes, don't say a word." -Tom Loftus able to resume wrestling in World Wrestling Federation events.

Lawler had dropped out of national events while the charges against him were pending, though he had continued wrestling regionally, Denison said. Prosecution and defense attorneys were tight-lipped about reasons for striking the agreement. But taped conversations and the alleged victim's reluctance to testify played a part in the outcome. Lawler said in an interview that he made mistakes in phone conversations recorded on three audiotapes that were seized at a lawyer's office under a disputed search warrant. He made and received calls to young women who might be called as witnesses, and "that was the wrong thing to do," he said.

The state's case against Lawler was complicated earlier this month when a male witness was himself By MICHAEL JENNINGS Staff Writer Rape and sodomy charges against professional wrestler Jerry Lawler were dismissed yesterday under a plea agreement that leaves a misdemeanor conviction of harassing a witness on his record. Lawler, 43, of Memphis, was accused of having sex with a 13-year-old girl in June and July and of harassing a witness in October. The alleged rape victim was a fan of wrestling matches at Louisville Gardens. Jefferson Circuit Judge Earl O'Bannon gave Lawler a suspended 12-month jail sentence, as called for in the agreement. To stay out of jail, Lawler must avoid contact with prosecution witnesses and commit no other offenses for two years.

One of Lawler's attorneys, Tim Denison, said his client should be charged with the first-degree rape of a 15-year-old girl. Lawler, known as "The King," was indicted by a Jefferson County grand jury in November on a count of second-degree rape, three counts of second-degree sodomy and one count of harassing a witness. Lawler's attorneys claimed the alleged rape victim recanted her original statement incriminating him. Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Lisa Schweickart refused to comment on the reasons for the agreement, saying only that it "served justice." Before announcing the agreement yesterday, lawyers for Lawler and the state haggled over the propriety of a search warrant used to seize the tapes Dec. 30 at the office of Louisville attorney Brian Darling, who formerly represented Lawler.

Another former lawyer for Lawler, Schweickart asked District Judge Virginia Whittinghill, rather than O'Bannon, for a search warrant. O'Bannon did not rule on the warrant's legality, but he was clearly miffed by the state's tactics. When Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Keith Kamenish told him prosecutors requested "a neutral magistrate" for the warrant, O'Bannon replied: "You didn't consider this court a neutral magistrate?" Corrections clarifications Turfway Park entries published yesterday had the wrong post time. The correct time was 7 p.m. Sealed in silence University of Louisville President Donald Swain and Malcolm Chancey, the banker leading the campaign to build a new football stadium, were happy to waste some time in Frankfort yesterday.

The two went to the capital to talk to the Senate budget The House Appropriations and Revenue Committee takes up the House version of health-care reform legislation. The panel meets after the House adjourns this afternoon in Room 131 of the Capitol Annex. Legal impasse? The U.S. Justice Department wants to interview a former paralegal about documents a Kentucky judge has ordered him to keep quiet about. Page 2 Couple found Slain: A neighbor who realized they had been out of sight for days found a Fairdale couple dead of gunshot wounds in their home yesterday.

Page 4 It's winter, but you can find of L's boys of summer at Parkway Field If you hang around the University of Louisville baseball field long enough, you get the feeling that the team and the place are a perfect match: both seem to be little noticed, under-appreciated and deserving of better. Why hang around at all? Because, first of all, there's nothing more peculiar than the annual sight of 31 well-scrubbed young men outdoors in mid-winter The man who supervises these cold, breezy practices is Coach Gene Baker, a 35-year-old man whose bachelor's degree is in chemistry, whose master's is in health and physical education, and whose heart obviously came with a horsehide cover. "Ted Williams hit two inside-the-park home runs here in the same game," Baker said, in between raking the mound and shouting instructions to his hitters, instructions only they would understand, such as, "On the first pop, load your hands!" Mi Louisville, dressed in uniforms that could jfjyi easily be mistaken for pajamas, their ears ADAMS Tuesday was the first practice after the team's return from Florida. Everyone knows that the basketball team was invited to Orlando last weekend to play one game. Almost no one knows that the baseball team was invited there too, to play three games.

(They went by bus, and won one.) On the field, over the grinding din of Eastern Parkway traffic, Baker said that in most people's minds, "we don't play until Coach Crum is finished, and then it's April." In fact, the team plays roughly 25 home games between February and May, largely, like their field, little noticed. Baker didn't know precisely what adult prices for tickets would be this year, because, he said with some slight exaggeration, "Nobody buys them." (Students and parents of players get in free, and that basically taps out the market.) All that's left of the old home of the old Louisville Colonels now is the old outfield wall and a few old light stanchions. But the 70-year-old wall is not to be underestimated: It's a magnificent brick structure, now painted green, that rises to 33 feet in left center. It has overseen the play of two dozen or so Hall of Famers, not to mention a thick slab of Negro Leagues history, too. "When I walked out to that wall for the first time," said Barbara Oremland, a of assistant professor who is involved in a group called the Society for American Baseball Research, "I could really feel the beauty that has been described about that stadium.

That brick wall is so gorgeous. I was very moved by it." At last notice, Parkway Field seemed safe against the great change happening around it: the coming of the football stadium to its south, changes in roadways, and so forth. But if the plans for change change, Baker worries, could Parkway lacking a strong advocate be overlooked, or buried under? Louisville, as we know, is not always kind to its landmarks. What better time than now to put up a great big sign again that says "Parkway Maybe a row" of plaques along the great brick wall would be in order too, to commemorate what has happened there. Jackie Robinson's first minor-league playoff game, for example, and Babe Ruth's mammoth home run, one that people still talk about.

METRO COLUMNIST as red as beets, while tneir classmates hustle by inside hooded parkas. Their classmates don't even appear to look at them when they pass, the way you might avoid eye contact with a suspected lunatic. Another reason to hang around is the place: Parkway Field. It's a wonderful, urban, historic place, but it works so hard to hide its splendid history that just being there is painful. There's not even a prominent sign any more that says "Parkway Field." Others say Baker is an excellent teacher of hitting, and he broke out a new teaching tool on Tuesday afternoon: a machine resembling a vacuum cleaner that fires tennis balls out of a pipe.

Players may then take infinite swings, without wearing out anyone's pitching arm (or "live arm," as they call it, which, in conjunction with loaded hands, probably ought to be subject to a five-day waiting period). -Si.