St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 7

3X7 AN 071999 ft Carondelet Cartoonists'views A The nation's cartoonists comment on New Year's resolutions, Chinese leaders, fund raising for the precidential election, the impeachment process and more. B7 Andrew Carnegie provided funds for the fflTff construction of the Carondelet Branch If i i I Library, 6800 Michigan which opened in 1908. It was the third 1, Carnegie library in the St. Louis system. IL-f0(r0ii jtl Thursday, January 7, 1999 ST.

LOWS PDST-DISPATCH Skction 7 Faces misdemeanor charge Ice on roads melts away, but overnight cold could make for a slick morning commute The lure of fnfomercials Returning to work will save me from impractical impulses The time had clearly come for me to return to work from vacation. I knew it for sure as I flipped channels during one of those vacation days and came across a guy named Billy Blanks. You've probably never heard of Billy Blanks. I hadn't, either. But I soon realized that I had simply been unenlightened, as big stars like Sin-bad sang his praises and said they had been working with him for years to stay in t' I i Si.

it i I r-ir--iiiiri rm-rrf- ifn mn in I Wednesday's warmer weather brought vendor Kerry Mc Daniel back to his corner at Goodfellow Boulevard is downgraded Chris Sutton, a department spokesman, said graders and plows spent most of Wednesday widening the roadways up interchange ramps on the interstates. "Those are all either normal or close to normal," he said. This morning's low could reach 10, cold enough to harden the ruts in the snow that covers many See Cold, Page B4 Ex-anchor was hit by no license, police say By Lance Williams Of the Post-Dispatch The woman driving a car that struck Mary Phelan Baudendis-tel's car was driving with a suspended license, authorities say. Baudendistel, a former anchor-woman for KMOV (Channel 4), died of severe head injuries the day after the crash Dec. 19 in St.

Louis County. Tanya M. Car-nahan, 28, of Benton, 111., faces a misdemeanor charge of driving while her license was suspended. No citations were issued at the scene, but Car- Mary Phelan nahan was later Baudendistel issued a ticket by St. Louis County authorities.

Further charges are unlikely, county police said Wednesday. Illinois records indicate that Carnahan was issued three speeding tickets last year and that her license was suspended last summer for failure to pay one of them. Carnahan could not be reached for comment Wednesday. On March 22, Carnahan was ticketed for driving 85 mph in a 65 mph zone. The $75 fine remains unpaid, officials said Wednesday.

She also was ticketed for driving 15 mph to 25 mph over the speed limit on March 7 and on July 27. See Phelan, Page B4 Belleville West High School basketball player; DeMarco Smith volunteers at Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital, where he en-' joys playing with the young patients. As a baby, Smith was treated in the hospital's neonatal unit. Here, Darius Blaylock, 4, of East St. Louis, scoots his car as Smith steadies it and keeps track of Darius' IV unit.

POST DISPAICH A. driver with ff YlMIII J.B. Forbes POST-DISPATCH and Natural Bridge Avenue. More cold weather is on the way Today: High 24, with mostly cloudy skies. Friday: High 35, low 22, with ice or snow possible.

Saturday: High 24, low 20, with morning snow. Sunday: High 27, low 10. Karen Elsmout i A' 7 I 1 I i Teen pays back miracle of his own life by visiting children at Cardinal Glennoii Greg shape. Blanks is the guy who pushes something on an infomer-cial called Tae-Bo. Blanks, according to the commercial, is a world martial arts champion who has developed Tae-Bo, which "blends frmnan your own hidden strength with the ancient arts of self-defense, dance and boxing combined with today's great music." On top of that, Blanks is a muscular man with glowing, mahogany skin and a shaved head.

The guy looks like the picture of health. As I watched him discuss how easy this was, my eyes rolled to my stomach, still protruding from the last of the Honeybaked Ham left over from Christmas. I began thinking, "You know, I could look like him." My dialing finger started to itch for a moment before my mind kicked in. "What are you doing?" I asked myself. "Are you really going to use this?" My mind wandered back to other times when that dialing finger had itched.

Like the time I was laid up in the hospital and purchased videotapes off a TV commercial that promised to teach me how to do the Macarena. I could "Macarena with the pros!" the ad had promised. I guess I ordered that because even the thought of my doing the Macarena something that would send most people to the hospital seemed preferable to lying in bed all day. Not only did I never learn the Macarena something I'm proud to admit, by the way I never even opened the videos when they arrived. I thought back a few years, when woks seemed to be all the rage in in-fomercials.

I could learn to cook healthy. No more frying the health out of vegetables, or boiling them beyond recognition. No, wok cooking was quick and sealed the nutrition in the vegetables, making them more flavorful, the ads promised. And, because I ordered before midnight of the night I saw the ad, I got a free spatula thrown in. Who could ask for more? My wok arrived, and the family waited to see what wondrous concoctions I would prepare.

I cooked a couple of meals, as I recall, and then retired the wok to the top shelf of our kitchen pantry, returning us to our wok-free meals. Last year, I did buy some videos on TV that I enjoyed, even though I've been warned by friends to never show them in their presence. One late night, an ad came on for videos of some of those old Dean Martin roasts. Fbr those who don't remember, Martin hosted a "Man of the Hour" every week on NBC during the 70s, and the roasters were generally funny people of the day: Lucille Ball, Flip Wilson, Don Rickles and the like. Occasionally, politicians would get in on the act, people like Barry Goldwater and Hubert Humphrey.

It was actually a bizarre show, and the quips were clearly canned, but quite biting. As someone who likes to laugh, I've got to admit to enjoying that one even if I'm an audience of one. Besides, I've used the videotapes more than I did the Juice Tiger that I bought a couple of years ago. Remember those? They were advertised by some older guy who seemed to be in good shape and who said he swore by it. Take fruit, any kind of fruit, and make juice out of it.

Great idea, I thought, and I ordered it. Then I started buying fruit to make fresh juice, and quickly found that it was a lot cheaper, not to mention a lot easier, to buy the juice already squeezed. The Juice Tiger now sits next to the wok. As for Tae-Bo, I quickly came to my senses. I'll never look like Billy Blanks; who was I kidding? I flipped the channel again, hoping I wouldn't run into another infomercial.

Anyway, it's good to be back at work. It will keep me from buying 10 Forecast for A high temperature of 43 Wednesday melted the last of the ice on area roads, but another cold night will make side streets slippery this morning. The Missouri Department of Transportation kept its road graders scraping the shoulders Wednesday along Highway 21 in south St. Louis County. That road was closed for part of Monday Cabdriver's killer asks governor to halt execution He is appealing another sentence ByTimO'Neil Of the Post-Dispatch A man who is to be executed next Wednesday for murdering a cab-driver in 1981 has asked Gov.

Mel Carnahan to spare his life because he's still appealing another death-penalty conviction in California. Kelvin S. Malone, 37, was moved last week from California's San Quentin State Prison to the Potosi Correctional Center in Missouri. He is to be executed there for the murder on March 18, 1981, of William Parr, 62, a driver for Yellow Cab Co. who was found fatally shot in Berkeley, Mo.

Parr was the first of at least three people who were murdered by Malone over a six-day period that ended in California. He faces execution there for killing a female service-station attendant two days after Parr's murder, and received a life sentence for the murder of a woman from Texas big late-week storm and Tuesday because of rough sheets of ice on the hilly stretch from the Meramec River to near Interstate 270. A Transportation Department spokesman said Highway 21 and the interstates in South County, which also suffered prolonged effects of last weekend's snowstorm, were clear Wednesday. whose body was found in the California desert four days after that. Malone is from Seaside, near Monterey, but has relatives in the St.

Louis area and lived here for a while as a youth. His accomplice, Michael T. Crenshaw, also 37 and formerly of Berkeley, received two life sentences in California for the murders of the two women. Malone's lawyers submitted his plea for reducing his sentence to life in prison to Carnahan on Tuesday. The 8th U.S.

Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis rejected his appeal and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review it on Oct. 19, clearing the way for execution by injection at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.

Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty plans to hold several protest rallies around the state on Tuesday and a candlelight vigil outside the Potosi prison that night. The petition, prepared by his public defenders, claims that Malone received an inadequate defense in St. Louis County Circuit Court in 1984. That's a common argument in clemency filings. What is uncommon is its plea for time because of the threat of execution that Malone is fighting in California.

Before his trial here, he was sentenced to death for killing the service-station attendant in Baker, Calif. The jury in St. Louis County heard of that penalty before recommending the same for killing Parr. See Appeal, Page B4 Pope's visit prompts commemorative postmark The U.S. Postal I afr Tlie Belleville West Township High Scliool student weighed only 2 pounds at birth.

BY KRISHNA SAUERWEIN Of the Post-Dispatch DeMarco Smith has long fingers and wide palms, perfect for dunking basketballs. Eighteen years ago, when he was born, Smith was as long as his hands are now. Born two to three months premature with lung problems, he barely weighed 2 pounds. He was so sick, he spent most of his first year at hospitals, with doctors warning his family that their baby might not make it. Smith laughs.

"It's ironic that I was so small, because now I'm big," he said. He's 6 feet tall, weighs 165 pounds and is a point guard for Belleville West Township High School and the St. Louis Eagles, a regional youth basketball team. He's also a volunteer at Cardinal Glennon Children's See Volunteer, Page B4 pastoral-visit POPE JOHN PAUL" 4S ST.UUIIMUiOlU i an Jit 1 1 1999 Children's museum is still seeking a new home Jeanne Fischer is still looking to expand the world for children, or at least the space in which she does it. Fischer is the founder of the Worldways Children's Museum, an interactive center where children learn about other cultures in "immersion experience." She wants to move the museum, which will be displaced in a renovation of West County Center next year, to a larger space to open more exhibits.

The museum now houses two exhibits, Gateway to China In Ottier News Missouri won a round in its battle to keep an Indian tribe's online lottery games out of the state. In 1997, a federal judge in Kansas City ruled that the Coeur d'Alene Tribe holds immunity from Missouri suit because of sovereignty accorded American Indian tribes. On Wednesday, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the judge "improperly defined the preemptive scope" of the federal law in denying the state's effort to return its case to state court, where it was first filed. Attorney General Jay Nixon contends that even though the tribe's lotteries operate from its reservation in Idaho, they may be regulated by Missouri when the tribe offers games online to Missouri residents.

B2 Service announced Wednesday that it will offer a free commemorative postmark during both days of Pope John Paul IPs visit to St. Louis. On Jan. 26 and 27, St. Louis Post Office employees will have a temporary office on Papal Plaza, an area being set up near the Kiel Center.

Clerks will hand-cancel items with a postmark featuring official artwork approved by the St. Louis Archdiocese. The postmark can be applied to any piece of mail bearing first-class postage. If you wish instead to order a copy of the postmark through the mail, send your request to: Pastoral Visit Station, 1720 Market Street, St. Louis, Mo.

63155-9998. You must include an envelope bearing at least 33 cents first-class postage or a postcard with a 20-cent stamp and address it to yourself or to whomever you wish to receive it. Requests must be made by March 1. and Oaxaca, Mexico. In the exhibits, children learn about cultures firsthand by dressing in colorful costumes, tasting eth nic cuisines and shopping in foreign stores.

Worldways will remain at West County Center through May, and a new location should be announced in the next couple months. For more information, call (314) 909-0497. things. A JZ3 ft".