Opinion
Page 2/The Battalion/Thursclay, June 21, 1984
America
aging
rapidly
For years Americans have
waged a youth crusade.
Dishwashing liquid for younger
looking hands, dyes to get rid of
gray hair and facelifts every three
years are part of the crusade.
Americans seem to be afraid of
growing old. Turning 30 is a ma
jor tragedy for some people, al
though for others the crisis comes
at 50.
Fortunately, the attitude that
young is always better seems to be
lessening. People are realizing that
turning 30 or turning 40 doesn’t
mean the end of youthful activ
ities.
That’s fortunate because the lat
est Census Bureau predictions
show rapid increases on the aver
age age of Americans.
By the year 2000, according to
the bureau’s report, the average
American will be 36 years old. The
median age of the U.S. population
will increase rapidly after that.
“The report shows the nation is
about to start aging rapidly,” the
Census Bureau said. “In 1982, the
median age of the U.S. population
was at an all-time high of 30.6
years. In none of our projection
series would the median age ever
again be so young.”
It’s a good thing turning 30, 40
or 50 isn’t a crisis anymore. If
you’re a 21-year-old college stu
dent now, guess what? You’ll be 37
in the year 2000.
But at least you won’t be alone.
—The Battalion Editorial Board
The Battalion
CJSPS 045 360
Member of
Texas Press Association
Southwest journalism Conference
The Battalion Editorial Board
Rcl>cta Zimmermann, Editor
Bill Robinson. Editorial Page Editor
Shelley Hockstra, City Editor
Kathleen Hart, News Editor
Dave Scott, S|Mirts Editor
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Assistant City Editor ..
Assistant News Editor
Staff Writers
Copy Editor
Photographers
Robin Black
Dena Brown
Kari Fluegel
Sarah Oates, Travis Tingle
Trade Holub
Peter Rocha,
Dean Saito
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Business value changes
spell 21st century turnnoil
By RENE ZENTNER
Columnist for United Press International
As society’s values change, the oper
ation of U.S. business organizations
come to reflect the new standards.
This is a slow process; the pace is rar
ely sufficient to keep an organization’s
values current with those of the society
in which it operates. Will this slow pace
be adequate for the rapid social
change expected in the 21st century?
In the past, when social change was
slow, the disparity between social and
business values was not especially im
portant. The 21st century, though,
promises rapid change in social values,
spurred by affluence, rapid commu
nications, increasing levels of educa
tion and high individual mobility.
The U.S. of the 21st century will be
as different from that of the 20th as
we are today from the U.S. of the 19th
century. It is likely that the next cen
tury will find the U.S. playing the role
of research and development center
for the world. Instead of manufactur
ing and exporting capital and con
sumer goods, it may be that our na
tional mission will be the provision of
services: Education, technology, devel
opment, scientific research. Our ex
ports will be information: new proc
esses, ways to do old things better,
consultants, software.
The growing disparity will cause
challenges to corporate legitimacy. It
therefore is appropriate to ask what
the values of business enterprises will
be, and how they will be formed.
The imposition of values from the
top of the organization has been the
traditional way in which the values of
the American business enterprise were
formed. The values of the founders —
the John D. Rockefellers, Andrew
Carnegies and Henry Fords — were
followed and accepted by their subor
dinates and, later, by their successors.
Not all senior executives, though, have
altered their personal values as social
values have changed around them.
Does this mean that their own organi
zational values will be impervious to
change? That is doubtful, because, like
it or not, change will come.
Every year, graduating men and
women, fresh from debates over va
lues in classrooms and dormitories,
bring into their new organizations the
current values of their society. Once
into the organization, they find they
are part of an organization in flux, one
in which the new entrants of the last
few years have brought values which
are different from those of their man
agers and seniors.
As the inevitable compromises are
reached, the values of the overall orga
nization change. This process is far
slower than one in which values dif
fuse from above, but it is inexorable.
Will society, with its rapidly emerg
ing values, tolerate business organiza
tions whose value systems stem from
the past, even if the fairly recent past?
The question of whether business will
be permitted to exist in its present
form, now being debated in this coun
try and abroad, will continue to be ar
gued. Already a substantial and con
vincing literature exists suggesting
that capitalism is incompatible with de
mocracy.
Americans, as observers from Ben
jamin Franklin through de Tocque-
ville have noted, are pragmatic peo
ple; we value results more than means.
We are at home with compromise and
we’re convinced that for every prob
lem a solution can be found. Applying
this pragmatism to the business enter
prise of the future, we can anticipate
how the issue will be resolved.
We value the business enterprise,
and the enterprise of business, too
much to sacrifice them in the name of
social conformity. Though we may
continue to criticize business values
and the values of businessmen, busi
ness is too much a part of the Ameri
can character to forego.
Although its products and services
will change, as they have changed for
the last century, business will continue
to be the principal institution of Amer
ican society in the next century, as it
has been in this. As it has done in this
century, the 21st century business will
reflect many of the best aspects of the
American character, and, very likely,
many of the worst.
What then, is the challenge posed
by American business to American so
ciety? It is the challenge of confronta
tion. The values of American business
are the values of American society,
magnified a thousand-fold. We may
not like them when we see them on so
large a scale, but they are nevertheless
our own.
In the future, business may serve to
embody values no longer current in
the greater society. It may not be as
compassionate as society might wish,
as parochial or as international as so
ciety migh wish, or as generous as so
ciety might wish. On the other hand,
business is the engine that has pro
duced this society, the vehicle that has
given us access to the heavens and the
bottom of the sea, that has enabled us
to communicate instantaneously with
each other and with others at the ends
of the earth.
Americans know the value of com
promise, and they will come to terms
with the business of the future as we
have come to terms with business in
the past. As Winston Churchill said of
democracy, it’s not very good but no
one has come up with anything better.
Towers to greet
U.S. air travellers
By ART BUCHWALD
Columnist for
The Los Angeles Times Syndicate
The new trend in commercial real
estate is to construct tall buildings as
close to airports as one possibly can.
Washington’s National Airport is a
perfect example to this imaginative
way of using what were once vast wast
elands of air space.
Just across the Potomac River, in
the small town of Rosslyn, is a silver
tower reaching up to the sky; a beacon
of welcome to all pilots attempting to
land and take off from one of the busi
est terminals in the country. A twin
building is now going up next to it, so
that soon there will be two towers in
stead of one to greet passengers arriv
ing in Washington.
The father of airport skyscrapers is
Alf Klagstrom, a developer who
started out with $50 and a dream.
I sat with Alf in his Cloud Suite on
the 30th floor of the Klagstrom
Tower, and he told me how he came
up with the idea for his unique real es
tate development plan.
“I was selling mobile homes door to
door in the early ’60s, ” he said, “and
did a lot of flying. I noticed most ma
jor airports were out in the sticks, sur
rounded by farmland and ugly one-
story buildings. There was no decent
architecture within miles of the termi
nals, and no one seemed to care that
all this good land was going to waste.
‘Why,’ I said, ‘can’t I develop a city
close to air terminals so business peo
ple would not have to buck the traffic
to catch thir flights?”’
“There was no godly reason for air
ports to be so isolated from passengers
they served. So I took an option on all
the land at the end of the National
Airport runway and hired an architect
to develop a plan to make use of the
air space. I told him I wanted some
thing that would not only be utilitar
ian, but also beautiful to the eye, so
that people flying in and out of Na
tional would be awestruck by what
they saw.”
“It’s amazing you were the first to
think of it,” I said, “very few people
would have the imagination to build a
skyscraper in the flight path of a com
mercial airport.”
Alf said modestly, “I’m, sure other
people thought of it before I did, but
no one had the persistence to follow
through. Everyone was against me at
the start. The banks laughed at rat
and said no one would want fo rein
space in a building at the endofanin
way. When I told them all the footagt
had already been spoken for beforel
even brokeground, they were flabbet
gasted.
“Then I had to deal with thebn
reaucratifc airport officials who coir,
plained that the skyscrapers couldpre
sent a safety hazard to their flights,!
told them people once said the samt
thing about the Empre State Building
when it was proposed. I also argued
the skyscrapers would make pilot!
more alert when they were landingai
National. To calm their fears I offered
to put a red light on top of all tlte
buildings at my own expense.”
“That was a very decent thing to
do,” I said. “Did you have any trouble
with the Arlington County officials in
getting a permit?”
“They were the only people onnty
side from the start. Fhey saw theenor
mous tax revenues that commerdal
buildings would bring to the county
not to mention the jobs it would pro
vide for people in the community
Compared top the federal govern
ment officials, who tried to stop meat
every turn, the supervisors gave nit
encouragement during some of mt
darkest hours. Their faith in me hai
been rewarded. Arlington, which was
formerly a bedroom community, no*
has one of the most beautiful skyline
in the country.”
“It must be a great feeling to set
what you have accomplished insueba
short period of time.”
Alf said, “It’s only the beginning
I’ve heard from counties all overtbt
United States who want me to build
skyscrapers next to their airports. I
can see the day when every runway
will be surrounded by glass and con
crete towers, and high-rise hotels and
apartment houses, creating an envi
ronment that will enrich the life ofev-
ery American.”
As we were talking, a DC-8 flewb)
AIFs window, its wing almost touching
a large Azalea plant out on the bal
cony. Alf waved at the passengers who
could clearly be seen through the win
dows. He said, “I’m making money on
the deal, but the real thrill formeisto
see the delighted expressions on the
travelers’ faces every time they flyby
my building.”
POSSIBLE
MONDALE
RUNNING
MATES...
★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
JIMMY CARTER
WHAT THE HECK? SINCE
MONDALE’S PROBABLY GOING
TO LOSE ANYWAY, THEDEMOCIUti
CAN BLAME IT ON CARTER, ACAI\
AND START WITH A CLEAN
SLATE IN 1988. HE CERTAINLY
COULDN'T HURT ANYTHING
BY SERVING AS VICE PRESIDENT
IN CASE FRITZ WINS.
MICHAEL JACKSON
THIS CHOICE PUTS
A JACKSON ON
THE TICKET.
COVERS SEVERAL
KEY CONSTITUENCIES
WITHIN THE DEMOCRATIC
PARTY AND CONTRASTS
NICELY WITH MONDALE’S
“FULL NORWEGIAN”
LOOK...
PAUL NEWMAN
FOR COSH
SAKES, IFWFU
COTTOHAVt
AN ACTOR IS
THE WHITE
HOUSE LETS
GET A GOOD
Housekeeping worse than ifs cracked up to be
By ART BUCHWALD
Columnist for
The Los Angeles Times Syndicate
Due to an illness, my wife has been out of ac
tion and I have found myself in the role of home
manager. I must admit, I never paid too much at
tention to what a wife did to maintain a house,
and assumed it was a snap compared to solving
the Iraq-Iran war.
I am now realizing there is more to housekeep
ing than the TV commercials would have us be-
live. Here are some of the things I discovered in
my new consciousness-raising position:
A laundry hamper only holds dirty clothes. It
does not wash them.
There is no such thing as an empty dish
washer.
Garbage disposal units do not grind up steak
bones, or forks and spoons.
Appliance repairmen all have answering serv
ices but never call them for their messages.
You cannot grow food in a refrigerator. You
have to go to a supermarket and buy it. No mat
ter what you buy for dinner your bill always
comes to $49.50.
Many varieties of food have to be cooked. This
requires pots and pans. Fresh fish and meat to
not come with instructions. Neither do fresh veg
etables. Frozen meals taste just as good as frozen
meals.
A person can overdose on hamburgers and
scrambled eggs in less than five days.
Garbage has to be put on the street once a
week, or no one will take it away.
Grass has to be watered or it will turn brown.
After making up beds two days in a row, the
thrill is gone.
A neighbor never congratulates you on your
waxed floors.
Polyester-blend suits start to smt * if you don’t
take them to the dry cleaner.
When a fuse blows in the house it has to be re
placed or the lights won’t go back on.
United Parcel only rings your bell when they
have a package for the person next door who
isn’t home.
The telephone only rings when you’re in the
bathroom, or outside watering plants.
You never have enough cord when you’re vac
uuming a rug. But you always have too much
when you’re trying to put it back in the closet.
People who live in glass houses have to wash
their windows all the time.
The one item you need to complete a chore is
downstairs when you are upstairs, and upstairs
when you are downstairs.
Dogs and cats have to be fed or they’ll turn on
you.
The best way to clean up a son’s room is to
close the door and pretend it is not part of the
house.
Taking a headache remedy does not nesessar
ily mean there will be less dust in the living room
No one gives you a bonus for getting a stain
out of the sofa.
Illegal alien housekeepers are better than no
aliens at all.
It’s amazing how little comfort you getoutol
gearing sympathetic friends tell you they kno"
exactly what you’re going through.
I discovered, admittedly late in the game
there is no such thing as upward mobility in
home management, no chance for advancement
and no opportunity for a wage increase. I no"
understand for the first time why wives need
soap operas and “The National Enquirer” to gel
them through the day. It’s their only link witlt
reality. Somebody else’s infidelity sure beats the
hell out of getting grease off the stove with the
perfect paper towel.
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