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Page 2B/The Battalion/Wednesday, August 21, 1986
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If you 're
considering
retirement.
Consider
moving to
Walden.
Come home to Aggieland.
Our stereotypes of senior adults (and retire
ment housing) are fading. Thank goodness.
Seniors are retired from routine, sure. But they
are still busy, active and alive.
They want to travel, to go, to learn, to grow.
And they want a carefree environment that
supports independent living in a safe, secure
surrounding without daily drudgery.
If you are considering a retirement move,
please give us a visit or a call. We are a warm,
caring community built for active senior adults.
Amenities include:
• Close to Texas A&M and its educational,
cultural and sports activities
• 24 hour security and support staff
• 2 excellent meals (and private kitchens, too)
• transportation
• laundry and dry cleaning service
• weekly housekeeping
• activities, travel, library, exercise, spa, pool,
etc
• parking, storage, elevators, convenience
store, etc
Walden
Dr. Jarvis and Alma Miller, managing directors
Walden on Memorial
2410 Memorial Drive/Bryan
823-7914
Lack of doldrums upset
D.C.’s ‘serenity expert’ P y
** n R iiv-hi
WASHINGTON (AP) — What
ever happened to the summer dol
drums?
“It should be quiet, but it isn’t,”
said Charlie McDoldrum, an expert
on the lack of activity that overcomes
the nation’s capital every August.
This is the month when every
body in Washington is someplace
else getting away from it all. The
president is on his ranch exercising
his cutting axe on dead trees; Con
gress, having temporarily run out of
words, is out of town finding new
ones; nothing is stirring, not even
the House.
McDoldrum, an imaginary being
who reappears Brigadoon-like every
August when a journalist’s mind
turns to finding news in a vacuum,
ticked off some of the activity that
has disturbed the serenity. There
was that tax revision frenzy that
churned up half the month and still
hasn’t died off. There was that eerie
groan coming from the big, marble
monuments to bureaucracy all over
town when the Cramm-Rudman
budget cutting effects were calcu
lated.
August should be the month in
which government takes a breather
from the rest of the year, when the
bureaucratic pulse slows to co
matose.
It’s generally a time when no one
gets into a sweat over the composite
index of leading, coincident and lag
ging economic indicators, the gross
national product, the consumer
price index, or capacity utilization.
It’s a time when one is challenged by
whether the surf is up, not the
monthly deficit.
Instead, McDoldrum pointed out,
“this year we have had to worry
about South Africa and sanctions,
drought, hurricane, Nicaragua, the
space shuttle, the Rehnquist-Scalia
nominations, Nancy’s maid and the
impeachment of Judge Harry Clai
borne. Even politics didn’t take the
vacation it’s supposed to. We had the
Michigan mishmash and the South
ern primary, for crying out loud.
I Hading e
summit. the fallout fromHovement
:agan ye;
nes.
The gro
g goverr
unist con
$9 millio
thing to do with cycles, petHme is app
a seven-year itch. Help.
In addit
There is an argument iciT
lot both theories on whyiktl
August law of doldrums I
defiled.
■nidi to c
■as sparkt
las turtle
Iniiider R
Hroup’s ne
Supporting the seven-veiH “I have
theorv, the record showsibMety. I he
gust 1979, a year of highduHie not st;
during the last DemocraitHm to be
deucy, there was so littledorHVelch, in
capital that Jimmy CarterstiHremem 1
from Baltimore to WashitifHiom the 1
show support for the tran>;*tliat her h
system — made headlines.
■nailers.
| A meml
“Then there are the baby strikes
at the Baby Bell telephone compa
nies and USX, which we wouldn’t
get upset about except that news ac
counts remind us that it was for
merly U.S. Steel, the activity over
getting another Reagan-Corbachev
McDoldrum, who worksiiB ibutor, 1
ginia newspaper, glumls ijjidering st
that the only classic doldnH The
story coming out of Washiit(tHhanged (
August was the reopeninfpjphvsician
venerable old Willard Hotel
eight years.
:es<
Firms had 'engines in geah
test
SDI spurred missile labs
m r
WASHINGTON (AP) —
Three years before President
Reagan startled the nation with
his Star Wars dream of basing nu
clear missile defenses in space,
the Boeing Co. created a special
office to line up ballistic missile
defense contracts that experts
predicted were on the way.
“We got an early start,” Mike
Gamble, who became strategic
defense coordinator for Boeing
in 1980, said. At the time, the
company had several dozen con
tracts with the Pentagon on pro
jects that were later consolidated
under the Strategic Defense Ini
tiative, nicknamed Star Wars.
“In 1980, there was a percep
tion here that some of the emerg
ing technologies could be used
for ballistic missile defense,” said
Gamble, interviewed by tele
phone from Boeing headquarters
in Seattle.
The situation was much the
same at Hughes Aircraft, Lock
heed, McDonnell Douglas and
Rockwell International, compa
nies which are among the top 20
Pentagon contractors and the top
10 doing Star Wars business.
Despite the conventional wis
dom among many politicians and
scientists that strategic defenses
were impractical because they
could be overwhelmed by offen
sive weapons, the perception was
growing among the weapons lab
oratories and defense contractors
that ballistic missile defense was
becoming technologically possi
ble.
Thus when Reagan surprised
most of the world with his March
23, 1983 speech calling for Star
Wars research, the big defense
contractors already had their en
gines running.
After the speech, the Pentagon
swept various missile defense re
search programs into the new
Strategic Defense Initiative Orga
nization and proposed spending
$26 billion on them through
1989, an increase of about $9 bil
lion over planned spending. Gon-
gress is paring Reagan's plan by
about one-third, back closer to
the original spending levels.
HOLS
Houston
Wars, the research has ptH 0ri | ta< j l * ei
ahead. H <les, l
“Suddenly, the contndi
found themselves drenchd
dollars,” said Joseph Cam^
an analy st with Paine Webtiei
New York
rom ultr;
)e availal
, . . . ibility to ;
1 o a large extent, thebim _ t j ie | n
contracts to the major cot]
lions involve what the Pent
calls “terminal defense,"slto«
down nuclear warheads ass
from space toward©
he world
tuniversi
irop
Much of the work on motets used simi
space-based components, sat:
lasers that experts say are dea tonauts’
away from the weapons sta?t
being done by smallercontpaa
universities, and federalweap
laboratories, although somt
these contracts are also goaij aeach or
the giants.
Astronomer Carl Sagan,a
Wars opponent, argued an
cent Washington debatethatl are use( l
While
business
nides
many in the scientific,
and political commu-
remain skeptical of Star
tagon spending on Strategic
fense is creating “a steanti
effect in the weapons indu
which may force a lateradc
tration to deploy the system
which Reagan ordered reseats
“It’S a Si
Pitts, a
al opton
he 1960s
pace and
Pitts’ l
teople w
sunny clii
About
fitted IT
terns are
must blit
Pitts says
Si:
Today’s entrepreneurs not
big risk takers, survey says
25
ARLI’
tve year
here W'
roaming
NEW YORK (AP) — The entre
preneurs who start today’s new com
panies seem to be very different
from those who founded the great
corporations at the turn of the cen
tury or before.
The oldtimers, biographies indi
cate, created their companies to
own, manage and develop. But new
comers, a survey suggests, are very
much interested in sharing the risk
with the public rather than going it
alone.
Asked at a meeting earlier this
year, 30 of 37 entrepreneurs said
they expected their companies to be
acquired in the next five years. Most
said they had been approached
about a business combination in the
preceding year.
This, perhaps, didn’t displease the
author of the survey, Baltimore-
based New Enterprise Associates, a
venture capital firm that runs big
risks with small companies — many
destined to fail — in search of a rare
big payoff.
Like others in the venture capital
business, NEA believes it cannot
know enough about the companies it
finances. It examines all the figures,
and it sits on the boards. It monitors
executive performance. Sometimes
it fires.
It has access also to the various
studies of psychologists, sociologists,
economists, behaviorists and others
who have examined the species in
recent years with probing questions
about parentage, neuroses and the
like.
But NEA, which invests for lim
ited partnerships, sought to know its
own entrepreneurs rather than ac
quire redundant information about
the species in general. It invited 40
of its entrepreneurs to a gathering at
Napa, Calif.
The average age of the companies
surveyed was 2.6 years, with average
1985 revenue of $7.9 million. Sales
grew by an average of 29 L percent
last year; this year they are expected
to grow 176 percent.
The entrepreneurs are a confi
dent bunch, as expected.
At a time when larger companies
are paring payrolls, they expect to
increase their work forces by 39 per
cent. And they plan to spend no less
than 34 percent of revenue on re
search and development.
Overall, they aren’t especially
worried about a recession. Asked to
express their concern about a possi
ble recession, only 13 percent said
they were very concerned. Sixty-
three percent said “somewhat.”
Twenty-four percent said “not at
all.”
But they worry — a great
and view their venture asa&
emotional risk, even more soil
financial risk. Asked if failure*
mean a great financial loss,II
cent said yes. Asked if it wotiH
great emotional loss, 58 pertS
sponded af firmatively.
They worry especially al»j
new tax proposals, which ip
nalize the capital gains thal* :
of them seek as individuals
eliminate the investment tail
which they rely on to finantt
growth.
Groups propose solutions
to ‘crisis’ in teaching field
and the
Hanch m
And
kids kne
was for;
flags of
Republu
and the
That
with the
niultimi!
way belt
Callec
105-acn
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all-inclu
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lion by t
“Base
WASHINGTON (AP) — In the
play “A Man For All Seasons,” when
an ambitious young man named
Richard Rich asks Sir Thomas More
for help in securing a government
job, the chancellor urges him instead
to become a teacher, saying, “You’d
be a fine teacher, perhaps even a
great one.”
“And if I was, who would know
it?” the aspiring politician com
plains.
To which More rejoins: “You,
your pupils, your friends, God. Not
a bad public, that.”
More’s advice fell on deaf ears.
Today, under less dramatic circum
stances, many young, talented peo
ple are loathe to even consider a ca
reer in the classroom.
The teaching profession is in a
time of turmoil. Teachers have al
ways had complaints about their pay,
status and working conditions. But
an impending shortage of new in
structors now has pushed some edu
cators and civic leaders to call for
radical changes in the way teachers
are trained and how schools are run.
Two high-level panels — the
Holmes Group, composed of educa
tion deans from several dozen re
search universities, and the Carnegie
Forum on Education and the Econ
omy, an offshoot of the Carnegie
Corp. — are calling for
the bachelor’s degree ineducat
Teacher colleges, and ed«
departments within univt'
have been a target of critid
decades about lax stant
“Mickey Mouse” methods cc
and poorly prepared gradual
It has become an increasing
popular choice for colleges#
Until recently, teacher silt
made it possible for schools' 11
new teachers despite a f
traction in the pipeline
campuses. But that situation! 1
idly changing.
With elementary enrollmen'
ing again thanks to a babyW
and with many teachers nead
tirement age, public schools#
hire a million or more new#
over the next decade.
The Holmes and CarneJ 1
formers want all prospective
ers to major in the liberal at 1
ences and humanities and to»
most of their professional f,
tion in graduate school, in
nships and on the job.
Carnegie is currently funds
development and other effort
the groundwork for carrying
key recommendation: creat#
national standards board to
teachers.
the laq
state,” s
Cc
PRA
Pat Ho.
living it
Wire
last wir
vary re
normal
born e>
But i
makes!
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almost
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