Thursday, July 16, 1987/The Battalion/Page 5
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by Scott McCullar
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By Jade Boyd
Reporter
The only way a weather index
Icould be perfect is if it were individ-
ually tailored and continuously up
dated, says Dr. Dennis Driscoll, a
Texas A&M meteorology professor.
There are hundreds of weather
indexes, including the wind chill fac
tor and summer simmer indexes.
“They all describe energy ex
change between man and his atmo
spheric environment,” Driscoll says.
“They try to summarize to one single
number the degree of comfort or
discomfort he feels as a result of con-
iditions that make him uncomfort-
Ijfable.”
Driscoll says people’s perception
things that have nothing at all to do
with the weather.
“AH sorts of things get in the way
of our perception of comfort,” he
says. “Physical health, state of mind,
! nutrition, physical condition — these
are all things that tend to influence
| the way we perceive our environ-
! ment.
“There’s a great big leap of faith
involved in saying everyone will feel
uncomfortable at this given temper
ature because people differ remark
ably in their reactions to weather,”
Driscoll says.
“There’s a great big leap
of faith involved in saying
everyone will feel uncom
fortable at this given tem
perature because people
differ remarkably in their
reactions to weather. ”
— Dr. Dennis Driscoll,
Texas A&M meteorology
professor
Driscoll says many people are con
fused by weather indexes and tend
to associate the index numbers with
temperatures.
Weather indexes are arbitrary, he
says. Where the reference points for
the index are ch6sen play a part in
this.
The new summer simmer index
was developed in Arizona. It com
bines temperature and humidity
readings into one figure. Brazos Val
ley’s high humidity makes College
Station appear much more uncom
fortable than Arizona when the sum
mer simmer index is used, Driscoll
says.
“Since the public often doesn’t un
derstand the basic physics that un-
derly the indexes, they can be mis
leading,” he says.
He advocates getting away from
numbers altogether.
For example, a system could be
devised with alpha, beta and gamma
days. Alpha days would be uncom
fortable for most people. Beta days
would be less uncomfortable and
gamma days would be the nicest.
“It would still be quantitatively
based, as it should be,” Driscoll says.
But people would not be tempted
to confuse the temperature with the
index figures if such a system were
used.
49 new cases
of AIDS reported
in Houston area
HOUSTON (AP) — Two women
and two children are among 49 new
AIDS cases reported by the city
Health and Human Services Depart
ment.
The number of new cases con
tained in the department’s July re
port was down from the 79 cases re
ported in June, indicating last
month’s totals may not be the oegin-
ning of a trend, said Dr. Gordon
Reeve, chief of'epidemiology for the
city.
“It was more a function of report
ing than the progress of the disease,”
Reeve said about the June report.
“Some days a large number of cases
come in that need a lot of work and
it takes time to get them through the
pipeline.”
In the newest report, one of the
victims was identified as the wife of
an intravenous drug user who tested
positive for antibodies to the aquired
immune deficiency syndrome virus.
AIDS is a fatal disease that destroys
the body’s disease-fighting mech
anism.
The other woman was identified
as a Haitian immigrant. Both women
were diagnosed as having the illness
in the past three months and both
have since died, the report said.
The two children, both under 2
years of age and both still alive, were
believed to have contracted the dis
ease through birth from parents
who were intravenous drug users.
The report brought Houston’s
known total of AIDS cases to 1,300.
Of those, 803, or 62 percent, have
died. Houston ranks fourth among
U.S. cities for the incidence of the in
curable — and usually fatal — dis
ease.
In Houston, 12 cases so far have
been attributed to heterosexual con
tact, while about 84 percent of the.
confirmed cases have involved ho
mosexual or bisexual men.
Energy department delays deadline
for offering supercollider proposals
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Department of
Energy on Wednesday gave states more time to
submit proposals for the supercollider atom
smasher. Proposals to house the $4.4 billion in
stallation, a major scientific plum, are now due
Sept. 2 instead of Aug. 3.
The department gave states time to revise
t their submissions in the light of a provision of the
recently approved 1987 supplemental appro-
1 priations law that bars it from considering direct
financial aid from a state in evaluating sites.
At least 20 states are believed certain to submit
proposals, some perhaps in cooperation with oth-
jers. Senators from small states, led by Pete Do-
jmenici, R-N.M., added the ban out of fear their
! states would have little chance when matched
j against generous offers from large states.
There had been some speculation the provi-
| sion would apply only through the end of the fis
cal year, Sept. 30, but a department letter to in
terested states made clear that interpretation
would not be followed.
The letter gave notice that the department had
added a new section to its invitation for site pro
posals to say, “Any financial or other incentives
offered by the proposer will not be considered in
the evaluation of proposals.”
A state still may offer such aid, and to do so the
offer “should be stated on a single copy and sub
mitted in a sealed envelope and clearly marked”
to be opened only if that state’s site is chosen.
Congress has not barred states from improv
ing a site by building roads and laying sewer lines
and the department still is counting on receiving
the needed land — about 11,000 acres plus ease
ments for a 52-miles-around tunnel — as a gift.
Forty House members wrote Energy Secretary
John Herrington late last month asking for a 60-
day delay on the grounds that many states did
not have enough time to complete action. But of
ficials said he is unlikely to grant further post
ponements.
Roger Strickland, an aide to one of the orga
nizers of the letter, Rep. Tim Valentine, D-N.C.,
said of the 30-day delay, “We are fairly satisfied
with it. It is a help.”
i, press aide to Rep. Terry L.
Bruce, D-Ill., said of the dfelay “It is not going to
hurt Illinois, certainly ... a proposal is not going
to live or die on another 30 days.”
The ban on considering aid offers means “Illi
nois has a definite advantage — we have Fermi-
lab.” Fermilab, near Batavia west of Chicago, is;
currently the largest particle accelerator and
state officials plan to propose the site for the new
supercollider.
A committee of the National Academy of Sci
ences will have 90 days to winnow the sites to an
unspecified number of finalists. The department
will try to compress its subsequent review to meet
its original deadline of a preliminary selection in
July 1988 and confirmation in January 1989.
The supercollider would smash beams of pro
tons into each other at 20 times the energy of the
Fermilab accelerator to probe exotic theories of
matter and its origin. It will have 3,000 scientific
jobs, little pollution and an annual operating
budget of $270 million when it begins operation
in 1996.
Presidential candidate pushes Bark for court
DALLAS (AP) — The Senate will
be committing a travesty if it turns
down Robert H. Bork’s nomination
to the Supreme Court, Republican
presidential contender Paul Laxalt
said Wednesday on his first cam
paign swing through Texas.
“This fall, it’s really going to hit
the congressional fan when it comes
: to Bork,” Laxalt told the Dallas Ro
tary Club. He predicted a tough con
firmation fight for the conservative
i U.S. appeals court judge in Wash
ington.
“He’ll be hit with all the pressure,
with all the diatribe — that he’s anti-
civil rights, anti-women, anti-gay
rights,” said Laxalt, a former senator
and Nevada governor and close
i friend of President Reagan.
The Senate’s failure to approve
; the nomination “would be an abso
lute travesty in terms of his (Bork’s)
situation, in terms of the president,
in terms of the people of this coun
try,” Laxalt said.
Laxalt, who has not formally de
clared his candidacy, told a news
conference he would be cam
paigning aggressively in Texas, the
largest of the “Super Tuesday”
states, and believed his base of sup
port in the state was among Reagan’s
traditional supporters.
But should the Iran-contra scan
dal “come down badly against the
president, and I can’t conceive it will
. . . it’s going to hurt to some degree
those closest to the president,” he
said. “Those first in line are the vice
president and Paul Laxalt.”
Vice President George Bush is
also a presidential candidate and like
Laxalt has not formally declared his
candidacy. Both, however, have
formed committees to raise money
for their campaigns.
Laxalt said the men’s ambitions
would be awkward for the president,
because Reagan is placed “in a posi
tion between the vice president, who
has served him so loyally for so many
years, and myself.”
Laxalt, who was Reagan’s national
chairman during the 1980 and 1984
campaigns, said he has raised $ 1 mil
lion for his own campaign in six
weeks. He has said he must raise $2
million by Oct. 1 to be a viable candi
date.
Despite the possibility of fallout
for himself and Bush should the
Iran-contra investigations further
taint Reagan, Laxalt said he believes
his association with the president is
“a positive rather than a negative.”
president told the
people he did not know
diversio
When the
American
about the diversion of profits from
arms sales to Iran to the contras in
Nicaragua, Laxalt said Reagan was
telling the truth.
“I’ve never run into a more honest
guy than Ronald Reagan,” said Lax
alt, predicting the president’s integ
rity would be fully restored in the
course of the investigations.
“In the interest of the country, the
president should have been notified,
and I suspect a lot of these activities
would not have occurred,” he said.
Laxalt said he favored the cre
ation of a small, joint committee of
senior members of Congress who
would be apprised of covert activ
ities.
Teen-age tycoon gets early start in business
DALLAS (AP) — With $700 in
personal savings, 19-year-old Wil
liam Cunningham set out last year to
set up a Dallas telemarketing opera
tion. He quickly found an office and
furnished it. There was only one
problem — he had no telephones.
“I had a telemarketing firm with
no telephones,” he recalls.
But with a little ingenuity and
some help from his friends — in this
case an advance payment from his
first client, Ellen Terry Realtors —
he was able to get Dial USA off the
ground.
Today, Cunningham’s company is
doing a booming business. The com-
sany raked in first-year revenues of
{374,000.
“I have grown since then, and
haven’t borrowed any money he
says, adding that Dial USA now em
ploys 40 people.
Cunningham is one of Dallas’ teen
tycoons, a small cadre of young en
trepreneurs who get the bug to go
into business for themselves barely
chasing an advertising firm, and is
planning to move its headquarters in
August. The firm also does fund
raisers for non-profit groups, he
“Sometimes it takes a lot of discipline to get up and go
to the office day after day. I guess it does stifle your
youthfulness, but I feel like it’s a trade-off. ”
— William Cunningham, 19-year-old owner of Dial
USA
before graduating from adoles
cence.
Dial USA’s Cunningham is well on
his way to a successful career. The
company has expanded into market
ing activities, such as lead genera
tion, research and direct sales, Cun
ningham says.
Dial USA also is considering pur-
says, and receives commission and
flat fees.
Cunningham, who was recently
honored as the “Teen Entrepreneur
of the Year” by the accounting firm
of Arthur Young & Co. and Venture
Magazine, says being a business ex
ecutive is not as easy as it may seem,
especially in the summer.
“Sometimes it takes a lot of disci
pline to get up and go to the office
day after day,” he says. “I guess it
does stifle your youthfulness, but I
feel like it’s a trade-off.”
Despite the heavy work load, Cun
ningham has not neglected his edu-
catibn. A freshman at Southern
Methodist University, he is taking an
accounting course this summer at
Richland College and plans to con
tinue his business studies at SMU in
the fall.
“I feel like I need my education
and knowledge of theory, strategy
and vocabulary,” he says of his deci
sion to attend college.
Even now, Cunningham is a role
model for his classmates. “All of my
friends w r ant to run ideas by me,” he
says. But he says that some of his
classmates seemed to be intimidated
by him when they first learned of his
business endeavors.
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