January 20, 1985

Senate Republicans will not call for a freeze in military spending in 1986, the majority leader said today. This means they will have to cut deeper into domestic programs to reach their goal of reducing next year's projected budget deficit by $50 billion. A freeze in 1986 on all spending, including the military budget, was the centerpiece of the Senate Republicans' plans when they began to discuss ways to cut the deficit earlier this year. Their leader, Bob Dole of Kansas, said today that the senators still planned to slow the growth rate in the President's military budget.

BRASILIA THE political map of Latin America changed dramatically last week when Brazil, the region's largest and most populous nation, joined the growing list of ''new'' democracies south of the border by electing its first civilian President in 21 years. Yet it did so in a surprisingly undramatic way. When Argentina held elections in late 1983 and Uruguay did so a year later, both countries exploded in glee at the imminent departure of heavy- handed military regimes. Brazil, in contrast, is displaying little of the excitement that normally accompanies a country's abrupt passage from dictatorship to democracy. The reason is that the change taking place here is different. Although a general will be President until March 15, Brazil has enjoyed considerable political freedom for six years. And the opposition candidate, Tancredo Neves, was swept to power by the 686-member Electoral College without the participation of the 60 million registered voters.

HOBOKEN STARTING tomorrow, 6 faculty members at the Stevens Institute of Technology here will begin a 2 1/2- year study of philosophical problems arising from the use of advanced computer technology. The project, Ethical Implications of Computer Networking in Science and Government, is being financed by a $150,000 grant from the Ethics and Values in Science and Technology Program of the National Science Foundation in Washington. The faculty members have been drawn together because of their common interest in the ethics of science, as well as their areas of expertise, according to Prof. Carol C. Gould, director of the project. The group comprises one philosopher, one political scientist, two computer scientists, one physical chemist and one physicist.

Sometime in the early 1980's, for reasons that are still being debated in Hollywood, the laughter dribbled out of television. The situation comedy, the 22-minute- and-37-second sequence of plot, of character discomfort and reassurance that represented one of television's few formal inventions, turned from a vital centerpiece in the medium to an endangered species, and nobody was exactly sure why. ''Comedy,'' the critic Gilbert Seldes had written in 1956, ''is the axis around which television revolves.'' By last season, many thought the situation comedy had spun out. In the past few months, however, the network situation comedy seems to have resurged and, perhaps, emerged stronger, maybe even with some esthetic purpose. This has happened for three reasons: One is ''The Cosby Show,'' a genuine hit that has reminded viewers and programmers of what they had forsaken. Another is the fresh esprit of a new generation of creative talent. And a third is the fact that television has found a new audience - the baby- boom Yuppies in their 20's and 30's - and, to cater to their 1980's tastes and sensibilities, has begun creating what has been termed ''the Yup-com.'' All of which is not to suggest that comedy is about to take over the airwaves, but the form is healthier than it has been for years.

The brass industry was thriving and the Naugatuck Valley was its capital when Jack Mayers's father went to work for American Brass in Ansonia, and he worked there all his life. But 15 years ago, when Jack went to work as a machinist at the Bridgeport Brass factory in Seymour, a few miles upriver, the industry - and the valley - had begun their decline. Mr. Mayers figured he, like thousands of other mill workers, would have enough trouble holding on to his job. He never thought he and his fellow workers would end up owning their mill.