🚀 go-pugleaf

I recently had occasion to nest an 'itemize' environment within a
'description' environment (in \documentstyle{article}).  The results were
less than pleasing!  I first tried:
\begin{description}
	\item[whatever:]
		\begin{itemize}
		\item some text
		\item more text
		\end{itemize}
	...
\end{description}
This put the 'bullet' on the same line as the bold 'whatever'.  So I
changed it to:
\begin{description}
	\item[whatever:] \mbox{}\\
		\begin{itemize}
		\item some text
		\item more text
		\end{itemize}
	...
\end{description}
This created a HUGE gap between the bold 'whatever' and the 'bullet'
below.  The gap was probably the sum of a \parskip and a \topsep or
two.

Short of changing the \@listi... definitions in a new .sty file, the
only way I could eliminate the space was with a \vspace{-2\topsep}
command following the \mbox{}\\.  Naturally this greatly offends my
sense of a well structured document.

Finally the queries:  
	(1) can I redefine \topsep and other parameters like
\itemsep to eliminate this space?  (Using \setlength{\topsep}{0pt}
early in the file (outside the list environment) doesn't work since the
\@listi... command redefines \topsep when the list environment is
invoked.  Using \setlength{...} *after* the \begin{description} or
\begin{itemize} didn't help either, however.)
	(2) can I create a new list environment retaining all the 
"habits" of, say, 'itemize' or 'description' *except* for a few
designated changes to \topsep, etc.?

I would greatly appreciate an elegant solution to this bothersome
problem!  Please email, since I'm an unfaithful news reader.

Many thanks,				Martin
					mrwittma@phoenix.princeton.edu