Dollar 3-month interbank lending rate steady

The cost of three-month dollar loans between banks remained steady Tuesday as the recent improvement in confidence ground to a halt after Bank of America Corp. took a bigger than anticipated bad debt provision for the first quarter of the year.

Hopes that an improvement in the global economy may emerge soon have prompted a thawing in credit markets but Monday's sharp falls on Wall Street after Bank of America took a $13.4 billion provision for credit losses reined in hopes that the banking sector had been fixed.

"There was this realisation after Bank of America's excellent results that the sector was far from out of the woods," said David Buik, …

Dowalibys decline to testify // Prosecutors focus on missing bed sheets

Defense attorneys rested their case Friday without havingCynthia and David Dowaliby testify, while prosecutors focused onsheets missing from Jaclyn Dowaliby's bed after her disappearance.

Criminal Court Judge Richard E. Neville is expected to heararguments Monday on whether there is enough evidence against thecouple to have the jury deliberate on the charges of murder andconcealing a homicide.

If so, the six-man, six-woman jury will hear attorneys' closing statements on Tuesday.

The couple is accused of strangling their 7-year-old daughterand dumping her body in a Blue Island field. The severely decomposedbody was found Sept. 14, 1988 - four days after …

Cargo spacecraft docks at orbiting station

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian Mission Control says a cargo spacecraft has docked at the International Space Station, delivering food, fuel, oxygen, scientific equipment and packages for the U.S.-Russian-Italian crew.

The unmanned Progress M-09M blasted off Friday from the Baikonur cosmodrome carrying more than 2.6 tons of supplies.

Mission Control said it docked Sunday using automatic …

Publisher shot dead in Cyprus

Police in Cyprus say the head of the island nation's largest private media group has been shot dead outside his home.

Andy Hadjicostis, the 41-year-old director of the Dias Group, was killed late Monday central Nicosia.

No other …

WHAT'S UP WITH LARRY BIITTNER

AGE: 57.

HOME: Pocahontas, Iowa.

FAMILY: Single. Sons Tom and Bob. One grandson.

OCCUPATION: Retired. Helps his brother-in-law plant and harvestcorn and soybeans.

POSITION: Outfielder, first baseman, pinch hitter.

HOBBIES: Fishing and running.

NICKNAME: Buckeye.

BASEBALL BACKGROUND: Popular with Cubs fans because of his hustleand pinch-hitting ability, Biittner was involved in a zany play in1979 when his cap fell over a batted ball while he was playing rightfield. Try as he might, he couldn't find the ball. He also pitched inrelief in 1977, giving up three home runs to the Montreal Exposbefore being fined $50 for pitching too close to …

The pressure's on!

Part II

Last month, we told you why you should wear a supplied-air system. This month, we'll tell you what to wear and how to keep your equipment in top shape.

Last month's Paint Shop showed why supplied-air respirators are required by law and described the problems that can occur from breathing isocyanates and solvents. If you are not yet convinced that a supplied-air system is a good idea for your shop, go back and read the personal experiences of painters who have learned the hard way.

In Part 2, we'll take a look at the hardware of supplied-air systemsincluding the new lightweight visorsand show you how to retrofit your existing air filtration system. …

Injured Tour de France favorite Cadel Evans braced for tough climbs in 10th stage

Cadel Evans started Monday's 10th stage of the Tour de France, which has the two biggest climbs in the Pyrenees, covered in cuts and bruises after falling the previous day.

Kim Kirchen wore the overall leader's yellow jersey, but only led by six seconds over Evans heading into the daunting Pyrenean passes of Tourmalet and Hautacam, so difficult they are beyond classification.

Evans tumbled over his handlebars in Sunday's ninth stage, cracking open his helmet as he landed and scraping skin off his shoulder, elbow, knee and thigh.

"I thought: 'Oh, no, I've lost the Tour'," Evans said Monday. "I wanted to know my body was …

DJ hitting the road to register Latino voters

"Today we march, tomorrow we vote!" marchers shouted in theimmigrant rights rallies that filled the streets of U.S. cities thisspring.

Trying to motivate Latinos to flex their political muscle, popularSpanish-language DJ Renan Almendarez Coello, known to his estimated35 million listeners as El Cucuy or "the boogeyman," began a nationalvoter registration drive this week in San Jose, Calif.

San Jose was the first stop on Almendarez's two-week, 10-city bustour, which he also hopes will influence the debate on immigrationreform and a host of other …

President Bush Honors AIChE Member and UOP

President George W. Bush recognized member John M. Prausnitz of the University of California, Berkeley and UOP LLC (Des Plaines, IL) for their scientific contributions by presenting them with the prestigious National Medals of Science and Technology, respectively, the nation's highest scientific honors. Altogether, 14 individuals, teams and companies received National Medals of Science and Technology during the ceremony held in the East Room of the White House on March 14.

Prausnitz is professor of chemical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley and faculty senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. An applied physical chemist, Prausnitz has developed …

Oscar presenters to be top secret until showtime

Guess who's coming to the Oscars this year?

Leslie Unger, a spokeswoman for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, says none of the superstar presenters will be announced before the Feb. 22 telecast.

Awards shows, including the Academy Awards, typically tout celebrity presenters to generate interest. But Oscar producers Laurence Mark and Bill Condon are breaking tradition. They're hoping to …

Home values appreciate in well-liked Glen Ellyn

Homes in west suburban Glen Ellyn have appreciated an average of18 percent in the last two years, according to First United Realtors.

"Since interest rates began a downward trend about two yearsago, the value of Glen Ellyn homes has increased tremendously," saidSusanne Hotte, sales manager of the firm's Glen Ellyn office.

"Although the supply and demand has balanced out somewhat, ayear ago the demand for homes with a Glen Ellyn address contributedto the significant increases in home values here," Hotte said.

The Glen Ellyn office reports a brisk …

Driver in crash that killed 5 is released

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Investigators searched Monday for a second motorist after determining a suspected drunken driver whose car slammed into a group of motorcyclists, killing five people and injuring five others, was not at fault for the Imperial County crash, authorities said.

Carlos Ramirez Bobadilla, 36, of Mexicali, Mexico, was arrested Saturday at a hospital for investigation of misdemeanor drunken driving, but he was not booked into a jail. He was technically released from custody on Sunday, although he remained hospitalized in San Diego with a fractured head and leg and a scalp laceration, California Highway Patrol Officer DeAnn Goudie said.

"He was coming out of surgery …

Slumping Rangers turn to Lee to extend Series

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — The Rangers are counting on Cliff Lee to keep the San Francisco Giants from celebrating a World Series championship deep in the heart of Texas.

After Giants rookie Madison Bumgarner delivered a Lee-like performance — against a normally potent lineup slumping at the worst possible time — Texas is in a 3-1 hole in the best-of-seven series.

"I don't think discouragement is the right word," Michael Young said after a 4-0 loss Sunday night. "Obviously, we know we're capable of more."

To extend their first World Series, the Rangers need ace left-hander Lee to make the most of his second chance in Game 5 on Monday night in a rematch against Tim Lincecum.

It might be the last start in Texas for free agent-to-be, who in the opener of this series absorbed his first loss over two dominating postseasons.

"I certainly hope he'll do better (Monday). We feel pretty good about him being out there," manager Ron Washington said. "Once again, we've got to put some runs on the board."

Texas managed only three singles in eight innings off Madison Bumgarner before Giants closer Brian Wilson pitched a perfect ninth in Game 4.

The Rangers, who lost 9-0 in Game 2 at San Francisco, are the first team to be shut out twice in a World Series since the 1966 Dodgers failed to score in the last three games while being swept by Baltimore.

Texas was scoreless at home only once during the regular season.

"There's really no reason to be deflated," Ian Kinsler said. "It's pretty simple. We win, we move on to the next game. Emotions are taken out of it. You play the game the right way and hopefully you end up scoring more runs."

Lee was 7-0 with a 1.26 ERA in eight career postseason starts going into Game 1 of the World Series, but he allowed eight hits and seven runs over 4 2-3 innings in his shortest postseason start. He had never given up more runs or hits.

"I get a chance to redeem myself against the team that actually put it to me pretty good last time," Lee said before Game 4. "I'm looking forward to it. I've been working hard — it's basically the last start of the season for me — and I want to do everything I can to help this team win the World Series."

All the prized midseason acquisition can really do is get the Series back to AT&T Park, where Texas lost the first two games and is 0-11 all-time.

"You like having (Lee) on the mound in any game. But an elimination game is even better," slugger Josh Hamilton said. "He's going to go out and pitch his game. Hopefully our bats will show up and give him some support."

Hamilton hit a solo homer in the 4-2 victory in Game 3. But the majors' leading hitter during the regular season (.359) is only 2 for 16 in the World Series. He was hitless in four at-bats Sunday night.

He did have a diving catch in center field to end the second when the Giants had runners on first and third. But that was after Hamilton grounded into an double play to end the first and before he was caught stealing to end the fourth when he reached on a fielder's choice.

Hamilton reached on an error in the seventh, but Vladimir Guerrero struck out for the third time, swinging weakly at strike three for the second at-bat in a row. It was Guerrero's first three-strikeout performance in 43 postseason games, and his first for Texas this year.

"I'm surprised to be honest with you," Hamilton said "It looked like he was looking for a different pitch than what he got. He knew it was a strike and he tried to swing at the last minute."

During a break between innings early in the game, a video montage of Lee highlights was shown to the 1957 song, "Mr. Lee."

The Rangers acquired Lee from Seattle on July 9 in hopes that he would have a chance to win games like the one Monday night.

He won his first three postseason starts for Texas, winning the opener and then the clinching Game 5 in the first round against Tampa Bay. He struck out 13 and allowed only two hits in eight innings to beat the defending World Series champion New York Yankees in Game 3 of the AL championship series.

Lee was sporting a clean-shaven look heading into Game 5, but insists the grooming has nothing to do with what happened last Wednesday.

"I don't like shaving, so I usually let it go a little bit before I shave it," he said. "But that's really all that is. It's not a superstition."

How Economics Became What It Is

How Economics Forgot History: The Problem of Historical Specificity in Social Science. By Geoffrey M. Hodgson. New York: Routledge, 2001. XIX + 422 pp. Index, notes, bibliography, references. Cloth, $120.00; paper, $36.95. ISBN: cloth 0-415-25716-6; paper 0-415-25717-4.

How Economics Became a Mathematical Science. By E. Roy Weintraub. Durham: Duke University Press, 2002. XIII + 313 pp. Index, notes, bibliography. Cloth, $54.95; paper, $18.95. ISBN: cloth 0-822-32856-9; paper 0-822-32871-2.

Few scholars, at least in the Anglophone world, have done more to advance learning in the history of economic thought than Geoffrey Hodgson (of the University of Hertfordshire) and Roy Weintraub (of Duke University). Their research publications have, over the years, stimulated a variety of fruitful discussions concerning the evolution of the modern economics discipline and the development of its doctrines. How Economics Forgot History and How Economics Became a Mathematical Science, the most recent contributions from these prolific investigators, continue in this pattern, and they do so in ways that should interest a broad, interdisciplinary readership. These two works are also read in tandem with great profit, for they succeed in ably demonstrating the virtues of combining different strategies for the analysis and writing of the history of economics itself.

Geoffrey Hodgson's How Economics Forgot History is grounded in a far more traditional methodology than Weintraub's, offering a wonderful work of intellectual retrieval and redemption that brings back to life a now altogether obscure and increasingly forgotten trend in the evolution of the social sciences. Through great erudition, stylistic care and virtuosity, and splendid documentation and notation, Hodgson reanimates the historically grounded argumentation of earlier generations of economists who sought to frame their work less in terms of a general theory of human behavior and more with reference to the significance of historical change and detail. This he does by focusing on what he calls "the problem of historical specificity" in the social sciences and the "limits of explanatory unification in social science" (p. 23).

In the work and impact of the German historical school, spanning the 1840s through the 1930s, Hodgson situates the most significant alternative path in the evolution of modern economic theory. Admirably detailing the general tenets of that school, and highlighting its focus on empirical detail and inductive theorizing, Hodgson seeks, in his words, "to recover what has been long crushed and discarded by the reckless juggernaut of general theorizing in social science" (p. 20). To do so, he is determined to demonstrate that, contrary to the claims of its most powerful critics, the German historical school was hardly "against theory."

The leading progenitors and practitioners of the German approach-Friedrich List (1789-1846), Karl Knies (1821-1898), Bruno Hildebrand (1812-1878), Gustav von Schmoller (1838-1917), Werner Sombart (1863-1941), and Arthur Spiethoff (1873-1957), to name a few-not to mention the large cadre of exceptional scholars and activists they trained and inspired (such as Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk [1851-1914], Richard T. Ely [1854-1943], Rudolf Hilferding [1877-1941], Gunnar Myrdal [1898-1987], Joseph Schumpeter [1883-1950], and Thorstein Veblen [1857-1929], again to name but a few)-embraced the role and importance of theory while insisting that the usefulness of any particular set of abstract ideas was decisively limited by the specific structures and mechanisms of socioeconomic systems defined in time and space. In other words, qualitative change in economies over time necessitated, in their view, a similar evolution in the concepts and analytics deployed to understand them. Abstraction had its place, but ahistorical generalizations, applied willy-nilly to the study of all economic systems at all times, were, to their minds, powerfully misleading.

Within the United States, where the legacy of the German school lived on in the work of the "American institutionalists," critics deployed the "anti-theory" card with particularly devastating effect. The institutionalists conceived of economics as a quite catholic field, in which any claims to realism (and relevance) rested perforce on broadly construed disciplinary boundaries. Indeed, Wesley Mitchell (one of the founders of the National Bureau of Economic Research in 1920) and Thorstein Veblen had consistently and vigorously attacked the manner in which a new generation of investigators, schooled in the principles of the marginalist calculus, ignored human activity that could not be understood simply as the "rational" and calculating response of individuals to the constraints of the market. What's more, they found particularly objectionable the ways in which such researchers assumed that rational calculation was a universal human trait characteristic of all epochs and cultures.

Busying themselves with the careful and comprehensive collection of data on various economic phenomena-in the case of Mitchell, his career would be focused on the prodigious compilation of business-cycle statistics-the institutionalists were virtually submerged in an onslaught of criticism in the 1930s and 1940s about their propensity to engage in crude empiricist projects. In the eyes of leading antagonists, the theoretical bankruptcy of American institutionalism was persuasively demonstrated in a 1947 article on the subject by future Nobel Memorial Prize Laureate Tjalling Koopmans.1

Needless to say, Hodgson rejects outright the presumption and assumption of anti-institutionalists like Koopmans. How Economics Forgot History is a closely argued story of precisely how the historically grounded, empirically rich methodology of an older kind of economic analysis, of which American institutionalism was but one vivid example, was subverted, marginalized, and forgotten. Far from being the result of a straightforward intellectual process, in which superior ideas confronted and eventually crowded out inferior ones, the demise of a historical economics, in Hodgson's eyes, emerged out of a unique, powerful, and almost insidious combination of new ideas, professional boundary-keeping, political pressures, and the unpredictable contingencies of events.

On the one side, the German historical school, and all that it represented in the way of an alternative to what would become a dominant neoclassical paradigm-of which marxism was and is the most dramatic and significant exemplar-was uniquely unhinged by the intellectual momentum of the "marginalist revolution" itself. In the great Methodenstreit that, in the 1880s, pitted Austrian theorists of rational behavior (such as Carl Menger [1840-1921]) against the seniors of the German historical school, the virtues of a scientific vocabulary about human behavior, and the potential for quantitative measurement of that conduct, left a newer generation in possession of a disciplinary and professional high ground that embraced rigor, precision, and a shared, esoteric vocabulary.

On the other, the rise of "marginalism" in economic thought equipped an emergent professional community of economists, struggling for social and institutional recognition, with the trappings of better established fields-most especially in the natural sciences-that enjoyed standing, influence, and funding in recognition of their supposed capabilities, accomplishments, and usefulness. In short, the seemingly precise vocabulary of marginalist analysis provided crucial tools for the policing of the boundaries of an emergent professional community-an essential condition for professionalization itself. To these forces of historical change was also added the political reaction against socialist agendas inspired by the work of Karl Marx and his followers, a reaction much galvanized by the work of marginalist theorists who had apparently and persuasively shown the flaws of the marxian approach overall.

By the early decades of the twentieth century, in the Anglo-American academy, two immensely influential figures solidified the project of disciplinary reconstruction heralded by the marginalist revolution. In Britain, Lionel Robbins, in An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science,2 masterfully represented the new economics as a study of the allocation of scarce resources among competing ends, while in the United States Talcott Parsons, in his monumental study, The Structure of Social Action,3 also decisively contributed to the redefinition of the discipline as the science of choice. These were but two dramatic examples, Hodgson documents, of the systematic and successful effort of a modern economics to eliminate the "problem of historical specificity" from its domain. Even more to the point, by understanding "the economising action of the individual as the general foundational impulse of all economic activity," and by relegating other human motives and behaviors to other fields of inquiry, economics succeeded in reconfiguring its object and method of study in distinctly scientistic (not to mention ahistorical) ways (p. 83).

Counterposed to the process of marginalist advance and triumph in the discipline, Hodgson also sees uniquely historical and contingent processes of enervation and decline in the traditions of the German historical school and its progeny. It is here that he advances some of the most interesting and provocative arguments of his book. In the rise of National Socialism in Germany, and in the ensuing world war, Hodgson locates the death blows to the vitality and legacies of the German historical school. Completely devastated by the political purges of Nazism, physically destroyed by armed conflict, and then uniquely rebuilt under American and British supervision in the postwar period, the German academy lost many of its distinctive features (including its unique approach to economic analysis) in the latter half of the twentieth century. Reflecting upon the important contributions of those theorists who had sought to further the lessons of the German school (such as Schmoller, Sombart, and Max Weber), Hodgson notes that their failure to have a permanent and enduring impact on the field of economics should not obscure this other reality-that war and its aftermath reconfigured economics on the Continent in peculiar and irresistible ways.

How Economics Forgot History concludes with a determined effort by its author to reconstruct an economics methodology that is sensitive to historical and qualitative change. Readers will perhaps find this portion of the volume less satisfying, but they will nonetheless be impressed by its thoughtfulness, imagination, and care. Striving to find a balance between extreme forms of empiricism and rationalism, Hodgson makes a powerful case for the importance of distinguishing between concepts that are transhistorical in their purchase and those that are closely linked to the workings of particular socioeconomic formations.

If, as Hodgson demonstrates, economics "forgot history," it is also true that the discipline, at the same time, became a "mathematical science." Or, at least, its leading figures think it did. In a remarkably thought-provoking, stimulating, and at times quite moving book, Roy Weintraub adroitly combines autobiography and biography to analyze the profession's "putative engagement" with the ideas of twentieth-century mathematicians. Such an investigation links up directly with the work of Hodgson, for it specifically explores the ways in which methodological developments in physics and mathematics shaped the struggle for disciplinary stabilization among economists when the late-nineteenth and twentieth-century debates sparked by the work of the German historical school and the American institutionalists dominated the professional landscape.

That modern economics was reshaped by mathematics is not, of course, a novel proposition. As Weintraub portrays, by the turn of the twentieth century, calls for the use of math in economic analysis had been, if not widespread, certainly well known. "[T]o turn economics into a science," he observes, given the already well-appreciated success and prestige of the natural sciences, a growing number of practitioners embraced "a new understanding that for [the field] to take its place as the queen of the social sciences, it needed to emulate the queen of the sciences itself" (p. 37). Telling the story of the consequences of this shift in view is Weintraub's main object. He brings to the narrative the expertise of an immensely skilled mathematician and economist and the gifts of a graceful and engaging writer.

In the literature that seeks to examine the "mathematization" of economic theory, the traditional approach has been framed either by notions of disciplinary triumphalism-the conquest of "bad" by "good" science, in the context of the mainstream narrative-or, conversely, by notions of a suppression of intellectual debate and diversity, the imposition of a kind of "party line" in which neoclassical propositions cleared the field of alternatives such as marxism, institutionalism, and other "subversive" agendas. In either case, as Weintraub ironically notes, the two views are part of what is essentially a morality play, in which either good triumphs over evil or vice versa, depending on your point of view.

Weintraub carefully (and honestly) avoids taking sides in this morality play. His objective is altogether different, new, and significant: to demonstrate that, whatever the consequences of the increasing penetration of economic reasoning by mathematics (and whatever one's particular opinion of the ultimate impacts of that development on the evolution of the economics discipline as a whole), the argument over formalistic reasoning in economics recapitulates a more deep-seated and enduring debate among mathematicians themselves about the use of math in scientific reasoning and the nature of scientific argument itself. In other words, in what is one of the core contributions of his book, Weintraub demonstrates that controversy over the virtues of economics being a "mathematical science" actually (and usually unwittingly) recreates a modern debate among mathematicians, another Methodenstreit waged "between those who would argue that mathematical rigor (and scientific knowledge) must develop not from axioms but from observations . . . so that the truth of a theory or model may be tested or confirmed by reality . . . and those who would claim that mathematical . . . models are rigorous (and 'true' in the only useful scientific sense of the word) if they are built on a cogent axiom base" (p. 100). There is, as Weintraub convincingly demonstrates, a direct parallel between this profound argument among mathematicians and the perennial disputes among economists about the relative merits of "theory" and "application."

Weintraub tells his story, and makes his claims, with a broad perception of intellectual trends-in both economics and mathematics-and a deft sense of how to combine biographical and analytical accounts. Readers will find themselves getting better acquainted with not only the pantheon of great mathematical economists (such as Kenneth Arrow, Gerard Debreu, Francis Edgeworth, Tjalling Koopmans, and Vilfredo Pareto) but also with a cadre of major mathematical minds likely less familiar (such as Griffith Evans, Kurt Godel, David Hilbert, Paul Volkmann, and Vito Volterra, not to mention an assemblage of interwar-era French theoreticians who, in collaboration, published immensely influential work under the pseudonym of an obscure French military commander, Nicolas Bourbaki). At the same time, they will be treated to Weintraub's utterly convincing assessment that links this "internalist" history of the evolution of mathematical method with a careful elucidation of the ways that evolution influenced the thinking of major figures in the twentieth-century history of economics. They will also be further enlightened by Weintraub's appreciation of the ways in which institutional rivalries (such as the celebrated stand-off between the Cowles Commission and both the University of Chicago Economics Department and the early members of the National Bureau of Economic Research) also helped to shape disciplinary and professional outcomes.

Of course, by the middle of the twentieth century, a new generation of economists, epitomized by Paul Samuelson, had embraced mathematics as the essential tool and "language" of modern economic reasoning, not bothering with the details of any debate over the strengths and weaknesses of data-based versus axiomatic reasoning. In their minds, "economies 'are,' and economics 'is,' and mathematics is [simply] a non-natural mode of analyzing 'it'" (p. 170). It is this position that Weintraub devastatingly portrays as historically and conceptually naive. Placed squarely against this limited and rather simplistic appreciation of the role and impact of economic reasoning in the sciences is Weintraub's detailed explication marshaled to demonstrate "that mathematics is a separate and distinct set of discursive practices and arguments" (p. 171).

Weintraub concludes his extraordinary book with an altogether unusual blending of professional and personal history. He tells the story of his father's career-intertwined with observations about his own. Sidney Weintraub was a most significant economist in his own right, an important figure in the evolution of modern macroeconomics in the United States. In his close relationship with his mathematician brother, Hal, Sidney Weintraub's career affords his son, Roy, the opportunity to provide close, textual detail of the general interdisciplinary influences that are the main themes of his book. It is a delightful, at times funny, always warm and touching, and in the end deeply poignant vignette. Debates and arguments over the meaning of mathematics, the role of mathematical reasoning in economic argument, and the confrontation of Sidney's "real world empiricism" with Hal's abstract formalism, all these punctuated what was of course a life intensely shared by brothers. The tale evokes a tight, loving relationship, one sadly ruptured by Hal's premature death at the age of thirty-one-a tragedy eerily echoed by the book's dedication to another much loved brother (of Roy's), also lost at too young an age. Yet it is also a story (at a very personal level) of the very links and misunderstandings between economists and mathematicians that have punctuated the modern development of economics as a "mathematical science."

Reading Hodgson and Weintraub, one is struck by the ways in which both these works demonstrate the impressive vitality and virtuosity of scholarship in the history of the social sciences. Despite the tendency of the vast majority of graduate training programs in economics to ignore the history of thought in their curriculums (and in their provisioning of faculty positions), the fact remains that some of the most exciting and consequential contributions in the discipline today come from those who contemplate its roots, its evolution, its paths not taken. Geoffrey Hodgson and Roy Weintraub have produced some of the very best of what contemporary scholarship in the history of the social sciences has to offer. They remind us that exploration of disciplinary history is important, rewarding, and enlightening. In the process, they remind us that we ignore learning in the history of our disciplines at great risk, and we do an incredible disservice to our students when we allow or encourage them to do the same.

[Author Affiliation]

Michael A. Bernstein is professor of history and associated faculty member in economics at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of numerous books and articles on the modern economic and political history of the United States, including A Perilous Progress: Economists and Public Purpose in Twentieth Century America (2001).

Editorial: Tough bargaining ahead

Choice of a strike target is also a strategic issue but sales incentive leader GM looks like a limping gazelle to the predatory CAW negotiators.

Yes, I have cancer.

No, I'm not dead.

And if I had a press secretary, I'm sure he would be proud that in just eight words Ive managed to confirm and deny the two rumors about myself that have been circulating lately On the first matter, Pm working from home while I undergo treatments, which may explain how rumor No. 2 got started. But as this column proves, rumor No. 2 is nothing more than an exaggeration of facts.

Oddly enough that's the same way I view the continued strong sales numbers being put up by automakers. We've talked about this before, but clearly the cash-back zero-percent financing and sweet lease deals are doing the trick when it comes to sales numbers and buying market share. The thing I've harped on however, is what it's doing to the bottom line and to future sales. Those are repercussions that have yet to be dealt with.

Now, all of a sudden there is a new corollary that I hadn't considered. In fact, it's a consequence that could make the others pale by comparison. It's called collective bargaining.

This month the CAW will enter the first rounds of collective bargaining with the Big Three and already the rank and file have made it clear they want a piece of the action. Automakers will sing their same sad story about having nothing to share, but the exaggerated sales numbers they are all showing is going to come back to haunt them.

The CAW is savvy enough to know that now is the time to strike, both figuratively and literally and more than nine out of ten Canadian workers have said they are ready to picket. The issues are wage increases, paid time off, working conditions, benefits and job security. And don't underestimate for two seconds how hard the union will bargain on that last issue.

That's because historically, the bottom falls out of the new car market after it has had two record sales years (2000, 2001) and were it not for unprecedented incentives for the past 12 months, 2002 would probably have shown a substantial sales falloff. But automakers kept the euphoria going, which made them the darling of a struggling economy, only to become the targets of a union that knows that sales numbers might hit with a thud next year. That would mean massive layoffs, but not if the union crafts a well-written contract.

Choice of a strike target is also a strategic issue, but sales incentive leader GM looks like a limping gazelle to the predatory CAW negotiators. It also goes without saying that in the wings, the UAW is poised to ask for whatever concessions the CAW might get, making this one of the most critical contracts in history for all parties involved.

I'm not expecting the automakers to cave in easily either because they will probably have to weather bad times with this contract even though it will be forged in times of plenty. But if everybody plays hardball and a strike shuts down a number of plants, it could take an already fragile economy and push it over the edge. If that happens everybody loses.

Economically, the boat is still rocking and while multi-year labor contracts are the norm, I think today's conditions merit a long hard look at a one-year contract to make sure nobody gets hurt. At the bargaining table, the union and the automakers are coming from two different perspectives, but at the end of the day neither one is trying to exterminate the other.

Today's new vehicle sales environment may look rosy but make no mistake, it's an exaggeration of the facts. And coming from a dead man, that should speak volumes as to how wrong the facts can be.

[Author Affiliation]

Gerry Kobe is Executive Editor of Automotive Industries.

[Author Affiliation]

Share your thoughts and comments with Executive Editor Gerry Kobe by email. Write to: gkobe@aol.com

Thompson's First 2 Months in Race Mixed

The returns are mixed on Fred Thompson's first two months in the presidential race. The Republican candidate has battled criticism for his light campaign schedule, laid-back style and rambling speeches. He's flubbed questions. He's slipped some in national and early-primary polls.

Yet, he's still competitive with Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and John McCain in many surveys. He turned in a pair of decent debate performances. And he raised $12.5 million over four months from 80,000 donors.

"Of all the candidates that are out there, he's the one who most closely represents my values. He has my vote," said Laura Clark, 39, a stay-at-home mom from Bedford, who hadn't been convinced Thompson was her guy when she and her young daughter arrived Monday at a local inn to listen to him speak over breakfast.

Others weren't sold _ but indicated they could be if they knew more about him.

"He answered questions very completely. But I'm still undecided," said Monica Zulauf, 51, the executive director of the YWCA of Manchester who sought an autograph from the actor-politician. "I'm waiting for a candidate who resonates on all fronts for me."

Could Thompson be that person? "He might be," she said.

Since becoming a full-fledged candidate Sept. 5, Thompson still hasn't defined himself or his vision for many voters, presenting equal parts challenge and opportunity for the low-key Southerner little more than two months before voting begins.

He faces challenges from Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who has spent millions on ads to introduce himself, as well as Giuliani, the former New York mayor who is widely recognized for his work following the Sept. 11 attacks.

Staff upheaval has dogged the Thompson campaign. The latest departure came Monday when Philip Martin, a co-chairman, resigned after a report about his decades-old criminal record for drug dealing.

Advisers say Thompson has been introducing himself on the campaign trail and, in the coming weeks, will turn to advertising to flesh out his biography and his agenda. They acknowledge that Thompson's months-late entrance into the race caused some of the typical problems for a fledgling campaign. However, they argue, he is maturing as a candidate each day.

"This is exactly where we want to be. We are treated as a serious candidate," Rich Galen, a Thompson adviser, said, calling the two-month performance "way better than a mixed bag."

Still, Thompson has not become the conservatives' consensus candidate that backers made him out to be this summer. His answers on abortion, in particular, have upset some.

On NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, he said that "life begins at conception" but that he doesn't support a federal constitutional amendment banning abortion.

That prompted GOP underdog Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, to claim: "Thompson's philosophy seems to be more 'cut and run' when it comes to these issues, rather than stand and lead."

Thompson told Fox News Channel on Monday: "Huckabee talks about this I suppose because it is the only conservative position he's got." He then criticized his rival for being "very weak on immigration policy" and being "one of the highest taxing governors that we had in this country."

In New Hampshire for only the third time in two months, Thompson began the day telling about 100 people in Bedford that "our country is at a crossroads." He emphasized a strong defense, saying: "We have yet to come to terms yet fully as a nation that we are in a global conflict that will not be resolved when the Iraq war is resolved." He argued for secure borders.

Curiosity brought Kelly McGill, 35, an independent voter from Alexandria, N.H.: "I'm learning about him. That's exactly why I'm here today _ because I don't know a lot."

Later, in Rochester, N.H., Thompson toured a manufacturer of hunting rifles, Thompson Center Arms, a Smith and Wesson Co. that McCain had visited recently, and then delivered his pitch to some 350 workers.

He elicited supportive hoots and hollers when he said: "I've been a strong supporter of the Second Amendment."

A consultant at the company, Roland Cox, 56, liked what he heard. "I was going to look into him, and now I'm sure I'm going to look into him," the independent voter said.

Thompson returns on Tuesday to South Carolina, a must-win state for the Tennessean. Although he's bunched at the top of polls there, interviews with voters over the weekend show he has work to do.

"I don't know much about the man. He was a TV star and all that, and I'm sure he's a decent man. But I've not heard him talk here. He hasn't looked me in the eyes," said Jim Clark, 64, a retired insurance agent and Vietnam veteran in Irmo, S.C.

Upstate in Simpsonville, Jim Schroder, 42, a project manager, said he had all but ruled out Thompson. "I don't know enough about him. I know he was an actor on TV and a senator. There was a lot of hype on him. But the question is does he want it enough?"

Young offenders need help -- not handcuffs

More than a few young people caught up in crime, when you get right down to it, suffer from a mental illness or are drug abusers.

They may become hardened criminals some day, but they are more lost than anything else, and what they need more than handcuffs is help.

Without that help, they may indeed become hardened criminals.

A bill pending in the state Senate, reflecting that view, would encourage the earliest possible mental health and drug treatment for juvenile offenders -- within days, not weeks or months.

The measure, House Bill 6129, has been passed in the House. We urge its speedy approval in the Senate.

When juveniles -- age 17 and under -- are arrested and detained, they are by law supposed to be screened within 48 hours to assess their emotional and mental state and for possible treatment. Defense attorneys, however, frequently advise their young clients to say nothing during these initial screenings -- or even later ones -- for fear they may incriminate themselves.

What the young person says can be used against him or her in court.

The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Will Burns (D-Chicago), would protect the arrested juvenile against incriminating himself through any statements he might make about the crime that led to his arrest. Those statements generally would be inadmissable in court.

The Cook County state's attorney's office opposed an early draft of the law that would have made all statements by the juvenile -- even about past crimes -- off limits.

The state's attorney dropped its opposition when the bill was rewritten to pertain only to comments made about the crime for which the juvenile was arrested.

That leaves us wondering how much good the bill will do. Many defense attorneys -- wary of any mention of past crimes -- still will advise their clients to clam up.

But the proposed law represents a step in the direction of diverting young offenders from jail to community-based treatment programs, which studies show can be more successful in reducing recidivism.

That first screening can mean all the difference to a young person's future, says Northwestern University law Professor Gene Griffin.

Once a screening has been done, he said, "They can work up a whole community-based treatment plan and go to the judge and say, 'Your honor, this person is mentally ill and we have these programs.' "

Treatment can even begin while the juvenile is awaiting trial, opening the door early for a possible recovery.

AIM Expands Mobile Options With Texting

NEW YORK - Now you can access AOL's popular instant-messaging service using cell phone text messaging.

Mobile versions of AIM and rival IM services from Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are already available, but availability varies depending on your wireless provider, cell phone and service level.

The new offering from AOL provides yet another option - at least for customers of Alltel Corp. and Verizon Wireless - a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC.

Users can simply send a blank text message to "AIMAIM" to activate. A user can send messages with commands to sign on, view buddy lists or change an "away" greeting.

Be sure you have a good text messaging plan, though, or charges can rack up quickly. And remember to sign off from the mobile version when you are back at a desktop computer - otherwise you might find streams of text messages from buddies known to shoot five or six IMs within seconds.

AOL, a unit of Time Warner Inc., also unveiled this week an "AIM Buddy Finder" tool for cell phones with global-positioning capabilities. Users can let friends see their location on MapQuest, another AOL service. The traveler must periodically refresh the location, though, as it isn't updated continuously.

The tool requires the $3-a-month Where service from uLocate Communications Inc., available through Alltel and Sprint Nextel Corp.'s Sprint and Boost Mobile brands.

The AIM offerings are among the mobile services AOL announced this week at a wireless industry conference in San Francisco.

7 Indian soldiers missing in Kashmir avalanche

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — The Indian army says seven soldiers are missing after being hit by an avalanche in the Himalayan heights of disputed territory of Kashmir.

Army spokesman Lt. Col. J.S. Brar says five army and two paramilitary soldiers were clearing a road near the de-facto border dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan when a mass of snow and ice tumbled from above early Tuesday.

He says rescuers from Indian army's High Altitude Warfare School and local border guards are searching for the soldiers.

Frequent rain and heavy snowfall often trigger avalanches and landslides that block roads and cut off mountainous areas in Kashmir.

NZealand Arrests Top Cyber Suspect

Police arrested the suspected teenage kingpin of an international cyber crime network accused of infiltrating 1.3 million computers and skimming millions of dollars from victims' bank accounts, officials said.

Working with the FBI and police in the Netherlands, New Zealand police arrested the 18-year-old in the North Island city of Hamilton, said Martin Kleintjes, head of the police electronic crime center. The suspect's name was not immediately available.

Kleintjes charged that the ring was responsible for stealing at least $20 million using bank account and login details detected by their illegal spyware.

The arrest was part of international probe into the criminal use of "botnets," in which hackers gain control of third-party computers through malicious software and then use them as remote-controlled robots to crash online systems, accept spam and steal users' personal information.

Eight people have been indicted, pleaded guilty or convicted since the investigation started in June. Thirteen additional warrants have been served in the U.S. and overseas in the investigation, which the FBI says has uncovered more than $20 million in economic losses.

New Zealand police searched the residence of the 18-year-old suspected to be the ringleader earlier this week. The federal agency identified the person by the online handle "AKILL."oparqas

Earlier this month, Ryan Goldstein, 21, of Ambler, Pa., was indicted in the case. Authorities allege that the New Zealand suspect and Goldstein were involved in crashing a University of Pennsylvania engineering school server Feb. 23, 2006.

Officials said that the server, which typically handles about 450 daily requests for Internet downloads, instead got 70,000 requests from the account of an unsuspecting Penn student over four days. Over time, the FBI followed an electronic trail from that student's account to Goldstein's screen name, "Digerati," and the New Zealand hacker.

The crash briefly shut down computers at Penn's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, but did relatively little damage, university spokesman Ron Ozio said.

Goldstein has pleaded not guilty and was released on bail while awaiting a trial set for March 10.

He faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted of the single count of conspiracy to commit computer fraud.

"We feel the charges are inflated," defense lawyer Ronald Levine said Thursday. "We think this is kind of an exaggerated case."

Goldstein did not return phone messages left by The Associated Press on his cell phone and his parents' home in Ambler. He remains enrolled at Penn, according to Ozio, who said he could not comment on possible disciplinary action.

___

AP writer Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia contributed to this report

Ethylene glycol distillation column modeled

Drs. Aditya Kumar and Prodomos Daoutidis, chemical engineers at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, have modeled an ethylene glycol reactive-distillation column, showing its dynamic behavior, and addressed the design of a nonlinear model-based controller.

Reactive distillation - the process of simultaneous reaction and distillation in a single unit offers numerous advantages over conventional reactor/separator configurations. In reactive distillation, the reactants/products are continuously separated from the liquid-reaction phase into the nonreactive vapor phase. This feature allows enhanced conversion in equilibrium-limited reversible reactions such as the production of methyl/ethyl acetate, high-product selectivity in the case of multiple competing reactions such as those involving ethylene glycol manufacture, and provides an efficient means of removing or adding heat to the liquid phase. These advantages, the researchers say, have renewed interest in the use of reactive distillation technology to produce chemical commodities. (For more information on reactive distillation, see CEP, Mar. 1992, pp. 43-50.)

The researchers developed a detailed, tray-by-tray model that includes vapor phase dynamic balances. A comparison of the dynamics predicted by this model with that of a conventional model that ignores vapor holdup illustrates the importance of including the vapor phase for an accurate description of the process dynamics, the authors note.

"A steady-state bifurcation analysis for the column yielded the existence of up to five steady states, indicating the presence of strong nonlinearities, even in the case of ideal phase behavior. The column was also found to exhibit non-minimum phase behavior at high purity, which makes the design of effective controllers a challenging problem. Nonminimum phase behavior occurs due to a competition between a favorable reaction in the column and an unfavorable distillation in the reboiler. This may be a common phenomena in reactive distillation columns where the desired product is withdrawn at the bottom from the reboiler. The proposed method provides an approach for addressing the non-lineal control of such columns," Daoutidis says.

The work was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation. More information about this research appears in the January issue of the AIChE Journal.

Test: Drug cuts risk of 2nd stroke

High doses of a cholesterol-lowering drug may help some strokesurvivors avoid a second stroke and future heart problems, the firsttest of this approach found.

Experts said medical guidelines will probably be changed torecommend high doses of statin drugs as a routine part of stroke carefor certain patients.

For every 100 people given high doses of the statin Lipitor, therewere about two fewer strokes and three to four fewer major heartproblems than among those given dummy pills, but also one morehemorrhagic stroke, or bleeding into the brain.

"Even with that risk, you can clearly see a benefit," said Dr.Adnan Qureshi, director of the cerebral vascular program atUniversity of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark.

THREE GUNNERS

Women in the Army, Serving Outside the Wire

"Hey!" Lewi shouted from the Humvee gunner's hatch, prodding midday Baghdad traffic out of the way of her convoy. Lewi is short for Spc. Amanda Godlewski. "Hey! Move over!" she yelled at a car, waving it to the side of the highway. She barked warnings a couple of hundred times during a day's mission for Civil Affairs Team 2 (CAT-2) of Company A, 403rd Civil Affairs Battalion, a U.S. Army Reserve unit from Syracuse, N.Y., which supported the 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized) 4th Brigade in southern Baghdad.

"Hey, stupid! Get out of the way!" Iraqi drivers might not understand Spc. Godlewski's words, but they got the tone. And she backed it up with an M249 squad automatic weapon on the mount and, as lead gunner, a bad attitude toward anybody who might pose a threat to her team, which means everybody who isn't wearing an American uniform. A don't-mess-with-me attitude is necessary for a gunner.

Standing in the gunners' hatches of the two Humvees behind Spc. Godlewski were Lilly and Charlie, Spc. Lillian Withers and Spc. Robynn Murray, respectively. They've got a bad attitude on the road, too.

"Nobody messes with the guys in my truck," Spc. Murray said. "It's like a mother lion protecting her den."

Spc. Withers has been called Lilly from childhood. She tagged Spc. Murray as Charlie. "It's an Army name," Spc. Withers explained. "She doesn't look like a Robynn. I tried calling her by her last name, but that's so impersonal... she just looks like a Charlie."

Until their redeployment this summer, the three served as CAT-2's gunners. They did their job; they got their team back home, safe and sound. I met them about three weeks before the end of their tour in Iraq.

They carried themselves with the swagger of combat veterans-self-assured, young, fit, armed to the teeth and controllably dangerous. Okay, maybe they decorated their rooms with a few frilly things, but they also pumped iron in the gym and didn't take crap from anybody.

"I'm a bad-assed machine gunner," Spc. Godlewski told me.

A three-Humvee team with all female gunners was unique at Forward Operating Base Falcon, where they had spent their Iraq deployment.

Lewi, Lilly and Charlie took pride in being "the girl gunners"-a term that could have been taken as a jab from men on the FOB, however, it carried a level of respect. Anybody who cranks a round into the chamber and rolls out the gate day after day gets credit for guts.

"It's not a gimmick," noted Spc. Murray. "It's not as if our team looked around for all-female gunners. It's because we were the best and most experienced, and our team leader (Capt. Tim Wright) gave us the opportunity and stood by us."

The three of them saw themselves as just another set of gunners, hooking it up and operating in some of the most dangerous territory in the world-the roads of Baghdad, the literal 360-degree battlefield where the front lines are the left and right sides of the road and the next car in front and behind.

Arguably, gunners hold the most important positions in a convoy. They are the only crew members who can see all around the vehicle, helping the driver navigate and giving the vehicle commander information to make decisions. Obviously, gunners are the line of defense against suicide bombers. They try to maintain a 50- to 100-meter bubble of space around moving Humvees. Meanwhile, they scan rooftops, alleys and sidewalks for snipers and cover soldiers when they dismount. They stand in the open, halfway out of the protection that an armored Humvee affords. And they love it.

"I feel free, not trapped inside the vehicle," Spc. Godlewski explained. "You're in control."

"I like being in control, too, seeing what's around you," Spc. Withers said. "It's hard for me to rely on people. So when I'm out there I don't have to."

"Yeah, it's dangerous, but it becomes a self-preservation thing after a while," Spc. Murray added. "You just don't think about it. What gets to you is hearing a shot and not knowing where it came from because you want to shoot back. For the first two months here, though, I didn't tell my mom what I was doing."

"I'm proud of being a gunner," Spc. Godlewski said. "I really was such a girlie-girl, and I never thought when I signed up that I'd end up being a lead gunner in Baghdad. It makes my family proud. They think I'm high-speed."

Each had a different reason for joining the Army Reserve, but all have been changed by their combat experience.

From Cortland, N.Y., Spc. Withers joined in 2002 at the age of 17 as a mechanic.

"My mom was in the Navy, and my dad was in the Army, and I swore that I'd never join the Army, but my sister joined and liked it. At first, I wanted to be a marine, but when I talked to a Marine recruiter he told me I could be a cook, and I said, 'see you later.' I chose to be a mechanic in the Army because I'd been ripped off so many times by mechanics. I wanted to learn how to do it myself. I think this deployment has given me the motivation to get on with my life-to stop having dead-end jobs and start a career. (She plans to attend college after she gets back.) I was really misguided and reckless before, and now I think I've learned discipline and respect for others. I used to have a really smart mouth, and that made people think that 1 wouldn't make it in the Army, but I have. I'm proud of being a gunner here because I think that I can look back on this someday and say that I made a difference: I was in Iraq when it started improving."

From West Monroe, N.Y., Spc. Godlewski joined in 2002 at the age of 20 as a chemical specialist, and she also trained in communications.

"I think I came in because I needed some self-guidance. I really didn't know what I was going to do," Spc. Godlewski said. "I needed discipline."

(She currently plans to attend the Onondaga School to learn therapeutic massage and the Phillips Cosmetology School toward the goal of someday owning a health spa.)

"I don't think I would recognize myself two years ago," Spc. Godlewski said. "I think I've learned to be more responsible, and I've also learned how much my family and dog mean to me. I miss my dog, a pit bull named Rex. He's my pride and joy."

She also has a cat named Tiger II. While deployed, she talked to Rex on the phone, but not the cat.

Spc. Withers also had phone contact with her dog, Sapphire-"a pit bull-chow mix with an attitude problem, and when I say her name over the phone, she barks."

(Rounding out the pet list because I promised the three gunners that I would try to get all their pets into this story somehow, and 1 don't like to let down a soldier who's watched my six, Spc. Murray's Rottweiller's name is Spike. She has a parakeet "left over from childhood" that apparently has the livinglonger-than-it-should-have gene, a "fat and spoiled" cat named Kittus and two pythons that are "beautiful, graceful and quiet, and they cuddle." I didn't ask whether she phoned the snakes.)

From Niagara Falls, N.Y., Spc. Murray joined in 2003 at the age of 18 as a civil affairs specialist.

"A friend talked me into coming into the Reserve," she said. "We were in ROTC, and he said it would be a good idea to get some leadership experience. I deployed; he did not."

Spc. Murray's military interest started when she was 12 years old and saw a movie called "Tank Girl," which was based on a comic book character. She's still an avid comic book fan.

"After seeing the movie, I wanted to drive a tank, but somebody told me that I couldn't do that because I was a girl. Girls could, however, fly planes, so I spent five years in the Civil Air Patrol," she said.

"I'm happy about this deployment because I got the chance to be with other female gunners-be around other women who aren't afraid to get dirty and be gunners. And, I think that we are helping to pave the way so if I have a little girl someday and she wants to be a tank driver that maybe she can because of us."

(She plans to attend the State University of Buffalo to study political science with the long-term goal of becoming a lawyer.)

Talking about women in combat, Spc. Murray said, "There are many closed doors, but being here with Lilly and Lewi, I can't see any reason to ban female soldiers from combat-and I say that knowing I could get shot tomorrow."

"One of my drill sergeants in basic training said something about women in combat that I didn't like then and don't agree with now," Spc. Withers added. "He said that if females were in combat and got wounded that a male would unnecessarily put himself at risk to save her because of the male's natural urge to protect a female. I'm a female. I'm in combat. I think I would risk my life to save any soldier, male or female, and that a male soldier would just do the same for any other soldier because that's what soldiers do."

In Iraq, she learned that a soldier's a soldier, and the three of them helped prove that gunners are gunners if they have desire, dedication, skill and a don't-mess-with-me attitude while they're in the hatch.

[Author Affiliation]

Text and Photographs

By Dennis Steele

Senior Staff Writer

Turkish officials link bombings in Istanbul to rebel Kurds, but Kurds deny the link

Thousands of mourners have bowed their heads in prayer at funerals for some of the 17 people killed in twin bomb blasts in a crowded Istanbul square, an attack that Turkish officials blamed on Kurdish rebels.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan served as a pallbearer Monday as the crowd surged around 10 coffins draped in the red and white Turkish flag at a mosque in Gungoren, a residential neighborhood near Istanbul's international airport that houses many poor migrants.

Erdogan said the Sunday night bombings appeared to be payback for the Turkish military's air raids on the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, strongholds in northern Iraq. Some analysts agreed, even though rebels themselves denied involvement and an investigation was ongoing. Kurdish rebels have targeted civilians in the past.

"The PKK seems to be the most likely instigator, if you look at the type of explosives and the bomb mechanism used," Sedat Laciner of the Ankara-based International Strategic Research Organization told NTV television.

The blasts occurred on the eve of a Turkish court's deliberations on whether to ban the Islamic-oriented ruling party for allegedly trying to undermine secularism, and the timing raised questions about whether there was a link.

The bombings and the legal challenge to the government highlight a growing mood of uncertainty in Turkey, where an Islamic-oriented government that won a strong mandate in elections last year is locked in a power struggle with secular circles in the military and judiciary.

The deadliest attack against civilians in Turkey in five years could benefit militants by sowing more suspicion among Turkey's feuding power circles. But nobody has claimed responsibility, and Turkey is home to a variety of violent groups besides the PKK, including Islamic extremists and alleged coup plotters with ties to the secular establishment.

The PKK attributed the attack to "dark forces," an apparent reference to hardline Turkish nationalists who allegedly seek to foment chaos in order to strengthen the political influence of the military.

"The Kurdish freedom movement has nothing to do with this event, this cannot be linked to the PKK," pro-Kurdish news agency Firat quoted a rebel leader, Zubeyir Aydar, as saying. "We think this attack was carried out by dark forces. We extend our condolences to the families of the victims and to the Turkish people."

Sinan Ogan, head of the Turkish Center for International Relations and Strategic Analysis in Ankara, said Gungoren was a "softer target" for the PKK than more central parts of Istanbul with more security.

"Al-Qaida, for example, wants more international targets, like a multinational company or a consulate," he said. "I think PKK is trying to say to Turkish officials: 'Look, we can hit you in bigger cities as well. We are already hitting you with land mines in the southeast, but this is not limited to that region.'"

Ogan noted the existence of splinter groups of Kurdish militants, some more violent than others, and said the attack may have been carried out without the knowledge of the entire rebel command.

Erdogan said the bombings represented Turkey's "heavy" costs for its cross-border attacks on Kurdish rebels in Iraq. He urged Turks not to back political parties that "support terrorism," an indirect criticism of the Democratic Society Party, a pro-Kurdish group believed to be heavily influenced by the PKK.

The U.S. and EU say the PKK, which seeks autonomy for Kurds, is a terrorist organization.

The bombings were unusual in their apparent aim to cause as many civilian casualties as possible with no government or strategic target. Authorities said the vast majority of the 17 deaths and 150 injuries occurred when a curious crowd gathered after an initial, small blast. Then, a second, larger bomb exploded.

Erdogan said 100 of the injured were later released from hospitals.

Five of the dead were children. Anatolia news agency said one victim was a 12-year-old girl who rushed with her parents to the balcony of their apartment to see what was going on after the first explosion.

The Cihan news agency said the second bomb consisted of a plastic explosive of the same kind used in a suicide attack in Ankara in May 2007 that killed seven people. That attack was blamed on the PKK.

Sunday's attack was the country's worst since November 20, 2003, when al-Qaida linked suicide bombings struck the British Consulate and a British bank, killing at least 30 people. Five days earlier, suicide truck bombs attacked two Istanbul synagogues, killing 27.

On July 9, gunmen opened fire on police guarding the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul, killing three officers. Three attackers also died in a shootout with police. Authorities were investigating whether the gunmen were inspired by al-Qaida.

___

Associated Press writers C. Onur Ant in Istanbul and Suzan Fraser in Ankara contributed to this report.

Echols drills way to Upstate Eight elite

Much to the chagrin of his Upstate Eight opponents, Bryan Echolsdecided to give up baseball last year and go out for track.

The 5-7, 150-pound Echols had an immediate impact on the ElginLarkin track team and the rest of the league as as junior, leavingmost of his fellow sprinters in a cloud of dust.

The fact he succeded despite his limited experience has hiscoaches anticipating his senior year.

"He's the best sprinter in the conference," Elgin Larkin interimtrack coach Bob Arnet said. "He joined the track team as a junior,and most of last year he was still learning the ropes. Now he has ayear under his belt, so watch out."

Echols won the conference last year in the 50-yard dash indoorsand he posted victories in the 100 and 200-meter dashes in twooutdoor meets last weekend.

His goal is to place in the state meet.

"I felt real good about winning in conference last year and haveno regrets about quitting baseball. I didn't have too good of asophomore season anyway," Echols said. "I am really looking toimprove my times and make it to the state meet this year."

Echols and his coaches are working hard to reach that goal.They realize Echols' best time of 10.9 in the 100 will have toimprove if he is to compete with the top sprinters in the state.

But Echols has shown such great potential in the short time hehas been running, his coaches are confident he can make the necessaryprogress.

"We're working on some drills that should help him," said Arnet,who replaced head coach Scott Witt, who has been hospitilized for thepast five weeks with kidney stones and an inflamed pancreas.

"He has natural speed, but he needs to increase his speedendurance. So we have him sprinting some 300s and 400s among otherthings. I think he could be good in the 400 meters or some of thesprint relays, but we have decided to go with him in the 100 and 200for now."

In the past, Echols also has competed in the long jump in meetswhen the team "needs the points." But his ankles take too much of apounding to make it a regular event for him, according to Arnet.

Echols has a training routine he thinks will one day put himahead of the pack.

"I've been running a big hill by my house and that is buildingup my legs and endurance," he said. "I've been doing about 10 sets ofthose a day for some time now, along with a lot of work with thecoaches, and I think it will pay off."

Neither Echols nor his coaches think the competition in theUpstate Eight is as tough as many of the conferences across thestate, but for now Echols is having fun winning races against some ofthe rivals he already has attracted.

"Right now, I'd say my toughest opponent is Kermit Ellison ofStreamwood," Echols said. "I have to keep an eye out for him."

And the rest of the state should keep an eye out for Echols.

Parkersburg business closes after 144 years: ; Owner of jewelry store says downtown location was not longer profitable

PARKERSBURG - After providing faithful service and quality itemsto the Parkersburg area for 144 years, J. Wetherell and Son Jewelersclosed its doors to business on Friday.

"It's all because of business downtown," said owner ErnestWhitehead. "We've been losing money for a long while - quite a fewyears - and we just can't stay open with so few people coming in."

Whitehead said that business started to slump when the GrandCentral Mall opened in 1972 and more and more businesses eithermoved out of the downtown district or closed.

"Honestly, business in downtown Parkersburg is not very prolificand I just couldn't keep the store open," he said.

Whitehead is the third owner of J. Wetherell and Sons Jewelers,which opened at 417 Market St. in 1866, and said the jewelrybusiness is all he knows.

"Even though I'm 82-years-old, I'd be happy to proceed in thisprofession, but the economy just won't let me," he said.

Whitehead said he began working for Col. C.E. Morrison, aWetherell relative and second owner of the jewelry store, when hewas 15-years old and in need of a job.

"I got into the jewelry business by accident because I wanted towork," Whitehead said. "I started working for Col. Morrison in 1944and just stayed."

Whitehead started by washing windows and transferring merchandisefrom the Wetherell store and G.E. Smith Sons Jewelry then located atthe 809 Market St. store, which was also owned by Morrison. In 1946,the building at 417 Market St. was sold and the two stores werecombined under the Wetherell name.

"I worked my way up in the business by cleaning clocks and then Ibecame a watch maker, which I still do sometimes," he said.

For the past 67 years, Whitehead has spent six days a week at J.Wetherell and Son, with the exception of three years spent in theU.S. Marine Corps in the Korean War.

"I came back from the war and came right back to J. Wetherell andSon," he said. "This is all I know."

In 1954, Whitehead became a registered jeweler after he receivedtraining at the Geological Institute of America in California.

"I bought the business off of Col. Morrison's estate because Icouldn't stand to see it close," Whitehead said. "It means a lot tome."

When he purchased the business, Whitehead said he kept theoriginal name because it came with a stellar reputation and a longhistory.

"Stores like Buttermore and Sons and Baker and Baker in Mariettacame out of J. Wetherell and Son," he said. "Those jewelers wouldwork here and get their training and move on to their own stores,which says something about how respected the business used to be."

With the closure Whitehead said the chapter of J. Wetherell andSon would close.

"My history with downtown Parkersburg and this business does fromstreet cars to everyone having their own car," he said. "I've seen alot change and so has this store."

JOLENE CRAIG/THE NEWS AND SENTINEL Ernest Whitehead, owner of J.Wetherell and Son Jewelers on Market Street, stands behind the frontcounter for one of the last times on Friday evening. At 5 p.m.Friday, the stores doors were closed for the final time after 144years in business.

He's never had sex before

Q: I've been going out with a guy who's never had sex before with a man and is more than a lime a a lime apprehensive. We're really into each other, but to tell you the truth I'm a little nervous myself at the thought of initiating a virgin. I just want to make sure to handle things right. Do you have any advice for me?

A: There's a special responsibility in being someone's "first." I don't know about you, but I still remember my very first time - and let me just say I was a nervous wreck. Since you already know that your fella is anxious, see if you can tease out what's on his mind. Often a first timer's main concern is that he'll do something "wrong." If you can help your new lover realize that it's not about technical performance but rather emotional connection, you'll both benefit. Also, let him know that he can determine the pace. Still, there will likely be some teachable moments as he tries new things on for size. I wouldn't make corrections or suggestions in the heat of the moment, but instead maybe chat a bit later on if you feel the need. One last thing: Be sure to lead by example when it comes to the topic of safer sex.

[Author Affiliation]

Steven Petrow is a regular contributor to 365gay. com, GayWeddings.com and the author of the "Steven Petrow's Complete Gay & Manners''' ' (www.gaymanners.com). Send him your questions: ask@gaymanners.com.

Israel ignores militants' deadline in crisis over captured soldier

JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Tuesday ignored adeadline to begin releasing Palestinian prisoners and instead issueda veiled threat against Syria, vowing to strike "those who sponsor"the militants in the Gaza Strip who seized a young Israeli soldier.

Olmert's comments signaled that a flurry of diplomacy throughoutthe region is still no closer to securing the release of Cpl. GiladShalit.

The Palestinian militants holding Shalit angrily said they wouldnot release any more information about him after Israel ignored theirultimatum to begin releasing hundreds of prisoners early Tuesday. Butthey said they would not kill the soldier, after earlier signals thathe would be harmed.

Speaking at a business conference in southern Israel, Olmertrepeated his long-standing refusal to negotiate with Shalit'scaptors. "We won't negotiate with terror elements and we won't letanyone believe that kidnapping is a tool to bring Israel to itsknees," he said.

He told the audience he has ordered the army to push forward withefforts "to strike terrorists and those who sent them and those whosponsor them," an apparent reference to Syria. "None of them will beimmune."

Since Shalit was captured June 25 in a cross-border raid, Israelhas made it clear that it holds Syria and Hamas' Syrian-based leader,Khaled Mashaal, responsible. Last week, Israeli warplanes buzzed thesummer residence of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Israeli officialsalso have implied that Mashaal is a target for assassination.

Israel last week launched a ground operation in Gaza, along with acampaign of airstrikes, to pressure the ruling Hamas party to secureShalit's release. Both Israeli defense officials and Palestiniansecurity officials said the ground operation in northern Gaza wasslowly expanding.

Hamas' military wing and two allied groups -- the PopularResistance Committees and the Army of Islam -- have claimedresponsibility for the abduction.

The militants holding Shalit had set a 6 a.m. (11 p.m. EDT Monday)deadline for Israel to begin releasing some 1,500 Palestinianprisoners in return for information about the soldier. The militantshave given no details on Shalit's condition, although Israeliofficials believe he suffered light wounds and is still alive.

After the deadline passed, a spokesman for the Army of Islam saidShalit's captors "have decided to freeze all contacts and close thefiles of this soldier."

"We will not give any information that will give the occupationgood news or reassurance," said the spokesman, Abu Muthana. But, headded, "We will not kill the soldier, if he is still alive."

The groups had implied Monday that Shalit would be killed if theirdemands were not met.

Cabinet minister Roni Bar-On, who is close to Olmert, threatenedharsh action if the soldier is harmed.

"It's safe to say ... the sky will fall on them if Gilad Shalit isharmed," he added. "If he is killed, we will react in ways thePalestinians haven't seen before."

Despite the tough public line, Israeli officials have privatelysaid they would consider other options to get Shalit back. Israel hasreleased prisoners before in lopsided exchanges for captured citizensor the bodies of soldiers killed in battle.

In Gaza City, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a topHamas official, called on Shalit's captors to protect the soldier andexpressed hope for a peaceful resolution to the standoff.

"The government is exerting efforts with Palestinian, Arab andregional parties to end this case in the appropriate manner," Haniyehsaid at the opening of a Cabinet meeting.

He said the government reiterates the need "to continue thepolitical, diplomatic and negotiation efforts and not to close thedoor and use the language of wisdom and logic to end this."

Egypt has been leading international mediation efforts, includingtalking to Syria. Turkey, which neighbors Syria and is a key Muslimally of Israel, also has sent an envoy to Damascus.

"We are dealing with more than one Middle Eastern government tosee if the release of our serviceman can be secured. The fundamentalprinciple is that his release must be unconditional," said MarkRegev, spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry.

In a new snag, Hamas lawmaker Salah Bardawil said the group hadcut off talks with the Egyptians because of the lack of an Israeliresponse. "It's unreasonable to keep negotiating when there are nooffers," he said.

"If there was a feeling there was an Israeli offer ... I think wecold reopen the door," he added.

Early Tuesday, Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz decided togradually step up the military operation in northern Gaza, defenseofficials said.

The army said the ground forces moved about a half-mile insideGaza early Tuesday. Palestinian security officials said about 15tanks had advanced slightly.

In an airstrike overnight, a Hamas militant was killed and fourwere wounded. Israel said its air force targeted Palestiniansplanting a bomb near soldiers' positions.

The Israeli offensive, which has left roughly half of Gazaresidents without electricity, has raised concerns of a humanitariandisaster.

On Tuesday, Israel allowed Gaza's key cargo crossings to open toallow food, fuel and other key supplies into the area. However, theErez crossing, used for people and vehicles to cross between Israeland Gaza, was closed due to a security alert, the army said.

In the West Bank city of Ramallah early Tuesday, after surroundinga Palestinian police building, Israeli forces arrested threemilitants said to be involved in the abduction and killing of an 18-year-old Israeli settler last week. The military said a fourth wasarrested earlier.

The kidnapping of the teen, Eliahu Asheri, added tension to thesituation surrounding the capture of the soldier. Asheri's body wasfound Thursday near Ramallah.

Israel ignores militants' deadline in crisis over captured soldier

JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Tuesday ignored adeadline to begin releasing Palestinian prisoners and instead issueda veiled threat against Syria, vowing to strike "those who sponsor"the militants in the Gaza Strip who seized a young Israeli soldier.

Olmert's comments signaled that a flurry of diplomacy throughoutthe region is still no closer to securing the release of Cpl. GiladShalit.

The Palestinian militants holding Shalit angrily said they wouldnot release any more information about him after Israel ignored theirultimatum to begin releasing hundreds of prisoners early Tuesday. Butthey said they would not kill the soldier, after earlier signals thathe would be harmed.

Speaking at a business conference in southern Israel, Olmertrepeated his long-standing refusal to negotiate with Shalit'scaptors. "We won't negotiate with terror elements and we won't letanyone believe that kidnapping is a tool to bring Israel to itsknees," he said.

He told the audience he has ordered the army to push forward withefforts "to strike terrorists and those who sent them and those whosponsor them," an apparent reference to Syria. "None of them will beimmune."

Since Shalit was captured June 25 in a cross-border raid, Israelhas made it clear that it holds Syria and Hamas' Syrian-based leader,Khaled Mashaal, responsible. Last week, Israeli warplanes buzzed thesummer residence of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Israeli officialsalso have implied that Mashaal is a target for assassination.

Israel last week launched a ground operation in Gaza, along with acampaign of airstrikes, to pressure the ruling Hamas party to secureShalit's release. Both Israeli defense officials and Palestiniansecurity officials said the ground operation in northern Gaza wasslowly expanding.

Hamas' military wing and two allied groups -- the PopularResistance Committees and the Army of Islam -- have claimedresponsibility for the abduction.

The militants holding Shalit had set a 6 a.m. (11 p.m. EDT Monday)deadline for Israel to begin releasing some 1,500 Palestinianprisoners in return for information about the soldier. The militantshave given no details on Shalit's condition, although Israeliofficials believe he suffered light wounds and is still alive.

After the deadline passed, a spokesman for the Army of Islam saidShalit's captors "have decided to freeze all contacts and close thefiles of this soldier."

"We will not give any information that will give the occupationgood news or reassurance," said the spokesman, Abu Muthana. But, headded, "We will not kill the soldier, if he is still alive."

The groups had implied Monday that Shalit would be killed if theirdemands were not met.

Cabinet minister Roni Bar-On, who is close to Olmert, threatenedharsh action if the soldier is harmed.

"It's safe to say ... the sky will fall on them if Gilad Shalit isharmed," he added. "If he is killed, we will react in ways thePalestinians haven't seen before."

Despite the tough public line, Israeli officials have privatelysaid they would consider other options to get Shalit back. Israel hasreleased prisoners before in lopsided exchanges for captured citizensor the bodies of soldiers killed in battle.

In Gaza City, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a topHamas official, called on Shalit's captors to protect the soldier andexpressed hope for a peaceful resolution to the standoff.

"The government is exerting efforts with Palestinian, Arab andregional parties to end this case in the appropriate manner," Haniyehsaid at the opening of a Cabinet meeting.

He said the government reiterates the need "to continue thepolitical, diplomatic and negotiation efforts and not to close thedoor and use the language of wisdom and logic to end this."

Egypt has been leading international mediation efforts, includingtalking to Syria. Turkey, which neighbors Syria and is a key Muslimally of Israel, also has sent an envoy to Damascus.

"We are dealing with more than one Middle Eastern government tosee if the release of our serviceman can be secured. The fundamentalprinciple is that his release must be unconditional," said MarkRegev, spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry.

In a new snag, Hamas lawmaker Salah Bardawil said the group hadcut off talks with the Egyptians because of the lack of an Israeliresponse. "It's unreasonable to keep negotiating when there are nooffers," he said.

"If there was a feeling there was an Israeli offer ... I think wecold reopen the door," he added.

Early Tuesday, Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz decided togradually step up the military operation in northern Gaza, defenseofficials said.

The army said the ground forces moved about a half-mile insideGaza early Tuesday. Palestinian security officials said about 15tanks had advanced slightly.

In an airstrike overnight, a Hamas militant was killed and fourwere wounded. Israel said its air force targeted Palestiniansplanting a bomb near soldiers' positions.

The Israeli offensive, which has left roughly half of Gazaresidents without electricity, has raised concerns of a humanitariandisaster.

On Tuesday, Israel allowed Gaza's key cargo crossings to open toallow food, fuel and other key supplies into the area. However, theErez crossing, used for people and vehicles to cross between Israeland Gaza, was closed due to a security alert, the army said.

In the West Bank city of Ramallah early Tuesday, after surroundinga Palestinian police building, Israeli forces arrested threemilitants said to be involved in the abduction and killing of an 18-year-old Israeli settler last week. The military said a fourth wasarrested earlier.

The kidnapping of the teen, Eliahu Asheri, added tension to thesituation surrounding the capture of the soldier. Asheri's body wasfound Thursday near Ramallah.