Living Today: Issues of modern living

LEGAL REPRESENTATION

Most lawyers in the United States would refuse to defend anyone charged in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

But not all of them, according to a poll released last Friday by Lawyers Weekly USA.

The survey found that 54 percent of the more than 450 lawyers polled had strong feelings against those who carried out the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But 46 percent, a sizeable minority, would consider it their patriotic duty to represent accused terrorists.

"Based on the results, lawyers across the country are obviously torn between their loyalty to their profession and their loyalty to their country," said Paul Martinek, publisher of the Boston-based weekly newspaper.

Of those who said they would not represent an accused terrorist, 40 percent cited moral reasons, a third said their personal opinion of the attacks would render them unable to do a good job, and some said they had safety concerns.

Some of the male lawyers surveyed said they would volunteer to help prosecute or even kill the offenders.

Feelings against representing terrorists were strongest in the Northeast, where most of the Sept. 11 carnage occurred. Seventy percent of the attorneys in the region that includes New York, New Jersey and New England said they would not represent an accused terrorist, while nearly two-thirds of the lawyers in the South said they would.

Despite the unprecedented nature of the Sept. 11 events, many lawyers said they would feel compelled to represent a terrorist defendant because to deny representation would be like taking away an American freedom, the newspaper said.

(Web site: lawyersweeklyusa.com)

THE SCHOOL INTERNET RACE

Arizona looks to become the first state in the nation to connect all of its public schools to the Internet by the start of classes next fall.

At a news conference in the Phoenix suburb of Peoria last week, Gov. Jane Hull announced a $100 million contract with Qwest Communications that would bring high-speed Internet access to 200 campuses of Arizona's more than 1,200 schools.

"By the end of next summer, every student in every public school in Arizona will have the same access to technology," Hull told reporters at Zuni Hills Elementary School. "This helps eliminate barriers that schools may encounter as they work to provide a quality education for their students. Access to information is a powerful tool."

When the Arizona project is completed, teachers will have their own home pages and students will have both a personal e-mail address and the ability to store digital homework and other projects through their entire academic career.

The Department of Education has been monitoring the growth of technology in education nationwide since 1994. President Bush has stated that nurturing increased Web access in schools is among the priorities of his education program.

(Thanks to UPI's Hil Anderson in Los Angeles)

RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS WEEK

The seventh annual Random Acts of Kindness Week is scheduled for Nov.11-17. Sponsored by the non-profit Random Acts of Kindness Foundation in Denver, it involves tens of thousands of volunteers and school children taking part in local Kindness events in more than 5,000 communities and 35 countries.

This year's activities will include in Kindness Parade in Terre Haute, Ind.; a "Celebration of Kindness Meeting" in Lacey, Wash.; and the making of bookmarks, door hangers and other items by children of Huntsville, Ala., reminding people to be kind.

Volunteers and participants believe that "Kindness Events" allow the Kindness Movement to spread, encouraging others to embrace Kindness worldwide.

(Web site: actsofkindness.org)

CHINA'S FIRST BILLIONAIRES

"To get rich is glorious," the late, great Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping instructed his nation: thus have four brothers from Deng's home province of Sichuan covered themselves in glory by becoming the first U.S. dollar billionaires in modern Chinese history.

Last Friday, Forbes magazine announced the 2001 China Top 100 list of entrepreneurs, a "Who's Who" of movers and shakers in the private sector that has eclipsed state-owned industry as the main driver of China's much envied economic growth, despite the many obstacles this Communist giant still erects for private businessmen.

Topping the list are the pig feed kings, the Liu brothers' Hope Group, with assets worth $1 billion. Their tale of success began in 1982, when Deng's market reforms first challenged socialist orthodoxy. The brothers pawned their watches, bicycles and all their personal belongings to raise 1,000 yuan ($120), the seed money to buy and sell quails eggs in their Xinjin county hometown.

"By the end of the '80s," remembered youngest brother Liu Yonghao, "we had become the largest quail base in the world, with over 10 million quails and a daily yield of about 10 million eggs."

The brothers now dominate China's animal feed market, and risk investing in other Asian nations; they have also branched out into real estate, banking and other sectors.

Their fellow tycoons show a similar desire to diversify. Forbes' No.2 -- Yang Bin, chairman of Euro-Asia Agricultural Holdings -- grows orchids, builds buildings, and develops tourism.

Real estate was the top earner this year in China, according to Forbes, followed by pharmaceuticals (mostly traditional Chinese medicine), investment and construction.

(Thanks to UPI's Calum MacLeod in Beijing)