Life story fee contracts: when may a criminal defendant demand ineffective counsel?
One glance through the more recent bestseller lists and television schedules reveals the American public's obsessive interest in stories involving bizarre criminal acts, such as the Amy Fisher case, the prosecution of the Menendez brothers, the Lorena Bobbit trial, and the attack on figure skater Nancy Kerrigan.(1) Presently, the public's...

Tidbits & Outrages.
No, no, it's "duuuuuude." A CD-ROM series popular in Italy uses clips from "Beverly Hills 90210" to teach proper pronunciation of English words. But will they serve iceberg lettuce? The San Francisco Port Commission is considering a proposal to construct a 860-foot long,...

Setting up your emergency fund.
This column is about setting up an "emergency fund," a term often bandied about, but seldom explained. It is explained here. An emergency funds is a stash of money that is easily accessible in case of "emergency," such as a sudden illness, a layoff, or serious property...

Dollar-cost averaging.
There are various ways to invest money. One method is to reposition current assets. An example of repositioning would be taking $10,000 from a money market fund and buying a diversified stock portfolio. Another way of investing is to accumulate some money every month until you have saved enough...

Learning how money works in the economy.
Grades K-3 Use Internet resources to give kids a fun introduction to how money is saved and spent with a unit created by Benae Lambright, technology resource teacher with the Orange, New Jersey, Board of Education Dept. of Special Programs. First, take students on a...

Banking on a single brand name.
A brand can't be all things to all people. Here is an approach to developing a single brand-name identity strategy. The proliferation of names for products and services is a long accepted fact of everyday life. We are all accustomed to buying products with both a brand name and...

Wouldn't this frost ya!
Since she isn't the one paying the electric bill, why not use the refrigerator as an air conditione? If, at this very minute, I was to confront my dear wife--who shall be nameless, for reasons soon to become apparent--and ask her if our checkbook balance stands closer to...

Visa Says Record Holiday E-Commerce Spending.
FOSTER CITY, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A. 2000 DEC 22 (NB) -- By Michael Bartlett, Newsbytes. The online holiday shopping season is pretty much done for the year - save for a few stragglers who do not mind their gifts being delivered after Christmas or Hanukkah. According to Visa USA, it was...

ARAB-ISLAMIC AFFAIRS - Nov. 1 - Internet Venture.
Muslims seeking Islamic Banking services via the internet may have their first opportunity to do so in early 2001, if negotiations under way between Failaka, a Chicago-based Islamic dotcom company and a European offshore bank are successful. The bank's services for Muslims would be driven by shariah, or Islamic...

The Lost City: Discovering the Forgotten Virtues of Community in the Chicago of the 1950s.
Next time a politician, business executive, or educator uses the word "community" as an all-purpose salve for the latest crisis, hand her a copy of Lost City, Alan Ehrenhalt's bracing examination of three Chicago neighborhoods during the 1950s. Ehrenhalt does not want to abandon the term, but he argues that...