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You rely on your bank account for depositing money, paying bills, and everyday purchases. But do you know what happens to the money you deposit in your bank account?
Understanding how banks basically lend out deposits for profit is a key to knowing how they operate.
Banks take your deposited money, lend it back out, and profit from the interest. Those loans help people and companies achieve their goals.
Entire industries, like the housing market, construction industry, and auto sales, are able to boom with the support of bank loan financing.
Learning more about the processes of banking can help you plan better for your business as well as for your personal finances.
How Bank Deposits Work
If you want to understand banking, just follow the money
You can learn about our money system by following the lifespan of a dollar bill.
And we can learn about how banking works by following the money after it's been deposited.
It all starts with a paycheck. When you take your paycheck, put it in an envelope, and slip it into the ATM, do you ever wonder what happens to the direct deposit you just made?
Your bank sends it to a clearinghouse, where an image is taken of the check.
Then it's sent electronically to your employer's bank or credit union.
Your employer's bank then sends an electronic money transfer from the account of the check writer (the company you work for) to your bank, to place in your account.
Park your money safely until you want it. The money now "sits" in your checking account for you to access as you need it, either in the form of a cash withdrawal, a debit transaction using your debit card, or personal check.
Or you can set it aside for a rainy day in your savings account, but you won't be able to access it for payments.
Another savings option is a Certificate of Deposit (CD), where you can't touch the money for a length of time during which it earns interest.
It doesn't just sit there. The big question is, what does the bank do with your money while it's "sitting" in your account or in a CD?
According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), in 2016, the total amount of money being stored in domestic bank deposits was $10.67 trillion.
$10+ trillion is a lot of money to be entrusted with.
It's also a massive source of funding for banks to loan out to make even more money.
Whether it comes to the bank in the form of business deposits, digital banking deposits, check cashing, or investment funds, what the bank does with the money is the same.
It's all about tracking. The most important task the bank performs to make the system work is to have secure, dependable systems for tracking.
Essentially, your money doesn't "sit" in your account at all, like it would if you put it in a safe-deposit box.
It's placed into the larger pool of funds and your account is credited.
With online banking becoming the norm, a lot of times there is no physical money changing hands at all.
It's all simply a series of well-tracked transactions that ensure the owners of funds are credited the correct amount they're due.
Transfers take time—to avoid fraud. You can withdraw money from your bank account through a debit transaction and have it show up instantly in your account activity.
But transfers from one account to another can take days.
The reason is so the banks can confirm no fraud is taking place.
It has been suggested that the reason for the delay is that banks like to hang on to your money for an extra couple of days to make a profit from it for as long as possible, but that's not really the case.
Some money is reserved, the rest is available for banks to lend
The bank doesn't take your entire paycheck or savings account bank balance and lend it out.
According to the rules, banks have to leave 10% of the deposits they receive untouched.
The untouched funds are called a bank's "reserves."
Here's how a reserve works with your paycheck. Let's say that paycheck you just deposited in the ATM was for $1,000.
The bank will put $100 aside into its reserves and take the remaining $900 (known as the "excess reserves") and make it available to borrowers.
If you have a bank balance of $100,000, your bank has to keep $10,000 handy.
Then it can lend out the remaining $90,000.
Your deposits are insured by the FDIC (up to a limit)
Is there anything about the system I've described that makes you uncomfortable?
Hopefully, there's no rush on the banks. You might have figured out that if everyone went to their bank at the same time and asked to withdraw their deposits, there wouldn't be enough cash at hand.
Or maybe you're asking:
What if the banks lend out my money but don't get repaid?
These are the kinds of scenarios that lead to banks failing.
It has happened, and it's not pretty. Although unlikely, the financial collapse of 2007 demonstrated that the common understanding that banks were "too big to fail" was false.
Fortunately, if your bank ever failed, you would not lose your money.
Or at least not all of it.
The FDIC insures all American deposit accounts up to $250,000 per person per bank.
An important tip for protecting your deposits. Since the FDIC only insures deposits at each bank only up to $250,000, you are at risk of not recouping all your money if you let your balances exceed that amount.
Once you have a balance of $250,000 with one bank, it's a good idea to start another deposit account with another bank.
What Banks Don't Do With Your Deposits
Don't worry, banks aren't gambling your money on the stock market (anymore)
It might also make you uncomfortable to think the bank can take your money and do whatever it wants with it.
In the past, the investment banking arm of most major banks could take excess reserves and invest those funds in the stock market.
We learned the hard way no bank was "too big to fail." Speculative investments by banks (like investing in the stock market) contributed to the collapse of 2007-2008.
The Volcker Rule (named after the former Chair of the Federal Reserve who recommended it) came into effect in 2015.
The rule stipulates banks can't take the money you deposit into your bank account and use it for speculative investments.
Banks also aren't paying you a lot of interest on your savings
Another thing banks aren't doing with your deposits is paying you decent interest on your balance.
In contrast to the interest rates the banks charge customers for loans, credit cards, and lines of credit, the interest rate banks pay on deposits is minuscule.
You get only nine-hundredths of 1%?!? The average annualized percentage yield (APY) banks pay customers as interest for their savings deposit accounts is 0.09%.
In contrast, the lowest possible APR (annual percentage rate) charged for a personal loan from the bank Wells Fargo is 7.24%.
That means the bank charges loan interest rates more than 80 times higher than the average interest paid out on customers' deposit balances.
Which is exactly why most smart people park their savings elsewhere (for example, CDs or mutual funds) so they can earn more interest, especially if they have a high balance.
Bank Lending
Banks take your money and lend it out for profit
Banks are in the business of making profits for their respective shareholders.
There is an alternative. If lining shareholders' pockets is not what you'd like to see your deposit money used for, consider a credit union instead of a bank.
Credit unions are owned by account holders and distribute profits fairly as dividends.
The primary money-making tool for credit unions is through loans.
Banks offer lots of borrowing options. There are eight main types of loans or credit lending products offered by banks.
Some, like personal loans, are offered by some banks but not others.
Banks are less likely than competitors to provide unsecured credit for risky clients, like personal loans for people with low credit scores.
Banks provide revolving credit through credit cards
Credit card companies like Visa and Mastercard don't actually lend out money.
The role of these companies is to provide a platform for the banks to pay for our transactions (from the pool of deposited funds) and then get paid back.
If the bank doesn't get paid back in full, it charges interest on the remaining balance.
The APRs banks charge for credit cards are among some of the highest interest rates out there.
The banks make whopping profits. It's no wonder the total amount of interest charged to credit card customers in 2016 alone was $63.4 billion.
Rewards and cash back are incentives influencing your choice. The credit card industry is so profitable, that banks are spending tons of money coming up with all sorts of ways to entice you to sign up and use your card.
Big signup bonuses, lucrative rewards and cash back programs, and zero-interest periods on purchases and balance transfers are among the attractive offerings banks make.
A few banks still offer personal loans, but at high rates
Some banks will take the funds available in their excess reserves pool and lend them out to individuals without requiring them to be backed up by a house or car.
Borrowing tools to achieve your goals. Those are called unsecured personal loans, and I know better than anyone how life-changing they can be.
As I hinted at earlier after the financial crisis of 2007–2008, many banks stopped offering unsecured personal loans.
The banks considered them too high-risk.
Only one source for a non-member personal bank loan. Currently, among the major banks only Wells Fargo offers personal loans to the general public.
Personal loans for insiders. Some banks, like Citibank, only provide loans to existing customers with a mortgage or a credit card, savings, or checking account.
Depending on the bank, the personal bank loans offered can range from $2,000 all the way up to $100,000.
Expect to be charged a high APR. The APR the banks charge is quite high compared to other lenders providing unsecured personal loans.
For example, if an existing account holder with an "Excellent" credit score (a FICO score of 800–850) applies to Citibank for a $10,000 loan, they would be charged a rate of 9.9%.
In comparison, the online lender SoFi offers people with "Excellent" credit a loan interest rate of only 5.49%.
Difficult to get approved. Compared to online lenders and credit unions, it's also more difficult to get approved for an unsecured personal loan from a bank if you don't have the best credit score.
By the way, in case you need to bump up that credit score of yours to improve your chances of getting approved, a smaller personal loan just might help.
Lines of credit let you use and repay as much or as little as you like
The banks also lend out the money from their pools of deposited funds in the forms of lines of credit.
Take it or leave it. Rather than getting paid a lump sum, as with a personal loan, the credit line holder is given access to a certain amount of money.
They can use as much or as little of the total available credit as they need to.
Choose your own payback schedule. The credit can be paid back at whatever pace the borrower prefers, as long as a minimum monthly payment is made.
If they pay back what was borrowed in full after the subsequent billing cycle, no interest is charged.
The bank makes its profit from the interest. When the balance is not paid in full and gets carried into the next month, the bank charges interest.
As an example, Citibank offers its existing customers its Custom Credit Line.
It's an unsecured loan with no collateral required.
The amount made available is between $1,500 and $25,000, and the interest rate for people with "Excellent" credit is 8.99%.
The lowest interest rate Citi charges on its lines of credit is 1% lower than the best rate it charges on credit cards (9.99%).
Banks stimulate the economy with business loans
Although it might seem like our society is dominated by major corporations, the 28.8 million small businesses in the U.S. account for 99.7% of our country's business.
Supporting growth and innovation. Every business sector, from farming to retail to transportation, depends on banks to provide companies with the funds needed to start up or expand.
Banks take the money we deposit into the bank and lend it out to businesses, then charge interest to make a profit.
Our economy depends on loans. It's hard to imagine our society if loans for starting businesses weren't available.
So many great startups would never have been created.
Without loans, the opportunity for businesses to expand would be stifled.
When new technologies get introduced, companies wouldn't be able to invest.
It starts with the business plan. When a business banking rep reviews a solid business plan and sees profitable financial projections, they make the recommendation to lend funds to the business.
Best bank for business. Wells Fargo calls itself:
America's leading small business lender.
In fact, the bank made a five-year commitment in 2014 to lend out $100 billion to small businesses.
The bank's unsecured business loans offer $10,000–$100,000, with repayment terms from 1–5 years.
Interest rates range from 6.50–22.99%, based on eligibility.
Banks like Wells Fargo also offer business lines of credit to help companies manage their cash flow.
Banks help build communities with construction and real estate development loans
Banks also finance the real estate and construction sectors using the pool of deposited income from people like you and me.
Whether it's a loan for a family to construct a new home, a developer to build a condo, or a business to build a warehouse or factory, banks lend the required capital.
Mortgages allow families to pay off their homes over time
Another form of bank loan it would be hard to imagine our society without is the mortgage.
I can't think of a better use of the funds we deposit into the bank than lending it to families so they can live in the home they choose.
A bank lends a person or family the full amount of the home they purchase (minus any down payment).
The family can then pay it back with fixed monthly payments over a period that ranges anywhere between 5 to 30 years.
Of course, the longer the term, the bigger the total interest charged.
A highly profitable industry. The bank, as per usual, makes its money on the interest charged.
In fact, mortgages are designed to make sure the bank gets paid its interest first before the loan principal gets paid down.
Better chance to get approved. Banks will approve people for mortgages more easily than unsecured personal loans because their house is collateral in case they can't pay.
Bank of America is known to be a good mortgage lender.
You can apply for a mortgage online using BofA's Home Loan Navigator.
For a thirty-year mortgage, the fixed rate Bank of America charges on a $200,000 loan is currently 4.5%.
Home Equity Loans/HELOCs let you borrow from your home's value
Another bank lending practice I'm a big fan of is the home equity loan.
Otherwise known as "home refinancing" or "second mortgages," home equity loans let people borrow from the bank based on the value of what they've paid into their home.
Home equity lines of credit (HELOCs) are also covered by the value of what you've paid into your home.
Secured forms of credit. Since your house is collateral in case you can't pay, the banks consider home equity loans low-risk (as far as they're concerned).
As a result, the interest banks charge for these forms of credit is low compared to credit cards or personal loans.
Bank of America's interest rate for its home equity line of credit is 6.36%.
Auto loans put people in the driver's seat
The final thing banks do with the money we put into our deposit accounts is lend it out to people buying cars.
There are very few people with the cash on hand to purchase a new $40,000 car outright.
Most of us borrow the money we need to buy the car and pay it off over time.
Banks offer loans specifically to buy cars. The interest rates banks charge for new car loans are quite good, since the car is the loan collateral
(The bank can repossess the car in case the borrower defaults on loan repayment).
Since it's a secured loan, it would also be easier for someone with credit issues to get approved for a car loan compared to a credit card or unsecured personal cash loan.
Someone with an "Excellent" credit score (800+) can expect to get a four-year, $20,000 car loan from a bank with an APR of around 3.73%.
Monthly payments would be $449.
A person with a "Good" FICO score (670-739) would probably get approved for 7.08% with $480 monthly payments.
America's Largest Banks by Deposit
Banks with the most deposits are also the most profitable
For the first time in 23 years, JP Morgan Chase leads United States banks in total deposits.
The bank reached $1.31 trillion in deposits as of June 30, 2017, according to the FDIC.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch was not far behind with $1.29 trillion and Wells Fargo was a close third with $1.26 trillion in deposited funds.
Citigroup was the fourth-largest U.S. bank by deposits with $505 billion.
In total, the "Big Four" banks reported $4.365 trillion in deposited funds in 2017.
Not surprisingly, the banks with the most deposited money were also the banks earning the most profit for their shareholders.
JP Morgan Chase reported revenues of $108.2 billion in 2017, and Bank of America had income of $100.1 billion.
JP Morgan Chase is the biggest bank in America
With its headquarters in New York City, JP Morgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States and the sixth-biggest bank in the world.
Its total assets are $2.534 trillion.
The bank's earliest predecessor—the Bank of the Manhattan Company—was founded almost 220 years ago, in 1799.
No personal loans here. JP Morgan Chase no longer lends out its deposited funds in the form of unsecured personal loans.
It does provide mortgage refinancing loans, credit cards, mortgages, and car loans.
A leader in credit cards. Chase is also the top issuer of general-purpose credit cards in America with 31.7% of the total market share.
The company's credit cards include the Chase Sapphire Reserved for travel rewards and the Chase Freedom Unlimited for cash back.
Bank of America provided personal loans when no one else would
Back in 1904, the Bank of America was founded in San Francisco as the Bank of Italy.
Its founder changed the way banks operated by lending to working-class immigrants at a time when most banks would only lend to the rich or to businesses.
Times have changed. Sadly, Bank of America no longer provides personal loans today—a glaring departure from what its founder originally envisioned.
Largest for investors. It purchased the investment firm Merrill Lynch back when it was struggling in 2008, helping it grow along the way to become what is currently the biggest wealth management corporation in the world.
BofA is the second-largest bank by assets and ranks 26th on the list of biggest company in the U.S. by revenue.
Bank of America invented the general-use credit card. The BankAmericard was a consumer credit card launched in California in 1958.
Eventually, it got renamed to—you guessed it!—Visa.
Today, Bank of America lends out some of its excess reserves in the form of multiple credit card offerings.
They include the Bank of America Premium Rewards card for travel rewards and the Bank of America Cash Rewards card for earning cash back.
Wells Fargo continues to offer personal loans and business loans
Wells Fargo was just $30 billion behind Bank of America in deposits for 2017.
Wells Fargo prides itself on being a bank for the community with a ubiquitous network of 8,700 branches and 13,000 ATMs.
It's also the only one out of all these big banks to lend those deposits out to the general public in the form of unsecured personal loans.
Student loan provider. Its personal loans also include private student loans to help students pay for college expenses.
The bank for businesses. In addition to lending to individuals and families, Wells Fargo is well known for its business lending.
In fact, it's equipment financing division is the country's largest.
Solid credit card offerings. Wells Fargo also offers credit cards suiting a variety of needs.
For example, Wells Fargo's CashWise Visa lets you earn cash rewards at a rate of 1.5% for everything with no annual fee.
Citigroup has the most credit card accounts
Citibank came in a distant fourth for total deposits, with less than half of the deposits reported by any one of the top three banks.
But it's #1 for the number of active credit cardholder accounts, with 17.09% of the U.S. total market share.
Founded in 1812 as the Bank of New York, its headquarters continue to reside in the Big Apple.
One card for everything. Back in 1968, Citibank created its own credit card, known as the "Everything Card."
It eventually became Mastercard.
Today Citibank continues to offer a variety of cards for different preferences.
Branded credit card experts. Citibank has partnered with multiple big retailers to provide credit cards with features specific to their businesses.
These branded cards include ones for Costco, Home Depot, and Staples.
A simple credit card choice. The Citi Simplicity credit card charges no late fees ever and offers a low APR on purchases.
Earn cash back twice. Citi's Double Cash Card lets cardholders earn cash back at a rate of 1%, then doubles it when the balance is paid.
Your deposits are being put to good use by the banks
As you might have noticed, I'm a fan of the modern banking system.
Giving people a secure place to store and access their money, then using those funds to provide loans to help families and businesses thrive, to me, is pure genius.
The banks themselves generate massive profits for their shareholders from this system, making it a "win-win-win".
If you've ever wondered what happens to your money once it is deposited, now you know it's being put to great use.
I've seen first-hand how loans—even small ones—can change someone's life, and the banks are making that happen on a huge scale.
Now that you know all about the banking system and the biggest banks in America by deposits, look each of them over and see if there's one you would like to entrust depositing your hard earned money.
Someday when you're applying for a bank loan yourself, you'll know where the funds are coming from to finance it.
Did you learn something new from this article?
Do you have any experience with any of the Big Four banks?
Any tips or stories you'd like to share?
Please let us know in the comments below!


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THE chief executive of a water company was one of two people being questioned yesterday by police investigating an alleged £1m bribe.
Colin Skellett, 57, chairman and chief executive of Bath-based Wessex Water Ltd, was arrested at his West Country home yesterday morning.
Another man, who has "no direct connection" with the company, was arrested after voluntarily attending a City of London police station yesterday afternoon, officers said.
City of London Police Fraud Squad officers and Avon and Somerset detectives are questioning them about an alleged fraud when Wessex, formerly controlled by the collapsed energy giant Enron, was bought for £1.24bn by the Malaysian company YTL in May.
Mr Skellett is being investigated under the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906 for allegedly receiving a corrupt payment of "nearly £1m", City of London Police said.
A spokesman said, "The investigation is focused only on the suspected payment to the official, and there is no suspicion of general mismanagement within Wessex Water Ltd."
Mr Skellett has been chief executive since 1988 and has held a series of operational and management posts with Wessex Water since 1974.
He is also the non-executive chairman of Jarvis, whose subsidiary company Jarvis Rail is at the centre of the investigation into last May's Potters Bar train crash.
The father-of-three is being held at an Avon and Somerset Constabulary police station.
Fraud squad officers have completed a search of Mr Skellett's home and office.
Detective Superintendent Ken Farrow, head of the City of London Police Fraud Squad, said the unit was asked to carry out the investigation and had received "valuable assistance" from the Avon and Somerset police.
He said, "We would like to emphasise that at this stage our inquiry centres on the actions of one particular individual at Wessex Water Ltd and this person's relationship with the Malaysian company that acquired control of Wessex Water Ltd in May this year.
"There is no suggestion of any wider mismanagement of the Wessex Water Ltd."
After the Potters Bar train crash, in which seven people died, Mr Skellett said he would quit as Jarvis's non-executive chairman if its board of directors was found to have failed in its duties.
Earlier this month he told the BBC Radio 4 programme PM, "Certainly, as far as I'm concerned, if there is any suggestion that the board of Jarvis did not do what the board of Jarvis should have done, then I would not hesitate to step down."
Jarvis was not paying any bonuses to board members until the cause of the accident was known, Mr Skellett said, adding that operational safety was the company's "absolute number one priority".

subset: commoncrawl


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Summer 2002
Executive Director Norma Hotaling founded SAGE in 1996. SAGE is organized by and for survivors of abuse, prostitution and trauma. Most of the staff have prior criminal histories, are recovering from severe drug addictions, and were formerly homeless. Within SAGE's programs, over 350 women and girls receive counseling and other services each week. The staff at SAGE includes peer counselors, drug treatment counselors, therapists, acupuncturists, social workers, therapist interns, and volunteers. The personal knowledge and experience of the staff enables them to effectively provide support and engender trust without re-traumatizing even the most fragile of clients. Through advocacy, education programs, and direct services, SAGE has raised public awareness concerning the sexual exploitation and trafficking of women and girls, as well as many other related issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder and the need for a comprehensive range of services for this traditionally neglected population.
The direct service programs offered by SAGE often focus on the most exploited victims who are, therefore, the highest users of the medical, social, mental health, and criminal justice systems. Since 1993, as a result of SAGE's interventions, hundreds of women and girls have received assistance in either exiting the criminal justice system, escaping prostitution, recovering from abuse, and acquiring appropriate services such as medical and mental health care, substance abuse treatment, housing, legal immigration status, case management, and educational and vocational training.
SAGE succeeds through a unique collaboration between private and public agencies, such as the San Francisco Sheriff's Department and the Department of Public Health, among others. This collaboration has shifted the local government's approach to prostitution, aided women and girls in either exiting the criminal justice system permanently, escaping prostitution and trafficking, or working more safely in the sex industry. SAGE offers a dynamic departure from the traditional practice of revolving door arrests and recidivism among prostitutes in a system that has traditionally provided little or no services for women and girls. Criminalization of these individuals does not address the root causes, and thereby contributes to continuing sexual exploitation and violence, and enormous costs to the criminal justice, public health, and social service systems.
SAGE has received many accolades for its innovative, committed work.
The First Offender Prostitution Program (FOPP), a collaborative project
between SAGE, the San Francisco
District Attorney's Office, and the San Francisco Police
SAGE prides itself on providing "one-stop shopping" for its clients. At SAGE, women can receive medical care, attend individual therapy with our in-house therapist, receive acupuncture, go to dance therapy or just relax and take a nap. All the different departments come together to allow clients to meet all their needs under our roof.
The STAR Center is SAGE's program for on-going clients, most of whom are court mandated. Clients meet with peer counselors—many are SAGE graduates—to discuss the requirements of their program and just to check in and see how things are going. Most STAR clients are required to attend six hours of programs at SAGE each week. Often clients must also attend sessions at other programs.
SAGE also has a satellite program for women in detention in jails, or those clients who come to SAGE on an ad hoc basis. For incarcerated women, SAGE provides individual and group therapy similar to our on-site groups.
In conjunction with Juvenile Hall, SAGE has a Girls' Program for girls convicted of prostitution or drug-related offenses. Counselors work with girls individually and in groups to model healthy life skills, self-esteem and offer the first family many girls have known. As with the STAR Center, most of the counselors have experienced sexual abuse, exploitation and drug use, and act as positive peer models for the girls. SAGE's girls' program extends beyond the walls of juvenile hall and SAGE to reach girls' families, schools and friends in order to ensure a stable environment for girls once they complete the program.
New to SAGE are the Men's and Transsexual Programs. Each staffed by one employee, these programs are nonetheless reaching their target audiences through on- and off-site groups and individual sessions.
With the San Francisco District Attorney's office and the Police Department, SAGE runs the "John School" for men picked up soliciting prostitutes as a first offense. Sessions at the "John School" involve testimony from survivors of prostitution, as well as exercises designed to encourage men to examine the effects of their johning. Statistics demonstrate a low recidivism rate among program graduates.
Executive Director Norma Hotaling and Autumn Burris oversee the executive and fundraising functions of SAGE, such as grant writing, donations and executive board meetings. Irina Katsev manages administrative tasks and SAGE's computer systems. And as with many NGOs, everyone answers the phones.
With the aid of this grant, I devoted my summer to establishing the Legal Advocacy Project at SAGE. Since I created and implemented my project, I determined my responsibilities. I concentrated my efforts in these four areas:
i. Client Advocacy
In keeping with SAGE's focus on clients' needs, I wanted the Legal Advocacy Project to address clients' legal questions. However, without a practicing attorney supervising the project, we are unable to provide legal advice or representation. In lieu of direct services, we listen to women's problems and utilize our extensive list of local attorneys and legal aid services to match women with the services they need. (This list numbers over 200 firms, attorneys and agencies). We also attend appointments with women since many of SAGE's clients harbor a healthy distrust of lawyers and the legal system. Over the course of the summer, we helped approximately 25 clients in this capacity.
ii. Networking
This involved meeting with law firms, legal aid, law enforcement, the District Attorney's Office, the Public Defender's office, as well as other social services to publicize the Legal Advocacy Project, as well as forge partnerships for future collaborations. This took an enormous amount of time at the beginning of the project, probably four or five hours every day.
iii. Street Law
After talking to clients at SAGE, I found that despite clients' extensive encounters with law enforcement and the criminal justice system, few clients had any idea of their rights and responsibilities in various situations. Street law became an empowering time for clients as they learned about landlord-tenant law, discrimination, as well as the nuts and bolts of the court system. We taught street law ninety minutes a week for six weeks. To prepare for the class, we secured materials from the University of Minnesota and Tom Nazario at San Francisco State University, as well as met one-on-one with experts in various areas of law.
iv. Anti-Trafficking Initiatives
SAGE's extensive experience in working with victims of sexual abuse, sexual exploitation and drug uses makes SAGE highly qualified to work with trafficking victims. In fact, SAGE has long worked with trafficking victims on a case-by-case basis. However, SAGE now has federal grant money to provide services to trafficking victims. This summer I worked with the grant writer to prepare a grant for outreach and aid to trafficking victims. Primarily, I gathered Memos of Understanding (MOUs) from partner organizations in Central and Eastern Europe. I also became SAGE's representative to the Bay Area Anti-Trafficking Task Force (BAATTF), on which I serve on the Policy Research Committee.
I established the Street law program, which is on-going. I also found a co-volunteer to oversee the project with me. She now heads up the street law program, for which she receives credit from University of California, Hastings. In addition, I researched and established standard operating procedures for the Legal Advocacy Project. These will be incorporated into a forthcoming manual on how to replicate my project that will be distributed to other direct service agencies in the US. In my trafficking work, I facilitated SAGE's partnerships with agencies in Russia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Romania, and the Balkans. Lastly, I set up a law library and informational material on various legal issues for SAGE clients.
Currently, I am writing grants to establish a court accompaniment program for girls in San Francisco County. While this program will provide invaluable services to girls and get more girls into SAGE, its importance is farther-reaching. This grant will also provide money to compile and analyze more elaborate statistics on juveniles committing prostitution or prostitution-related offenses. If successful, it will also provide an excellent model for similar court accompaniment programs for adults.
The challenges resembled those faced by anyone providing direct services. Some of the clients' legal situations were so daunting or traumatic that it was difficult to forget their situations when I left the office. Also, working in an office as frantic as SAGE, it seemed impossible to get the information I needed from people. I would constantly have to remind people about the Legal Advocacy Project and its needs, which I did with bi-weekly memos.
I did not attend any conferences during the grant period. However, I did prepare for a conference on trafficking that SAGE will hold February 11-12, 2003.
In conjunction with the anti-trafficking program of this project, I represented SAGE in the newly formed Bay Area Anti-Trafficking Task Force (BAATTF), where I serve on the Policy and Research Sub-Committee. I also utilized my experience at SAGE when I recently returned to Russia to participate in a work group to draft anti-trafficking legislation.
1. How has this fellowship changed the ideas and expectations you had before leaving?
Before beginning my project, I had low expectations. Having already worked with clients (prostituted women) in different capacities, I believed that they would be slow to come for legal advocacy. However, I underestimated their interest and capabilities. Street Law amassed a steady following of interested, intelligent attendees. Clients were also eager to have legal information and advocacy so readily accessible. My experience this summer reinforced my beliefs about providing integrated services.
2. How has your motivation for human rights work changed/altered or remained the same?
My summer at SAGE only fortified my drive to secure justice for individuals in prostitution. First, working on a daily with clients confirmed that they have numerous legal needs that currently go largely unmet. Secondly, I learned the importance of legal advocates to productive attorney-client relationships. In this way, my experience at SAGE only strengthened my determination to expose prostitution and the sex industry as institutionalized exploitation.
However, I did become more aware of the need to become savvier and ingratiating when engaging people—clients, law enforcement, judges, the general public and sex worker activists. I found that my approach tends to be too unforgiving and abrasive. Thus, instead of wanting to listen, people would tune out. This does not further my work!
3. Who had the greatest effect on you during your fellowship experience and why?
Without question my clients had the greatest impact on me. Their ability to survive and overcome the myriad obstacles in their lives is absolutely astounding.
4. How did your perspectives on the world change from interning at a local/national/ international human rights organization?
The most drastic change in my perspective was on that of the lawyer's role. This summer I saw how limited most lawyers' perceptions are of their obligations vis-à-vis their clients. That is to say, their obligation does not extend beyond purely legal matters. I believe this is one reason why so many women I want to work with traditionally shun the help of lawyers.
I also saw the amazing effects of organizing locally, but then taking your message globally. SAGE has always excelled at that aspect of organizing. I think the sympathetic ears and knowledge base SAGE has as an institution enables it to excel in this area.
5. What quote would captivate "a moment" that you had during your fellowship?
"At that moment I realized it all had to change. And I realized that that change had to start with me." Utah Philips.
6. After completion of your fellowship, how do you anticipate bringing your fellowship experience back home to your local community?
Already I conduct trainings on prostitution and trafficking at Boalt Hall, as well as at Bay Area Legal Aid in Oakland. When I finish law school in June 2004, I plan to return to Minneapolis and establish a similar organization there. I also hope to continue working with trafficking victims in Russia and in Europe. No matter where I am, I want to do public policy work on these issues. I think my experience has given me a practical base necessary to effectuate comprehensive, victim-centered policies. Lastly, I would like to help turn the spotlight on to men's actions and responsibilities. Whether they actively commit violence or turn the other cheek on a friend's abusive behavior, men, although not exclusively, perpetuate cycles of violence. The silence of the "boys' club" must be broken and men must be challenged examine and change their behavior. I would like to help establish more widespread programs and centers working on this issue because no matter how many women we help escape prostitution or a battering relationship, until we work with the perpetrator, someone else will simply replace them.
Standing Against Global Exploitation (SAGE)
1275 Mission St.
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 905-5050, (415) 358-2725 – personal line
Executive Director: Norma Hotaling
Senior Staff: Autumn Burris, Francine Braae, Robyn Matlock, Marilyn Robinson
Full-time _20_; Part-time _10__
Number of Volunteers: around 10-20
Objectives of the Organization:
Through advocacy, education programs, peer counseling and direct services, SAGE strives to raise public awareness concerning the sexual exploitation and trafficking of women and girls, as well as many other related issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder and the need for a comprehensive range of services for this traditionally neglected population. Since 1993, as a result of SAGE's interventions, hundreds of women and girls have received assistance in either exiting the criminal justice system, escaping prostitution, recovering from abuse, and acquiring appropriate services such as medical and mental health care, substance abuse treatment, housing, legal immigration status, case management, and educational and vocational training.
Domestic/International Programs:
Girls' Program, STAR Center, Satellite Program, Men's Program, Transsexual Program, STOP Trafficking Program, First Offenders of Prostitution Program (FOPP)
Date of Information: January 2002
Information Supplied by: Angela Bortel


text:
Originally submitted by Tuomo Kuosa
last updated by Rafael Popper
Weak Signal's progress: fully-fledged
This Weak Signal came from:
European Commission Framework Programme for RTD
The theme/scheme related to this Weak Signal:
Theme 2 - Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, and Biotechnology
The sub-theme that best relates to this Weak Signal:
Increased sustainability of all production systems (agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture)
When did the Weak Signal manifest ?
Weak Signal's description
The strategic objective of the SWUP-MED (Project Reference: 212337) project is to improve food crop production in the Mediterranean region, influenced by multiple abiotic stresses. These stresses are becoming even more pronounced under changing climate, predicted to result in drier conditions, increasing temperatures, and greater variability, causing desertification. The project will work mainly in farmers communities to improve farming systems, by strengthening a diversified crop rotation and using marginal-quality water for supplemental irrigation, aiming at: Introduce and test new climate-proof crops and cultivars with improved stress tolerance, selecting promising varieties of cereals, grain legumes and new crops.


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Conduit is the trading name of Five Lamps Trading Limited.
Five Lamps Trading Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Five Lamps charity. Click here for more information about Conduit and the services it provides.
Registered in England and Wales. Company Reg. No. 08029251.
VAT No. 242 5687 93.
Registered Office: Eldon Street, Thornaby, Stockton, TS17 7DJ
Five Lamps Trading Limited has Board of Directors who are responsible for providing leadership, strategic direction, challenge and entrepreneurship, driving the business forward and keeping it under prudent control.
Our current Trading Board is made up of:
- Trevor Watson (Non-Executive Director, Chair)
- Rod Jones (Non-Executive Director, Vice Chair)
- Richard Poundford (Non-Executive Director)
- Graeme Oram (Director)
- Bill Erskine (Director)


text:
Orrick Releases New Study on Corporate Governance in the Nation's Energy Sector
Orrick has unveiled an unprecedented new study examining the corporate governance structures of the largest public companies in the Bay Area, including tech industry leaders. The study was led by partner Ed Batts, global leader of the firm's M&A and private equity practice.
The comprehensive study reviewed the 153 publicly-traded companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area with market capitalizations exceeding $750 million, a unique and in-depth profile of how such companies structure themselves.
With increased attention on corporate governance from institutional and activist investors alike, the study provides a glimpse into the trends shaping corporate governance approaches. This includes a breakdown of the 22 companies with dual-class common stock structures – 16 of them technology companies. The study found, for example that about 70 percent of dual-class companies retain plurality voting, while more than 70 percent of non-dual class companies have some form of "majority voting" for directors in contested elections.
In addition, the study found that overall, exclusive forum provisions, designed to limit class action suits to a single legal jurisdiction, are surging among the majority of non-dual class common stock companies. The provisions, which almost always limit jurisdiction to the state of incorporation, such as Delaware, are a relatively new concept.
The review also explored proxy access, which remains a limited but rapidly growing practice. The Orrick team plans to expand the study in the coming year to explore the corporate governance structures of technology mid and large cap companies nationally.
Ed leads an Orrick M&A team that is widely recognized as an industry leader. The practice group advised on over 230 deals throughout 2016 for clients around the world, including U.S.-based IronPlanet, Microsoft and Pinterest, Europe-based AVG Technologies, Asia-based JD.com and Nitto Denko and France-based Thales and StudioCanal.
In addition to Ed, the Orrick team on the corporate governance study included law clerk Sara Gates, assisted by law clerks Janice Dow, Cristine LeVasser, Brigid McCurdy and Ariel Winawer.
Click the image above to download the full study.


text:
The Alaska Foreclosure Law provides the judicial and non-judicial route to lenders for foreclosing their Mortgage agreements or Deed of Trusts.
- The judicial process will commence upon filing of a lawsuit in court which will typically take anywhere in between one month to ninety days for processing.
- The lender can seek the non-judicial process where the Deed of Trust or the Mortgage agreement contains a clause indicating the lender's power to sell the property.
- Where such power of sale clause is specified with particular details of date, time, place, etc. the lender has to adhere to the same for executing the foreclosure.
Important: The articles available on uslawyer.us are neither legal advice nor a replacement for an attorney. The contents are general information and guidance concerning different legal issues. We make sure that these articles prove helpful to you, but we do not promise or guarantee that they are suitable for your condition. We also do not take responsibility for any loss that might cause to you using these articles. Hence, we strictly suggest you get expert legal advice. It is also recommended to consult or hire an attorney in case of any doubt.


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Yesterday, I asked readers to consider the relative merits of aggregate v. individual level analysis. Regardless of the empirical approach, our analyses must be framed by theories about individual behavior. To the extent that we are concerned about developing an understanding of the choices of either individuals or organizations, we need to make certain explicit assumptions about what motivates choices.
Interestingly enough, it is here where I find most of our empirical work to be especially lacking. Despite our ability to generate a great many interesting empirical insights, we seem not to be as concerned as scholars in other disciplines with laying the building blocks that support our expectations.
I do think that we know a great deal about, say, the behavior of judges, especially appellate judges in the United States. Nevertheless, I'm not sure that we have anything like a "theory of judging." Several years ago, Larry Baum wrote a wonderful book, The Puzzle of Judicial Behavior, in which he described what the various motives of judges might be and how their personal goals and professional goals might interact with what judges can do in different institutional settings. One of his conclusions is that we need to be more cautious about imputing motives to judges.
What are the consequences of our collective inattention to theory? If we simply want to predict behavior, then the ill-effects are not really that severe. If we want to understand and explain that behavior, then I think we should be more guarded. We may misdiagnose much of what we observe.
Perhaps one reason for our lack of theory is that, since many of us actually are what we study -- i.e., we are often lawyers studying the behavior of lawyers -- I suspect that the kind of formal training and informal socialization that takes place within the legal community leads to bit of overconfidence; that is, since "we know how lawyers really think and behave," our empirical work can proceed according to long-internalized assumptions. Those assumptions may be quite correct, but they may also fail to consider other plausible options.
Imagine, for example, studies of congressional behavior that were authored by members of Congress. On the one hand, I would take very seriously what those analyses had to say, since they would be informed by the perspective of individuals who possessed a detailed knowledge of both the mechanics of legislative institutions and the various incentives and constraints that they face in making difficult decisions. On the other hand, I would almost certainly be circumspect about the results, since they would be based upon assumptions that were heavily informed by the personal experiences and biases that necessarily come with it.
Now, I am not a lawyer, and that surely limits what I am able to do. In fact, I've been humbled on several occasions by lawyer friends who have pointed out the limitations of some of my work by drawing upon a perspective that I simply don't have. And this has saved me from embarrassing errors I might otherwise have made. At the same time, those of us who are not lawyers may have a more ready knack for generating a wider range of assumptions -- some plausible, some less so -- that might account for what we observe.
Despite this flexibility, none of us has had any greater success in specifying a general theory of why judges do what they do. To be sure, we often produce research with provocative and surprising results, but it is not at all clear that we share a basic core of ideas about the choices judges make. As a result, we probably have a harder time reconciling disparate findings or sorting out the relative importance of the causes that we think are at work.
I'm certainly not prepared to propose any general theories about judicial behavior, but I do think that we should exercise greater care and be more explicit about the assumptions that go into our empirical work. It will surely improve the discourse between various communities who study the law and enhance our understanding.


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Last week the news was full of a story about a heated response to a question which an offended Hillary Clinton made while in the Republic of Congo. There were several reports as to what the question really was and how it may or may not have been mistranslated.
I read the widely distributed account which held that this question, "We've all heard about the Chinese contracts in this country. The interference is from the World Bank against this contract. What does Mr Clinton think through the mouth of Mrs Clinton and what does Mr Mutombo think on this situation? Thank you very much." Was muffed by the translator who substituted "Mr. Clinton" for "Mr. Obama". I also read an account that said that the translator did not err, the questioner had said "Mr. Clinton". I don't think it makes any difference. Both questions belittle Hillary Clinton as a representative of her country and as a woman. They ignore her opinion and ask for the opinions of men implying that those are the only opinions which count. Moreover, the question belittles the US and President Obama for choosing a woman to represent the US.
A few years ago, I was at a meeting of social workers from around the state of Wyoming. At the social hour I was introduced to several people in a group which included a man who was a social worker at the state hospital in Evanston. I shook hands with people as we were introduced. But when I was introduced to this man he said, "I cannot shake hands with you. My religion forbids my touching women who are not family." I smiled and nodded instead, but I felt put down. I also felt like I was on the horns of a dilemma. As a social worker, I try to respect the customs and cultures of others. However, the reason Muslim men do not shake hands with women is to avoid any possibility of temptation. This suggests either that all women are out to tempt them, or Muslim men have so little control that a handshake can lure them into sexual temptation. Ultimately, the message is that women are not to be trusted. I was lumped with all women as untrustworthy. I was right to feel put down.
I am so tired of customs and cultures, nations, cults, religions, sects and individuals who think, say and act in ways which make women second class, less than. It is this kind of thinking and acting which is responsible for violence against women which is pervasive in every country and culture. So I say, "Good for you, Hillary. It was a put down. You were right to be offended. You were right to show it."


text:
Release Date: December 18, 2014
BUFFALO, N.Y. – The musical version of the grim, witty and bloody "American Psycho," which was to open this winter off-Broadway at the Second Stage Theater, has been killed by its commercial producers.
The closing is good news for University at Buffalo Professor and Tony Award nominee Stephen McKinley Henderson, who stars in "Between Riverside and Crazy," the much-praised new play selected to fill the gap in the Second Stage season.
The play by Stephen Adly Guirgis opened for the first time in July at New York's Atlantic Theater to much critical acclaim, particularly for Henderson, and was called one of the best plays of the year.
Guirgis is known for his films, which include "Jack Goes Boating" and "Synechdoche, New York," and the plays, "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot," "Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train" and "Our Lady of 121st Street," among others.
Previews for the upcoming production begin Jan. 16, 2015 in anticipation of a Feb. 11 opening.
"Between Riverside and Crazy" concerns the battle of a recent widower and disabled ex-cop named Walter "Pops" Washington (Henderson) to hang onto one of the last great rent-stabilized apartments on Manhattan's upscale Riverside Drive. His difficulties are aggravated by his newly paroled son, sketchy houseguests, pursuit by both the city and his church, increasing bills and an ultimatum from his landlord.
Henderson's work in "Between Riverside and Crazy" was praised by The New York Times, Newsday, New York Daily News, Variety, USA Today and many other publications. Henderson's "Pops" joins his elegant repertoire of stage characters in many Broadway and off-Broadway productions, including "Bono" and "Tumbo" in August Wilson's "Fences" and "Jitney," respectively.
At the time of the first production of "Between Riverside and Crazy," Variety editor Gordon Cox said a future life for the play seemed likely and a London production was a possibility.
"It's always a nerve-wracking challenge and an ecstatic joy to work with a major playwright while a play is under construction," says Henderson, a faculty member in the UB Department of Theatre and Dance. And he should know. Now that the play is finished and proven, it is taking on a life of its own.
Henderson is best known on Broadway and beyond for his excellent work in supporting roles. Among them are his performances in nearly all of Wilson's cycle of 10 plays about the lives of African Americans in 20th-century America, notably "Jitney," for which he and the rest of the cast received a Drama Desk Award for Best Ensemble and an Olivier Award (London's Tony).
Henderson performed in the 2014 Tony Award-winning Broadway revival of "A Raisin in the Sun," and was nominated for a Tony for his work in the 2010 production of Wilson's "Fences." Both plays starred Denzel Washington.
He has also appeared in such films as "Lincoln," "Tower Heist," "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" and notably, in television, in HBO's acclaimed film "Everyday People," on "Law & Order," " Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," "The Newsroom," "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," Tyler Perry's "House of Payne," "Third Watch," "New Amsterdam" and "Blue Bloods."
Patricia Donovan has retired from University Communications. To contact UB's media relations staff, call 716-645-6969 or visit our list of current university media contacts. Sorry for the inconvenience.


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personal exemption(redirected from Personal Exemptions)
Personal exemption
Amount of money a taxpayer can exclude from personal income for each member of the household in calculation of a tax obligation.
Personal Exemption
In U.S. tax, the amount of personal income that is not taxed. That is, the personal exemption is money that is not included in one's adjusted gross income when calculating one's tax liability. One receives additional exemptions for a spouse, children, and if one is over 65 or blind. Congress sets the amount of the personal exemption each year.
personal exemption
See exemption.


text:
Consultations: managing your success
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Don't have the time to manage your email marketing channel in-house? If you feel like you need some extra competence, our consultants will be happy to take on your project as a Managed Service and become an extra resource. We will implement the technical solutions and structures you feel necessary without a hitch. All you have to do is ask.
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We are happy to use our knowledge of survey best practices, what works well and what doesn't to build you a good survey, from its layout and modules to effective phrasing and answer alternatives.


text:
What's wrong with this picture?
Posted on CNSNews.com-By EILEEN SULLIVAN, Associated Press-On June 30, 2011:
"WASHINGTON (AP) - A Nigerian man boarded a Virgin Atlantic airplane last week with an invalid boarding pass—making it through a federal security checkpoint where travelers must show identification and their boarding passes.
After the man, Olajide Olwaseun Noibi, got through security, the airline let him onto the plane even…Continue
Added by Jake Martinez on June 30, 2011 at 4:30pm — No Comments
Posted on Politico-By Ben Smith-On June 23, 2011:
"The Council on American-Islamic Relations has lost its nonprofit status, according to the Internal Revenue Service.
The civil rights group, long accused of ties to radical Islam, is on a list of 275,000 organizations who have not filed the requisite paperwork with the IRS to maintain nonprofit status. Tax law requires annual disclosure of assets, expenditures and salaries for 501© nonprofits. Both CAIR and…Continue
Added by Jake Martinez on June 30, 2011 at 4:19pm — No Comments
I hate to keep sounding like a broken record on this topic, but I must ask. Is Michele Bachmann the NEXT Sarah Palin? Several patriots have said, "I adore Sarah Palin. But, she has been so destroyed in the media, she would be a disaster as our republican presidential candidate".
Added by Lloyd Marcus on June 30, 2011 at 2:43pm — 1 Comment
Added by Steve - Ning Creator on June 30, 2011 at 1:38pm — 1 Comment
Posted on The Heritage Foundation-On June 30, 2011:
"As we saw at yesterday's press conference, President Obama is not going to lead on the debt ceiling issue. Nor is he going to compromise or play a mediating role. He is more interested in blaming others for his troubles, demagoguing other solutions and running for re-election.
This is why conservatives need to be reminded not to yield to scare tactics. Last night, our sister organization,…Continue
Added by Jake Martinez on June 30, 2011 at 1:30pm — No Comments
Added by john lillpop on June 30, 2011 at 12:09pm — 3 Comments
Added by john lillpop on June 30, 2011 at 9:54am — 4 Comments
Added by Albert R Fromberger on June 30, 2011 at 9:10am — No Comments
"While Obama promises the world and emases more money ( five bucks each from millions of the known and from 'mystery' donors millions) it is easy not to notice endless elephants running through the living room destroying everything in site."
A History Channel discussion on black holes last night finds me this morning with the question of the meaning of life. Whole galaxies disappearing in black holes, the question: Is the basic information that created the galaxy retained or…Continue
Added by Joseph Whitworth Smith on June 30, 2011 at 5:41am — No Comments
Added by john lillpop on June 30, 2011 at 12:43am — No Comments
Kids versus corporate jets. If President Obama's news conference accomplished anything on Wednesday afternoon, it underscored, in striking tones, his strategy for winning the debt ceiling fight with Republicans: Make it a clash of classes.
Rich versus Poor. Us versus Them.
Those who support children, food safety, medical research and, presumably, puppies and apple pie…
Added by Joela Cornilus on June 29, 2011 at 7:30pm — 1 Comment
Added by john lillpop on June 29, 2011 at 12:39pm — 1 Comment
Added by US Central on June 29, 2011 at 11:13am — 1 Comment
Posted on Israel National News-By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu-On June 27, 2011:
"Last week, President Shimon Peres warned that written peace agreement on Jerusalem will cause a "world war."
Now, leading Kadima Knesset Member and former IDF Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz says conflict is the fate of a United Nations declaration recognizing the Palestinian Authority as…Continue
Added by Jake Martinez on June 29, 2011 at 10:00am — No Comments
Added by john lillpop on June 29, 2011 at 9:35am — No Comments
By John W. Lillpop
Spanish-language apologists in denial refuse to admit that Latinos, including millions of illegal aliens who should not even be here, refuse to assimilate into American culture by learning and speaking English.
The lie to those denials was exposed in abundance by two recent events, one in California the other in Nevada.
The first involved a soccer match between the U.S. and Mexican teams in Los Angeles. Under…
Added by john lillpop on June 29, 2011 at 8:50am — No Comments
Posted on The Heritage Foundation-On June 29, 2011:
"For all of candidate Barack Obama's campaign rhetoric promising to respect Congress's authority to draft the nation's laws, President Obama has demonstrated a persistent pattern of circumventing the legislative branch via administrative fiat whenever his agenda stalls. And though one of the Obama campaign's legal advisers cautioned…Continue
Added by Jake Martinez on June 29, 2011 at 8:30am — No Comments
Glenn Beck laments the hate being exhibited. One would think he would have known what to expect at a public gathering in New York City. He was asking for it. Glenn is very good at keeping us informed, but short on answers. While I'm on the subject, Tea Party.Org is aware of America's extremely hazardous course, but it now comes to my attention that the posters here are lacking in the necessary correction.
I've stated my philosophy on almost a daily basis for some time here and the…Continue
Added by Joseph Whitworth Smith on June 29, 2011 at 6:47am — No Comments
Added by james c. cochran on June 29, 2011 at 4:03am — No Comments
Added by john lillpop on June 28, 2011 at 10:09am — No Comments


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Allegheny Choirs to Perform Winter Concert
The Allegheny Choirs, under the direction of James D. Niblock, will perform a free concert at 3:15 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 3, in Shafer Auditorium. The Allegheny College Chorus, Chamber Choir, Women's Ensemble, Men's Ensemble, and College Choir will each perform several works, and the groups will collaborate to close the performance as a choir of 120 voices. The concert is free and open to the public.
The concert's repertoire covers traditions and ideas from 13 countries – including five pieces with seasonal themes associated with winter, Christmas, and Hanukkah. Niblock says he aims to present music as a "cultural meeting place," bringing together histories and stories from across the globe. Listeners will hear nine languages incorporated, including Ladino, Slovenian, Hebrew, and Mandarin.
The Allegheny Choirs have been a central presence on campus for 86 years, with many of the pieces from past programs resurfacing over the years. Several pieces, such as "O Magnum Mysterium" by Tomas Luis de Victoria, and "Sledge Bells" by Hugh Roberton have been sung throughout the choir's history.
The Dec. 3 concert will open with one of Bach's most famous chorales, "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" from Cantata 147: "Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben" (Heart and Mouth and Deed and Life). The Chamber Choir will present selections from the repertoire they are preparing for a spring tour to New Zealand.
"Dixit Dominus," by Baldassare Galuppi was composed for the famous choir of orphaned and abandoned young women living in the Venetian Ospedale during the Baroque period. The second movement of Galuppi's work will be performed here. The College Men's Ensemble will sing "Blow Ye the Trumpet" from Kirke Mechem's opera John Brown about the American abolitionist. "Zigeunerleben" by Robert Schumann, will be sung by the College Choir, the text of which was written by Emanuel Geibel.
Collaborating with the choirs are pianists Kevin Dill, music director at First Presbyterian Church, and Allegheny Professor Emeritus of Music Ward Jamison. Audience members are encouraged to use the balcony as well as the main floor of the auditorium.


text:
what do I do?! spill of course!
lets see, 7 things about my self.... hmm...
#1) I played 2nd violin 1st chair in the orchestras of my grade & high school for 7 years & still can't read music.
#2) I have NO sense of direction, none, nada, zip.
unless I have a map or very clear directions, I will always go the wrong way. even if I second & third guess myself I'll still go the wrong way. when I have all the time in the world this can be fun, just like pooh bear, I like going on little explores.
to the bored children in the back seat however, this can be torture.
"Maommm! do you know where you're going? "
coming from my 8 year old can be cute, coming from all three can be a little aggravating.
#3) my Mom kicked me out of the house when I was 16. so to make my way in the world I had to wait tables. I did this at a variety of bars, where you can imagine they would have been quite upset if they had known I was under age!
#4) I took a year off high school to get my life straightened out. then went back & graduated 2nd in my class.(of course there were only 12 girls graduating that year!) & I do have about 12 hours in collage course work under my belt but have never gone back, I don't multi, multi task very well! 3 things at a time is my limit, more than that & I forget to pick up the kids at school.
#5) when I was 3 I stuck a fork in the kitchen light socket & gave my self a good zapping, then years later, when I was a light tech for the lighthouse theater I did it again with more voltage & gave my self about a 2000v zapping that had my ears ringing & my head & body buzzing for a good 2 hours! this could be the reason I'm a bit off!)
#6) grandmother's favorite story to tell about me is,
when I was 3 or 4 we had all the cousins over for the weekend for my birthday . the day before was the party & that morning it was gently raining.
well my favorite gift, had been a bright red pair of rain boots & hat, & a bubble umbrella. do you remember those? all clear plastic with a colored bottom so you could put it over your head to keep it dry & still see where you were going.
so seeing as it was raining, I decided to go for a walk around the block, in my new rain gear.
the story goes that my cousin tom when to tell grandma what i was doing & having a flair for the dramatic, kept the best for last.
" grandma?"
"yes "she said sleepily, not opening her eyes,
"Flora went for a walk in her new boots."
"mm, that's nice dear"
"she took her hat & her umbrella with her"
'that's good "
she said still keeping her eyes shut in hopes tom would let her sleep a little longer.
"And nothing else"
next frame is of grandma flying down the block in her bathrobe & nightie, to go get me back in the house before the neighbors saw me walking around the block in nothing but my boots, hat & umbrella!
years later when my third child was 3 I had a similar episode at a friends house. Mara felt so comfortable here she stripped out of everything, including her diaper & went to play in the pond they had in the back yard!
#7)I love that my husband has a job that he loves.
I hate that the job periodically scares me to death.
as a Chicago Firefighter my hubs mostly sits around the firehouse polishing his engine & watching TV. the house that he's in isn't a "hot"
house. but the possibility is there for disaster.
I worry when he doesn't call back that I'll be getting a visit from Father Mulchrone & a chief to be named later, to tell me he's not coming home.
I know this in a small possibility , but it is a possibility. It's not an easy job to do & he does it with style & no little competence.
the job still scares me to death.But I would NEVER tell him to quit or be one of those wives who out of fright, would be less than supportive of him.I'm very proud of him.
now who do I tagg?
how about Janet of I'm going crazy; you come, too !
Gerry of http://sewing-southpaw.blogspot.com !


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WISDOM proposes a significant advance towards the design and fabrication of smart, wideband and low-cost THz devices. In order to do so, the consortium is built from a very complementary expertise, with knowledge on both 3D printing, antenna, THz circuit and systems. A first key element of WISDOM, is the use of 3D inkjet printing for fast fabrication of THz passive and active antennas. This approach will be combined with THz circuit designs in CMOS. Using multi-material 3D inkjet printing of functional materials to simultaneously deposit conductive and dielectric materials; including thermal and UV rapid solidification of deposited structures, efficient coupling between on-chip signals to free-space radiation will be achieved. This will lead to an important breakthrough that combines two cheap and high-volume technologies, paving a path to consumer-oriented THz products. A second key element is the combination of the 3D-on-CMOS printing technology with spatial-power combining array antennas, in order to develop highly-efficient THz beams that overcome the increased free-space path loss that prevents THz consumer products today. In WISDOM, we also plan to demonstrate the concepts with a smart spatial power-combining active array architecture for wideband THz wireless communications. The core WISDOM ICs will be used as active pixels providing spatial power combining with full individual amplitude and phase settings of each pixel in transmit and receive mode. Due to the use of 3D printing (for antennas) and CMOS process (for circuits), it dramatically reduces the cost of THz devices and systems while providing significant advances in THz frontend adaptability. A number of wideband antenna elements, arrays, on-chip active antennas as well as THz front ends circuits (>300 GHz) will be designed, fabricated and measured.
Contact: Prof. Steven GAO (coordinator), email@example.com


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U14 NJ Stallions Boys Are Semifinalists at 2015 USL Super Y Nationals!
Dec 28, 2016
U14B NJ Stallions EDP
team finish as U13 Semifinalists at the
2015 USL Super Y National Championship
event held at
IMG Academies
in Tampa, Florida. The NJ Stallions boys finished their
Super Y League
season in 1st Place in the North Atlantic Division earlier this year with a 10-0-2 record in the U13 Age Division. During the season, the boys scored 42 goals, allowing 13 over their 12 game season. At Nationals, on the road to the Semifinals, the NJ Stallions boys finished with a 2-2 win loss record, notching two wins against
#10 Michigan ranked WAZA FC
, #
7 Florida ranked Miramar United Elite
, and losing to
Nirvana Majestics
from Virginia, and a 0-1 loss to
#4 Florida ranked, West Pines United FC
. The
U14B NJ Stallions EDP
team is now ranked
#5 in NJ, #19 in Region I
, and are
#34 Nationally.


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The Gallery
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Anglican Minister Urges Prayers for Prince George to Be Gay
Credit Stefan Rousseau/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
A prominent Anglican cleric and gay rights campaigner known for contentious gestures has urged believers to pray for Prince George — age 4, and third in line to the throne — to find the love "of a fine young gentleman" when he grows up so as to advance the cause of same-sex marriage in church.
Coming just days after Prince Harry — George's uncle, and fifth in line — announced his engagement to Meghan Markle, a divorced American actress, the suggestion by the Very Rev. Kelvin Holdsworth seemed to illuminate once more the role of royal romance in Britain's imagination and conversation, especially when it collides with tradition.


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Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis
Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) is a disease of the biliary tract, which has seemingly many similarities with the primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC). Nevertheless, these diseases also have many differences including the average prognosis.
Primary sclerosing cholangitis has autoimmune origin, which is similar to PBC. However, while PBC damages small bile ducts in the liver, PSC damages rather larger bile ducts, both intrahepatic (in the liver) and extrahepatic (outside the liver). Unlike PBC, PSC is more common in men than in women and it typically accompanies some forms of ulcerative colitis.
The chronic inflammation of the bile ducts leads to their scarring and narrowing. This is followed by disrupted bile flow and symptoms similar to PBC such as fatigue, loss of appetite, jaundice and itchy skin due to accumulation of bile salts in the skin and subcutaneous tissue. Smaller amount of bile gets into the small intestine causing malabsorption of nutrients including fats and some vitamins. The excessive amount of undigested fat causes greasy and smelly stool. Chronic course of the disease leads to development of liver cirrhosis with portal hypertension with all consequences (ascites, esophageal varices, hepatic encephalopathy and others). The narrowed bile ducts with accumulating bile can be easily infected by bacteria causing recurrent infections of the biliary tract (recurrent cholangitis). Patients with long-term PSC have an increased risk of occurrence of dangerous cancers of the biliary tract that is difficult to treat and has a poor prognosis.
Patient with the mentioned symptoms should visit a doctor and be examined. The blood tests may show elevated level of bilirubin (a substance formed from hemoglobin secreted into bile) and elevated liver tests. In some cases, serological examination of the blood may confirm the presence of certain autoantibodies that attack the bile ducts. The abdominal ultrasound may demonstrate the signs of cirrhosis and portal hypertension. Very useful examinations of the biliary tree are the ERCP and MRCP. Liver biopsy is an invasive method that has a high importance for the right diagnosis. It is a puncture of the liver with obtaining a small sample of tissue for histological examination.
The disease can not be cured, but we can treat the symptoms and complications. We use various drugs to improve the bile flow and medicine to prevent accumulation of bile acids (against skin itching). Any local infections must be treated by antibiotics. When there is a significant narrowing of the extrahepatic bile ducts, it may be possible to solve it by ERCP with an implantation of tubular stent. Advanced stages of the disease may be treated by liver transplantation. Despite relatively little therapeutic successes, the disease has a better prognosis than primary biliary cirrhosis. It progresses relatively slowly and people often survive more than twenty years after the diagnosis.


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The relay calculating engine is a huge project that I started in 2009 and finished in 2014. The photo here shows a partially complete version, but the whole thing is now finished and fully functioning.
I decided to build a machine that could carry out calculations using just electromechanical relays. I was inspired by the first computers from the 1930s, in particular, the work of German scientist Konrad Zuse who built the first process controlled computer, making use of relays.
Part of the reason that I am interested in this kind of thing is because I like the art style of re-working obsolete technology. Especially I enjoy these retro devices that often do modern things, but use technology that according to our time-line is from a bygone era.
This project was shown as an exhibit at the Maker Faire in San Mateo in 2014. It was also part of a one-month solo show at Microsoft Research, in Redmond, WA, in the fall of 2014.
I have always been interested in relays and the way that they can do computation, especially after viewing a number of giant relay computers in museums such as the amazing Munich Museum of Science and Technology. Inspired by this kind of thing, I built a simple two relay latching circuit when I was a child. I imagined that if I had a very large number of these electromechanical switches, I could build a computer. Essentially that is what I am working on at the moment. However, quite a few people have built computers, and actually its not all that hard with so many designs on the internet. I decided instead to do something a little more crazy, which was to build a machine that is dedicated to floating point mathematical operations, more akin to the work of the early computer pioneers.
Initially I was intending to build a "pocket calculator" but using relays and with a Nixie tube display. However doing the math, this would require too many relays for a full precision calculator with addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and square roots – around 800 of them. Therefore I decided to build a machine that just is dedicated to square roots. The reason I like square roots is that it is a non-obvious calculation, and also when I was working at GEC Sensors in the 1990s, I designed some ASIC circuitry to compute square roots in hardware, and so I was familiar with the logical operation, as it were, broken down into binary operations.
One of the things that I like about relays is that they are slow and noisy, and if you add lights to each one, as I have done, then you can easily see how these devices are being used, at least in terms of a pattern of operation over time. This is in contrast to modern computers where the operations happen in microscopic circuits in a manner which is far removed from human senses. Watching a slow relay computer figure out square roots seems to bring this digital world back into human consciousness.
Relays are electromechanical switches where a magnetic solenoid can be activated in order to switch over one or more sets of contacts, to reconfigure a circuit. I have made a few videos describing how relays can be used to carry out logic operations. In the one below I describe a simple latching relay circuit, of the type I made when I was a child. This tells you haw you can make a circuit that can have one button to turn on a light, and another one to turn it off.
One of the reasons I decided to go ahead with this calculator project was because after a few days of head scratching, I managed to come up with a circuit that could transfer information from one set of relays to another based on a single "clock pulse". This allows you to make a synchronous counter, and therefore to construct state machines using relays. Unlike regular digital logic, its quite difficult to avoid race conditions and drop-outs with relays because their contacts go through an intermediate non-connected period when switching over from one set to another. This innovation that I made allowed me to get over this and build counters and memory circuits where storing and transferring information was fairly easy. You can see a video below where I walk through the development of this "flip-flop" circuit.
Using the circuit idea above, I was able to make a four bit counter and latch circuit to count pulses from a telephone dial and transfer them into a relay memory store. The output of this store was decoded using relay contacts in order to drive a nixie tube display. You can see the circuit operating in the video below.
Once I had these concepts sorted out, I wrote a simulation of the square root operation in C-sharp on a PC. This was not a detailed digital simulation, but just a program that made sure that I had the necessary registers and operations in place conceptually to carry out a square root operation using 8 digit floating point precision. It was a proof of concept that allowed me to approximately calculate the number of relays that I would need and evaluate how realistic the project was going to be.
I built a frame for the relay computer which could hold up to 30 identical relay modules, built using printed circuit boards. Each was designed to hold 16 relays for a total of 480 relays maximum. They can each be added or removed as necessary for servicing. My construction method was to build printed circuit boards which could hold the relays, but provided a prototyping area on the back so that they could all be manually wired up. I decided to go this route because I thought that I would make lots of mistakes and need to re-work parts of the machine, and I did not want to design a whole bunch of different custom PCBs for cost reasons. However the wiring and debugging of all these boards is very laborious – but also meditative.
The display unit makes use of eight Russian IN-16 nixie tubes. The anodes connect via a resistor to a high voltage supply. The cathodes get shorted to ground via relay contacts, depending on which of the ten digits is required to illuminate. In addition, there is also a decimal point that can be illuminated by a different circuit.
Also shown here is the mechanical clock pulse generator. This makes use of a motor driving a cam which presses alternately on two microswitches. Using this device I can generate regularly spaced pulses to sequence the machine through its various internal states during operation. The speed of the clock can be varied by the user so that they can watch carefully the sequence of lights corresponding to relays energizing when the machine is in operation.
Here you can see a picture of part of the inside of the system with all of the modules fully installed and wired up.
The numbers that the user wants to enter are dialed in via a telephone dial. The pulses from the dial are counted using a binary decade counter and the result when the dial returns to rest is shifted into an 8 digit binary coded decimal shift register where three relays are used to store every bit of information and the digit can shift in a synchronous way on the edges of clock pulses that come from various sources.
Relay contacts convert the binary stored values into 1 of 10 decoded outputs to drive the display cathodes and also there is circuitry to implement decimal point dependent leading zero blanking.
The case for this project was commissioned from Matthew Richter who is a very skilled local woodworking artist here. I felt it was important for such an involved project that could be around for a long time to have a very nice case to make it presentable.
Here you can see a block diagram of the whole system. It is fairly involved. There are two main registers – an 8 digit (32 bit) store for the answer and entry system, and a 17 digit store for the working accumulator and shift register.
In addition, there is a 10 digit subtraction unit that recirculates its results with the accumulator register.
Other registers store the decimal point position and floating point exponent, and count digits during the generation of the answer. The whole system is controlled by a state machine which has 11 different states. Each state commands different parts of the system to carry out various transformation operations.
Detailed documentation for this project, including schematics, can be read here.


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Melbourne's protected water catchments are the reason why most of our drinking water needs very little treatment. Safeguarding these vital assets is one of our most important activities.
Our catchments include:
- 56,300 hectares of state forest — managed by the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning
- 90,800 hectares of national park — managed by Melbourne Water and Parks Victoria
- 7,500 hectares of Melbourne Water land
- 2,100 hectares of private land
Protected catchments
Melbourne is one of the few cities in the world with protected catchments, which produce high-quality water.
These are located north and east of our city, often in national parks and state forests with limited public access. They have hardly changed since they were reserved for harvesting water more than 100 years ago — a fantastic legacy of our city's planners.
Open catchments
A small amount of our water comes from open catchments, including farmland, rural properties and state forests. These allow activities like camping, four-wheel driving and — in about 0.2% of catchments — timber harvesting from December to April.
Water from open catchments is treated so it meets the same quality requirements as water from protected catchments.
Defending our catchments
We invest a lot of effort protecting our catchments from threats to our drinking water.
Bushfires impact the quality and quantity of our water:
- ash and sediment washed into reservoirs means they can't be used for many months
- less water enters reservoirs while forests recover — which can take over a century
We're often the first to respond to fires in the catchments, and try to stop them spreading by:
- grass cutting more frequently in summer
- strategic planned burns that reduce the risk of intense bushfires
- maintaining more than 600 kilometres of fire breaks and 1,860 kilometres of roads for fire fighters
- identifying fires as soon as they start — using a lightning tracker tool, fire towers and fire fighter patrols
Human and animal contamination
We restrict access to our protected catchments to avoid contaminating our drinking water. Security teams perform regular patrols, and serious offences like camping, fishing, motorcycle riding or shooting may be dealt with in court.
To prevent disease, pests like wild dogs, feral cats, deer and foxes must also be controlled. Parks Victoria lead an annual trapping and baiting program.
Roads allow fire fighters to quickly get to bushfires, but also cause sediment to enter the waterways feeding our reservoirs. To minimise this, we make sure catchment roads are properly maintained and have appropriate drainage.


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On getting shirty… and Kate di Camillo
The wolf gets out into the 'real world' and is forced to ponder dress code… and fingernails.
This year I've had to do a few presentations. I've been sketching live for sketchvideos.com.au, as well as giving an author/illustrator talk or two. And for 'Book Week' in August, I presented at seven different schools, and did a fun interview with ABC TV.
So WHAT to wear for all of this? If I could dress like Kurt Cobain everyday, all would be fine: boots, belt, old tee, unkempt hair…
But the wolf is 40+. Nineties-wear is indoor and dog-walking wear only. At this age, 'structured clothing' is apparently a better option – especially when people of all ages are going to be looking at you… expecting things… making judgements… deciding whether to have you back…
My 2014's New Year Resolution "to be more elegant" didn't exactly work out. At the time, the phrase "more elegant" seemed to encompass everything – from time management, to mannerisms, patience and, of course, personal grooming.
I'm still working on the patience, but have made a bit of progress on personal grooming, especially when it comes to presentations. Here is a checklist:
1: Dare to bare
ie. don't. Minimise the amount of flesh on display. Women in skirts: ask a friend to stand behind you… then touch your toes (or try to) with your legs straight. Look at your friend's facial expression. This will tell you if you need to choose a longer skirt. Men: make sure your socks cover the gap between shoe and trouser bottom; do the bend test and ensure that everything you want to be tucked in, stays tucked in…
2: Dangly bits
Avoid if you can. This encompasses (for women): long dangly earrings, fussy belts, necklaces, buckles on boots (they can rip your tights), and anything that might ride up.
3: Say 'no' to rebellious clothing
By this I mean clothing that might attempt to sabotage your presentation: tight shirts with buttons that may pop, weak zips, and (for women again) tight skirts that may split when you sit down on an unexpectedly-low chair.
4: Get decent shoes
Flat-ish, comfortable and polished the night before.
4: Teeth! Hands and nails!
Food in teeth and bad breath will – at best – distract your audience. Pack a toothbrush. Drink enough water. And for hands etc… Illustrators: clean off the worst of the inky stains. Trim and clean nails. Some people will think it's dirt under there, rather than dirty graphite.
5: Fragrant-ness
Be fragrant without the fragrance… which can give some people headaches. Take some unscented deodorant.
6: Pockets!
Clothes with pockets that don't ruin the line are indispensable. It is a great injustice that clothing manufacturers seem to think that women have no need to keep things on their person. I have been collecting dresses with pockets and, apart from the odd exploded pen, they've gone well.
7: Essential accessories
BRING YOUR GLASSES! Or hearing aids, or walking stick, or cattle prod. And whatever you need to function normally: drugs (meds), coffee, water, aspirin…
And now… Kate di Camillo or finding something that works for you…
So a couple of months ago, author Kate di Camillo came to Australia on a promo tour/author showcase etc. She charmed everyone, and a whole new audience got stuck into her books.
But the other thing that stood out for me from the visit was Kate's shirts:
- Structured but casual
- Bright, cheerful prints – yet understated
- Fitted but not dangerously so…
- Stylish and flattering cut
- Quality material
Look! Aren't they lovely? But also just right for Kate. Casual, but structured enough for a public appearance. The key, it seems, is to play to one's strengths and play down the weaknesses. If you can pull off double denim – do double denim. Look good in jeans? Parade it!
Now I'm off to Google. 'Denim shirts with cuffs' coming right up. ps. I love it that Kate likes to channel Kurt now and again too:
Au revoir from Wolfie.


text: WorldKickboxing.Net is a website that aims to be the biggest website of kickboxing news. It was founded by Reşat Onur ER, who is Turkish Kickboxing Federation President of Students Committee, Turkish Kickboxing Federation Committee on Foreign Relations Member and WAKO European Kickboxing Federation Student Committee Member. The website was founded 6th of May, 2014. WorldKickboxing.Net contains kickboxing news from all over the world, galleries, event informations, forums, rules, comments about kickboxing.


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Get Help
Option Line
http://optionline.org | (800) 712-4357
Option Line offers a confidential live chat, text line, and toll-free phone line that is available 24/7. The website contains additional resources for women who are considering abortion, have had an abortion, or are seeking alternatives to abortion.
Care Net
http://www.care-net.org/find-a-pregnancy-center | (877) 791-5475
Care Net offers free resources and a confidential, toll-free, phone line available from 6 AM to 10 PM ET.
Option Line
http://optionline.org | (800) 712-4357
Option Line offers a confidential live chat, text line, and toll-free hotline that is available 24/7. The website contains additional resources for women who are considering abortion, have had an abortion, or are seeking alternatives to abortion.
International Helpline for Abortion Recovery
http://nationalhelpline.org | (866) 482-5433
International Helpline for Abortion Recovery provides confidential care 24/7 for those needing help after abortion. The helpline is staffed by consultants who have personally experienced the pain of abortion, but have also found hope and healing.
Rachel's Vineyard
www.rachelsvineyard.com | (877) 467-3463 | [email protected]
Rachel's Vineyard offers confidential, weekend programs and other services across the United States and Canada, with additional sites around the world, for anyone affected by abortion.
And Then There Were None
http://abortionworker.com/ | (888) 570-5501
And Then There Were None offers abortion workers a way out of the abortion industry by offering job recruitment services, legal help, emotional support, financial assistance, and professional counseling. They also hold all expense paid retreats for those who are interested in more intensive healing. All services are completely confidential.
Abortion Pill Reversal
abortionpillreversal.com | (877) 558-0333
Abortion Pill Reversal offers a 24/7 hotline, staffed by medical professionals, for women seeking an abortion pill reversal. The APR program has a network of over 270 physicians worldwide to assist people who call the hotline.
Bethany Christian Services
https://www.bethany.org/pregnancy-support/options/consider-adoption | (844) 824-6673
Bethany Christian Services is a global nonprofit organization that brings families together and keeps families together. Services include adoption, foster care, and pregnancy counseling. The toll-free phone line is operated 24/7.
American Adoptions
http://www.americanadoptions.com | (800) 236-7846
American Adoptions is a fully licensed, not-for-profit domestic adoption agency that works across the nation, and is currently one of the largest domestic adoption agencies of its kind in the United States. Adoption professionals are available 24/7 at the toll-free phone line.
Safe Haven Alliance
http://www.nationalsafehavenalliance.org/ | (888) 510-2229
The National Safe Haven Alliance (NSHA) is dedicated to reaching these women and encouraging them to make the right choice for themselves and their babies, whether it is a safe-haven relinquishment, adoption, or parenting. The toll-free crisis hotline is staffed 24/7.
Please note: This website has been researched and reviewed by physicians for medical accuracy; however, it is not intended to constitute medical advice or replace the individualized counsel of a doctor.