A south suburban teen is suing a former teacher who is already charged criminally with sexually assaulting the boy.
Claiming “emotional distress, the teen — who identified himself only as “John Doe” — filed suit in Cook County Circuit on Tuesday against the Rich Township High School District 227 and former teacher Sarah L. Tolzien. He’s seeking at least $50,000 for what the suit calls “intentional infliction of severe emotional distress.”
The suit stems from November 2008 when the Rich South High School teacher, then 24, allegedly had sex twice with the boy, then 16.
Tolzien resigned the following December after being placed on administrative leave.
The Arlington Heights woman was charged criminally with felony sexual assault in connection with the case.
Authorities said the sexual encounters happened Nov. 14 and 17, when Tolzien drove the boy home from school. Tolzien, a language arts teacher, also coached the boys varsity cross-country team, and the boy was a member of the team, police said.
A school district official couldn’t immediately be reached for comment, and a man who answered the phone at Tolzien’s home said she wasn’t available for comment.
The teen’s attorney said he’s still in school but receiving counseling.
“He’s trying to get on with his life but this is an incident that could have far-reaching consequences — beyond what he thinks now. He’s very young,” said Loop attorney Jeffrey S. Deutschman.
Crisis Commons, a non-governmental organization formed last year to apply information technology to disaster management and humanitarian relief efforts, will mount a “CrisisCamp” session for Boston-area developers this Saturday in Cambridge. It’s the second weekend in a row the group has organized such sessions; similar camps took place last weekend in Los Angeles, Washington D.C., and other cities.
“The goal is to bring together a large group of volunteers from the technical community—at varying levels of technical proficiency—to collaborate on technology projects that aim to assist in Haiti’s relief efforts by providing data, information, maps, and technical assistance to NGOs, relief agencies, and the public,” says Liz Campbell, vice president at Cambridge-based Fama PR, which is assisting Crisis Commons with publicity around the event. Previous CrisisCamp sessions have produced digital maps of Haiti to help relief groups coordinate rescue operations and a Creole-to-English dictionary for the iPhone and other smartphones.
Travel reservation software company ITA Software is hosting the session, which will run from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. this Saturday, January 23. At press time, there was still room for at least 60 participants. For detailed information about the event, see this CrisisCommons wiki page, and to sign up to participate, go to this Eventbrite registration page. For more background on the CrisisCamp phenomenon, see this informative article at CNN Tech.
“Celebrity Socialite” Rachel Uchitel isn’t happy about the media attention surrounding her Palm Beach birthday bash, so she’s pulling the plug on the shindig.
Rachel, a 9/11 widow and New York City nightclub hostess, was the first women linked to Tiger Woods in the sportsman serial sex scandal late last year. Her 35th birthday party had been planned for Jan. 29 at Florida hotspot 251 PB, but Uchitel decided to can the festivites after a flyer promoting the event made its way online last week.
“The media attention was unexpected and unwelcome and for that reason the planned party at a club will not take place,” Uchitel’s lawyer, Gloria Allred, said Wednesday.
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On January 27, Congressman Paul will be coming to Baltimore, Maryland for a free and open to the public event.
Dr. Paul will be speaking on “The Case Against the Fed” as part of Thomas DiLorenzo’s “Moral Foundations of Capitalism” Lecture Series.
The event will start at 7pm eastern and take place at McGuire Hall, Loyola University Maryland, 4501 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD.
Here’s one very important piece of information as published on the LewRockwell.com blog by Dr. DiLorenzo:
One further detail: The event is free and open to the public, but tickets are required. Call the McManus Theater Box Office at Loyola (410-617-5932) between 11-2 M-F to reserve your tickets. They can be picked up on or after Jan. 21 or on the evening of the event.
This is guaranteed to be an exciting, informative night. Seating is limited, so reserve your tickets today! And be sure to bring some family and friends along to hear why we don’t need a central bank.
Update: It appears that tickets for the main room are sold out, but we’ve been told that there are still some overflow seats available. We’re not sure how many at this time.
– Relief effort yielded over $35,000 dollars in donations and pledges and 15 trailers loaded with food, medical equipment and supplies worth over $2.4 million dollars –
In response to the devastation caused by the earthquake that has impacted the lives of millions of Haitians, Hostos Community College continues to support local and worldwide relief efforts to aid Haiti at this moment of tragedy. This past Sunday, January 17, 2010 from 1:00 pm to 8:00 pm, a telethon in support of Haiti was held at CUNY in the Heights, a higher education center operated by Hostos Community College and Borough of Manhattan Community College in Washington Heights.
The relief effort was coordinated with the support of Hostos Community College President Felix V. Matos Rodríguez and his staff, by Minerva Saint Hillaireand José Samboy from De La Mano Con Minerva Foundation, Dr. Ramón Tallaj, President of the Corinthian Medical Independent Physician Association, and among other leaders and organizations, José Cruz from radio stations La Mega 97.9 FM and Amor 93.1 FM.
“On behalf of the Hostos Family, I would like to extend sympathy and support in every way we can to the people from Haiti at this moment of tragedy,” said President Matos Rodríguez. “Hostos Community College continues to work closely with The City University of New York and different organizations, partners and leaders in support of relief efforts underway at this moment. The telethon at CUNY in the Heights was a success thanks to those organizations leaders, volunteers and Hostos staff who worked diligently over the weekend to install the telephone lines and help coordinate overall logistics for this extraordinary relief effort.”
The event was broadcast live via Super Canal Caribe and other international television networks seen across the United States, the Dominican Republic and Latin America. Local television networks provided news coverage of the telethon, including Fox 5 news, Ramon Anibal Ramos TV and other independent television producers.
According to Dr. Tallaj, the effort yielded over $35,000 dollars in donations and pledges and 15 containers loaded with food, medical equipment and supplies worth over $2.4 million dollars. Most of the containers were donated via Hope for a Healthier Humanity (HHH) a non-profit committed to assisting the developing nations of the Caribbean and Latin America. Trailers will be shipped to Haiti where goods and medical equipment will be distributed by local and international organizations including non profit Cáritas Dominicanas, he said. Collected donations are being destined to Catholic Relief Services, and President Barak Obama’s newly created Clinton/Bush Haiti Fund.
To donate visit, “Help for Haiti” at www.cuny.edu/helpforhaiti, an informational website hosted by The City University of New York to facilitate the channeling of aid to the people from Haiti.
Modern technologies have made so many forms of collaboration possible that oft times the basics are overlooked, says Duke University management professor Jonathon Cummings. Globally distributed teams cannot rely entirely on technology to overcome time and space barriers; they still need to talk. And that probably means working some overlapping hours. Cummings developed these recommendations based on a multi-year study of 108 project teams in 53 locations in 22 countries at Intel…
I have not been following doctors orders.I am a mature man,and when I get depressed and need comfort ,I look for comforting and enjoyable foods.Since fall of 2009 I have a no care attitude.My blood sugar has been over 300 and below 500.I need some support and do not know where to look.I am on medicine but I don’t allow it to work.I am not going to take insulin even if I have too.I always was able to bring it down.I am afraid of everything now because I must go see my doctor ,before anymore refills are given.My wife has the same problem and I guess the same attitude.What can we do , to support each other .I know he will probably want to put me on insulin,and how can I talk him out of it?It is my own fault.Anyone else feel like this?My first post thanks.:confused:
A Mundelein man was sentenced to 40 years in prison Tuesday for molesting four girls over several years.
Raul Cortez-Melo was facing a maximum sentence of 45 years during the hearing before Lake County Circuit Judge John Phillips.
Assistant State’s Attorney James Newman said Cortez-Melo repeatedly raped four girls, all between the ages of 11 and 16, between 2003 and his arrest last year.
Cortez-Melo, 37, pleaded guilty in July to predatory criminal sexual assault of a child, aggravated criminal sexual assault and aggravated criminal sexual abuse.
Newman asked Phillips to impose the maximum sentence, calling Cortez-Melo “a parent’s worst nightmare.”
Assistant Public Defender Katherine Hatch asked for the minimum sentence of 18 years, saying her client had been molested himself as a child and began abusing alcohol at the age of 10.
Cortez-Melo asked for leniency in the sentence and said he would like to be sent to a prison where he can receive sex offender and substance abuse treatment.
Newman said Cortez-Melo will have to serve 85 percent of the sentence before he is eligible for parole and, because he is a citizen of Mexico, is likely to face deportation when his sentence is complete.
I like a lot of web comics, but it’s sometimes hard to find good ones. I was recently twigged on to Calamities of Nature, which commonly has themes dealing with science and critical thinking. I particularly like this one, excerpted in the picture here. The last panel is awesome.
In the character guide, the artist describes the mole (the white guy with earmuffs) as a cynic, but I don’t think so. A cynic is in many ways a pessimist, but a skeptic can see the good in things while still asking for evidence of claims. I think Aaron is a skeptic.
The Italian GameStop website has reportedly revealed details about a Final Fantasy XIII collector’s edition. Not really that surprising, considering all the anticipation and hype for this game. So, what does it contain? Hit the jump and
El mundo de las carreras se prepara para una temporada que promete ser una de las más animadas en los últimos tiempos pero probablemente sea una de las más problemáticas. Mientras la Fórmula 1 ve cómo algunos equipos nuevos tienen bastantes problemas a la hora de arrancar su trayectoria en Fórmula 1, algunos pilotos todavía ni siquiera están seguros de tener una plazacomo el caso de Jaime Alguersuari.
Pero mientras algunos sufren, otros reciben muy buenas noticias, como Pedro Martínez de la Rosa, quién será parte del equipo Sauber para la temporada 2010, haciendo equipo con el “japonés revelación”, Kamui Kobayashi.
Si los problemas han arreciado en Campos Meta, al menos su monoplaza ya aprobó las pruebas de choque obligadas de la FIA. Por su lado, USF1 ya reveló el nombre de su monoplaza, el Type 1, mientras se dice que el coche será innovador en cuanto a sus detalles técnicos.
Michael Schumacher ha decidido que el número 4 no es el apropiado para su monoplaza y el equipo Mercedes GP ha movido sus resortes para que la FIA acepte un cambio de números con su compañero, Nico Rosberg.
Y para quienes siguen las carreras de Fórmula 1 por televisión y no se pierden ni una sola, Canal 9, la cadena autonómica de Valencia, ofrecerá en directo todas las carreras del mundial. Una buena alternativa para evitarnos al Sr. Lobato.
In response to fan uproar over being unable to embed OK Go‘s YouTube videos, lead singer Damian Kulash wrote the following letter. It’s an eye-opening—and discouraging—inside account of how poorly the major labels manage the music you love.
To the people of the world, from OK Go:
This week we released a new album, and it’s our best yet. We also released a new video – the second for this record – for a song called This Too Shall Pass, and you can watch it here. We hope you’ll like it and comment on it and pass the link along to your friends and do that wonderful thing that that you do when you’re fond of something, share it. We want you to stick it on your web page, post it on your wall, and embed it everywhere you can think of.
Unfortunately, as of now you can’t embed diddlycrap. And depending on where you are in the world, you might not even be able to watch it.
We’ve been flooded with complaints recently because our YouTube videos can’t be embedded on websites, and in certain countries can’t be seen at all. And we want you to know: we hear you, and we’re sorry. We wish there was something we could do. Believe us, we want you to pass our videos around more than you do, but, crazy as it may seem, it’s now far harder for bands to make videos accessible online than it was four years ago.
See, here’s the deal. The recordings and the videos we make are owned by a record label, EMI. The label fronts the money for us to make recordings – for this album they paid for us to spend a few months with one of the world’s best producers in a converted barn in Amish country wringing our souls and playing tympani and twiddling knobs – and they put up most of the cash that it takes to distribute and promote our albums, including the costs of pressing CDs, advertising, and making videos. We make our videos ourselves, and we keep them dirt cheap, but still, it all adds up, and it adds up to a great deal more than we have in our bank account, which is why we have a record label in the first place.
Fifteen years ago, when the terms of contracts like ours were dreamt up, a major label could record two cats fighting in a bag and three months later they’d have a hit. No more. People of the world, there has been a revolution. You no longer give a shit what major labels want you to listen to (good job, world!), and you no longer spend money actually buying the music you listen to (perhaps not so good job, world). So the money that used to flow through the music business has slowed to a trickle, and every label, large or small, is scrambling to catch every last drop. You can’t blame them; they need new shoes, just like everybody else. And musicians need them to survive so we can use them as banks. Even bands like us who do most of our own promotion still need them to write checks every once in a while.
But where are they gonna find money if no one buys music? One target is radio stations (there’s lots of articles out there. here’s one). And another is our friend The Internutz. As you’ve no doubt noticed, sites like YouTube, MySpace, and Blahzayblahblah.cn run ads on copyrighted content. Back when Young MC’s second album (the one that didn’t have Bust A Move on it) could go Gold without a second thought, labels would’ve considered these sites primarily promotional partners like they did with MTV, but times have changed. The labels are hurting and they need every penny they can find, so they’ve demanded a piece of the action. They got all huffy a couple years ago and threatened all sorts of legal terror and eventually all four majors struck deals with YouTube which pay them tiny, tiny sums of money every time one of their videos gets played. Seems like a fair enough solution, right? YouTube gets to keep the content, and the labels get some income.
The catch: the software that pays out those tiny sums doesn’t pay if a video is embedded. This means our label doesn’t get their hard-won share of the pie if our video is played on your blog, so (surprise, surprise) they won’t let us be on your blog. And, voilá: four years after we posted our first homemade videos to YouTube and they spread across the globe faster than swine flu, making our bassist’s glasses recognizable to 70-year-olds in Wichita and 5-year-olds in Seoul and eventually turning a tidy little profit for EMI, we’re – unbelievably – stuck in the position of arguing with our own label about the merits of having our videos be easily shared. It’s like the world has gone backwards.
Let’s take a wider view for a second. What we’re really talking about here is the shift in the way we think about music. We’re stuck between two worlds: the world of ten years ago, where music was privately owned in discreet little chunks (CDs), and a new one that seems to be emerging, where music is universally publicly accessible. The thing is, only one of these worlds has a (somewhat) stable system in place for funding music and all of its associated nuts-and-bolts logistics, and, even if it were possible, none of us would willingly return to that world. Aside from the smug assholes who ran labels, who’d want a system where a handful of corporate overlords shove crap down our throats? All the same, if music is going to be more than a hobby, someone, literally, has to pay the piper. So we’ve got this ridiculous situation where the machinery of the old system is frantically trying to contort and reshape and rewire itself to run without actually selling music. It’s like a car trying to figure out how to run without gas, or a fish trying to learn to breath air.
So what’s there to do? On the macro level, well, who the hell knows? There are a lot of interesting ideas out there, but this is not the place to get into them. As for our specific roadblock with the video embedding, the obvious solution is for YouTube to work out its software so it allow labels to monetize their videos, wherever on the Internet or the globe they’re being accessed. That’ll surely happen before too long because there’s plenty of money to be made, but it’s more complicated than it looks at first glance. Advertisers aren’t too keen on paying for ads when they don’t know where the ads will appear (“Dear users of FoxxxyPregnantMILFS.com, try Gerber’s new low-lactose formula!”), so there are a lot of hurdles to get over.
In the meantime, the only thing OK Go can do is to upload our videos to sites that allow for embedding, like MySpace and Vimeo. We do that already, but it stings a little. Not only does it cannibalize our own numbers (it tends to do our business more good to get 40 million hits on one site than 1 million hits on 40 sites), but, as you can imagine, we feel a lot of allegiance to the fine people at YouTube. They’ve been good to us, and what they want is what we want: lots of people to see our videos. When push comes to shove, however, we like our fans more, which is why you can take the code at the bottom of this email and embed the “This Too Shall Pass” video all over the Internet.
With or without this embedding problem, we’ll never get 50 zillion views on a YouTube video again. That moment – the dawn of internet video – is gone. The internet isn’t as anarchic as it was then. Now there are Madison Avenue firms that specialize in “viral marketing” and the success of our videos is now taught in business school. But here’s a secret: zillions of hits was never the point. We’re a rock band, and it’s a great gig. Not just because we get to snort drugs off the Queen of England (we do), but because the only thing we are expected to do is make cool stuff. We chase our craziest ideas for a living, and if sharing those ideas takes 40 websites instead of one, it doesn’t make too big a difference to us.
So, for now, here’s the bottom line: EMI won’t let us let you embed our YouTube videos. It’s a decision that bums us out. We’ve argued with them a lot about it, but we also understand why they’re doing it. They’re aware that their rules make it harder for people to watch and share our videos, but, while our duty is to our music and our fans, theirs is to their shareholders, and they believe they’re doing the right thing.
Here’s the embed code for the Vimeo posting [Note: play the video and click “embed” to copy code]:
The Islamic-Christian authority catering for Jerusalem and holy places warned that Al-Aqsa Mosque has sustained serious cracks and fissures in its walls that may lead to its collapse as a result of the ongoing excavations carried out by Israel underground.
The authority said that these excavations also caused fissures in hundreds of Palestinian homes and real estate in the vicinity of the Mosque, adding that all tunnel excavations in Silwan neighborhood are heading towards the Aqsa Mosque.
The authority pointed to the reoccurrence of cave-ins in many houses and streets, the latest of which happened on the street of Wadi Hilwa in Silwan neighborhood, near the Aqsa Mosque.
It affirmed that at late hours every night, large Israeli trucks come to excavation sites to load up with rocks and dirt and then take it to a dumpsite in Alizariya town east of Jerusalem.
In the same context, senior Hamas official and lawmaker Dr. Younis Al-Astal said Tuesday that the increase in subsidence incidents in the vicinity of the Aqsa Mosque indicates that the tunnel excavations carried out by Israel reached a serious level threatening the Mosque.
Dr. Astal stressed that these excavations and Judaization activities in Jerusalem would not have been possible without the collusion of Mahmoud Abbas and his authority with Israel against the Palestinian resistance in the West Bank.
For his part, Hamas spokesman Hammad Al-Ruqub warned that any harm inflicted on the Aqsa Mosque would have serious repercussions on Israel and would trigger a new massive intifada.
Spokesman Ruqub underlined that the successive cave-ins and the size of tunnels being established by Israel under the Aqsa Mosque and its environs authenticate the warnings made by organizations that follow up the developments in Jerusalem.
He also said that Israels decisions to exile and imprison some prominent Palestinian leaders in Jerusalem and the 1948 occupied land who defend the Aqsa Mosque such as Sheikh Raed Salah and Sheikh Ekrema Sabri portend its bad faith towards the Mosque.
Audi A3 TDI – Click above for high-res image gallery
For the third year in a row, Audi will be running an add during the Superbowl. First there was the Godfather parody where the “Old Luxury” dude was put on notice about the R8 (which is a sports car, but who cares). Then last year’s really excellent Jason Statham spot called, “Chase.” This year things are going to be a bit, well, more rocking.
Ditching the notion of parodying films, Audi is instead employing the talents of the ageless (though quite well aged) rockers in Cheap Trick to promote the A3 TDI. The ad will focus on the diesel A3 being named Green Car Journal’s Car of the Year. In it, Cheap Trick will be reinterpreting one of their classics and the spot should sport a, “fun, tongue-in-cheek environmental theme.” Any guesses as to which song? We’re thinking “He’s a Whore.” Make the jump to read the press release.
Refresher: The 2011 BMW 335i Coupe and Convertible are powered by a new N55 3.0L inline 6-cylinder engine with a single twin-scroll turbocharger and Valvetronic. That helps produce 300-hp with a maximum torque of 300 lb-ft. 0-60 mph for the 2011 335i Coupe and Convertible comes in 5.3 and 5.5 seconds respectively.
You’d think with names like Greece and Dubai being thrown around so much in the news, credit default swaps on their debt would be the most expensive in the world.
Far from it! Argentina still takes the cake.
Iceland, Dubai, and Greece are all next to each other, behind Ukraine and Venezuela who are currently in the 8 to 9% range. And by the looks of it, Pakistani CDS aren’t traded too often.
Twilight: The Graphic Novel: Volume 1 will be released in hardcover for $19.99 on March 16. On Wednesday, Yen Press, the graphic novel imprint of Hachette Book Group, announced that it will publish the first volume in a graphic novel adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s smash Twilight Saga. The work contains selected text from Meyer’s original novel with black-and-white illustrations by Korean artist Young Kim.
A south suburban teen is suing a former teacher who is already charged criminally with sexually assaulting the boy.
A Mundelein man was sentenced to 40 years in prison Tuesday for molesting four girls over several years.
