A group of community leaders who helped raise funds for city-operated pools are seeking up to $75,000 for other summer youth activities.
The Monroe Street United Methodist Church (UMC) and the Upper Toledo Urban League leaders organized a group of about 20 organizations to design extensive summer programming for youth.
“This is the beginning of a community coming together in hard times,” said John Jones, director of the Toledo Urban League.
When the Finkbeiner administration announced the city couldn’t afford to open swimming pools this summer, Jones and other community organizers sought funding to keep them running, Jones said.
Pastor Karen Shepler of Monroe Street UMC received $5,000 from the District United Methodist Office, and the Economic Opportunities Planning Association provided a $79,861 grant for the city to reopen the pools.
Though the pools cost the city about $219,234 last summer, Kattie Bond, director of the Department of Neighborhoods said this summer shouldn’t cost taxpayers anything.
The city is pulling about $51,537 from a trust fund specifically given to Toledo for recreational purposes, she said.
Councilwoman Lindsay Webb will have a public hearing on June 23 before city council votes to accept the grant money and use the trust fund cash because she said she understands why some Toledoans might be skeptical.
“I see the folks that say, ‘We’re in a budget deficit; how can we justify opening five pools?’” she said. “The other side is, in these economic times, it’s important that the children in the city have a place to go.”
Shepler said she and other community organization leaders knew that youth needed places to go and activities to get involved in when some kids started wearing shirts that stated that it was their turn to run Toledo now that the police force had diminished.
Having the pools open could curb gang activity or foul play this summer, she said, adding that if the kids don’t have anywhere to cool off this summer, they could resort to opening fire hydrants like some have in the past.
Toledo Police Chief Michael Navarre said he didn’t think the pools would impact the youth community very much this summer.
“I know from experience that, when the pools open, the first week is very busy; the second week is not as busy and by Fourth of July, there will be few people at the pools,” he said. “If you’re looking for a couple weeks to have on impact on 52 weeks in the year, it’s just not going to make a big difference.”
Despite the police layoffs, Navarre said he doesn’t expect the youth to pose any more of a problem than they have in previous summers but that he is a “strong advocate” of organized youth activities for the summer.
The group of 15 to 20 community organization leaders could solidify a plan for organized youth summer activity within a week, Jones said, adding that one plan is to expand a summer games program. They are shaping other ideas involving teaching life skills and even exercising cognitive and reasoning abilities, but haven’t completed them enough to announce to the public, Jones said.
He said his group will reach out to anyone interested in volunteering, donating equipment or money and ideally would like to operate with the $50,000 to $75,000 price tag.
“I really think the community is willing to give because they realize if you don’t give youth something to do, they will find something on their own to do,” he said.
City council is expected to vote June 23 to determine whether to open Detwiler, Pickford, Wilson, Navarre and Roosevelt pools and the Savage Water Spray Area.
These pools could employ about 25 youth, offering wages ranging from minimum wage to $9.25 and could serve about 17,000 people, Bond said.

Some punk vandalized my parents’ house eight years ago. Have you ever heard of the prank where you take a garbage can, fill it with water, lean it against the front door, ring the bell and run away? That’s exactly what happened. Cold water splashed all over my mom and my dog, and the flash flood wrecked our hallway’s hardwood floor, dripped into the basement and ruined my dad’s office equipment. The guy ended up getting caught because he continued to attempt the prank at other houses. He pleaded guilty and served 30 days in jail.
We were momentarily shaken, but not hurt, and since it was the first time I had heard my mother drop the “F-bomb” (quite loudly, I might say), it was quite a hilarious moment. Maybe not for “Waterboy” (as we fondly call him in the family), but at least he still has his health.
The same will never be said of Mario Reyes. The Miami native was running to catch a bus on a Saturday morning when he jaywalked and collided with a car driven by Cleveland Browns wide receiver Donte Stallworth. On June 16, the legal proceedings came to a close as Stallworth pleaded guilty to DUI manslaughter and, looking 15 years of jail straight in the eye, wound up with 30 days in jail.
Now, his sentence is clearly worse than Waterboy’s, as he also received two years house arrest, eight years probation, several hours of community service, court costs and mandatory donations. Still, that’s not much punishment for taking the life of a man whose only crime was punishable by a $62.50 ticket.
I’ve read that some of the factors leading to the reduced jail sentence included Stallworth feeling remorse for the death of Reyes, and that the victim’s family wanted the emotional process of sentencing Stallworth to happen as quickly as possible. Still, Michael Vick served 19 months for running a dog-fighting ring. Browns running back Jamal Lewis was sentenced to four months for setting up a cocaine deal.
I’m not a lawyer, but I play one in this column. Florida Statute 316.193 partially reads: “A person who is convicted of DUI manslaughter shall be sentenced to a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment of four years.” Adding up his jail time, house arrest and community service — a tenuous way to look at it — doesn’t even equal three years of penance. Maybe him feeling bad about what happened reduced the sentence?
Again, I’m no lawyer, but I do understand words in English (one of the more impressive footnotes on my resume) and, subsequently, I know what “mandatory” and “minimum” mean.
Months earlier, just north of Miami, in St. Lucie County, a man named Michael Knecht was convicted of DUI manslaughter. Obviously, the details of his case and Stallworth’s are not the same (Knecht had some illegal drugs in his car, for example), but as a result of killing another motorist while driving drunk, Knecht received 10 years in jail, four years probation and will never be able to drive again.
I missed the part of the Florida statute about DUI manslaughter that read: “If you are a professional football player, the minimum four-year sentence can be reduced to what a person would serve if he vandalized a house, and then he can serve some time confined in his own home, where he can still enjoy the big-screen TV and backyard.”

Watching people succeed in life can create strange feelings. Outwardly, you appear supportive and congratulatory as you hear the news of their success; inwardly, you shake your head as you take inventory of your own ideas, goals and plans for the future.
How did they do it?  What did they do differently than you? After all, you have ideas, too, but you don’t have the time for the extra work. You know how to grow your business, but you don’t have the money to put things in motion. If you only had more time and money, you, too, could finally hatch your ideas, grow your business and grab success with both hands.
To reach new heights in your business, you need to be able to answer the age-old question, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” Dissect any success story and you will learn that the egg came first, not the chicken. While some may argue that you need a goose to lay that golden egg that goose did not fall out of the sky; its life began from a carefully nurtured egg.
Evolutionists will tell you that species adapt to their changing surroundings by mutating and changing. Why would you be any different?  You mutate, you evolve and you change and adapt to your changing surroundings, too. Restructuring a business, launching a new marketing plan or pulling together new ideas to grow your business is the result of a mutation in your thinking — mutation born out of necessity.
Before you take action, you decide to take action — you are inspired.  This inspiration is the egg that precedes the chicken; this inspiration causes you to see things differently. The moment you see something differently, you have mutated your thinking. These mutations are irreversible. When you learn a new skill, see a new perspective or try something new, you have taken a permanent step forward.  You cannot unlearn information and you cannot undo a new experience.
The more you allow yourself to mutate, the stronger you grow, the faster you evolve and the smarter you become. Honor your ideas by giving them the action they need to grow, instead of excusing them away or shrugging them off.  Honor them by learning something new today or by doing something outside your comfort zone. As you expose yourself to new experiences, you evolve and grow.
There are two ways you can react to new experiences. You can dig in your heels and resist a changing world or you can expand your horizons and allow yourself to evolve. You are the only person who can control how you react to changes in your environment. When you seek and embrace newness as a part of your life, you are creating a personal system of growth that will open doors for you.
Proactively working newness into your daily routine is easy. Take 10 minutes each morning to read a section of a book that was recommended to you, accept the next invitation you receive from a friend or bite your tongue when a colleague shares a crazy idea with you. Exposure to newness allows you to prosper, to think new thoughts and to see the world differently than you did yesterday.
With your increased exposure, you’ll start seeing new opportunities all around you.  These opportunities will hit you in the form of ideas and pure inspiration. This moment of inspiration is the moment of conception — the moment the golden egg arrives in your life.
Your golden egg precedes your golden opportunity, so stop waiting for a chicken to walk through the door and provide you with something you already have in your possession — the ability to change, evolve and succeed.
For easy ways to evolve and grow as a business professional go to www.boltfromtheblue.com and enter EGG into the blueprint box.

Tom Richard is a Toledo-based sales and marketing consultant, keynote speaker and owner of Bolt from the Blue direct response advertising. For more information, visit www.BoltFromTheBlue.com or call (419) 441-1005.

Such was the philosophy of many travelers in days of yore.  And for a while, we also subscribed.
Didn’t matter one whit if the room we were staying in for the night had a naked bulb, a wonky bed and paper-thin walls. Didn’t worry us that the floors were uneven.
There were flies on the ceiling. And the place smelled of must, dust … and lust.
After all, as long as there was some place to lay our heads … and a loo in the vague vicinity … nothing mattered very much, for we were only there to sightsee after all.
Or so we like to say.
A hotel room on Prague’s main drag was a classic. With a bedroom door that fell on us when we tried to pull it shut. A man next door who threw up all night after too much cheap pilsner. And having to fork out a dollar every time a crumpled lift operator creaked his antique contraption up to our floor. (Using stairs was forbidden).
We’ve also had some painful experiences in western Europe. And our fair share of naked bulbs, wonky beds and dirty bathrooms from Paris to Amsterdam, Barcelona to London.
Fast forward 25 years.
With a wider selection of frequently updated guide books and the Internet making room selection and booking much simpler, we still only do one-nighters except in extremes.
Like a weather event, a labor dispute or a transport snafu. When we’re on some kind extended driving tour. Or long hike. Or when we have to be at an airport at some ungodly hour of the morning … which happened to us a couple of months ago in London …
We were returning home from a whistle-stop business trip to Scotland and road testing some budget chains like Premier Inns and Ibis along the way. They were good value for the money and worthy of further exploration, even if lacking in charm and local character.
But as we had to be at Heathrow Airport at 6:30 a.m., we picked for our final night a new budget entry near Paddington Station — just a 15-minute train ride to the airport on the Heathrow Express.
It was an Easy Hotel — or rather an easyHotel.  An extension of easyJet, one of the super-cheap, no frills European airlines.  Same concept.  Cheap and bare bones.  Bookings done online. And the earlier you book, the less you pay.
We went to www.easyhotel.com and logged on.  Room rates ranged from £25 to £100 ($40-$160).  On the night we requested there was a room available for only £49 ($79).  Yippee!  Oh, you wanted a window? That will be another £5 ($8). And a remote control for that TV?  Add £5 ($8).  And, of course, don’t forget the taxes.  In the end we paid £64 ($102).   But still,  pretty cheap by London standards.
All was well, until we actually checked in.
The room measured 8-by10 with a standard-size double bed on a platform shoved into the corner.  Instead of a closet, there were three hooks on the wall. No chair, no nightstand, no dresser, no desk.  Two towels in the tiny bathroom, no bath mat, no drinking glasses.  And the £5 window looked out onto a wall.
Spartan just went to a new level! On the upside — the location was convenient. And quiet.  The bed was very comfortable.  And the room was not only the smallest we’ve ever seen … it was also the cleanest!
So maybe if we still want to travel in this current crumbling economy … we might have to rethink that “room is a room is a room” philosophy!

Stanley Slusarski received his best birthday present ever at 71 in the unexpected form of a 3-foot catheter capped with a miniscule, power-packed pump. The cutting-edge heart device helped save his life during cardiac surgery on his birthday on June 6.
“I call it a miracle pump,” Slusarski, of Blissfield, Mich., said.

n Todd Monroe, left, and Lloyd Gillies show the heart pump used on Stanley Slusarski.

The diagnosis before the pump was grim — doctors told him he probably wouldn’t make it, Slusarski said. Two blocked arteries that disabled part of his heart made life a struggle. He doesn’t understand the device’s inner workings, but he’s just glad it works.
“I’m not building barns or cutting down trees, but I’m getting along quite well,” Slusarski said, laughing. “It’s a miracle.”
He’s the first patient at Toledo Hospital and in Northwest Ohio to receive help from Abiomed’s Impella 2.5 heart pump, which the hospital obtained in May. Deemed the world’s smallest heart pump, it’s at work in 200 hospitals nationwide, said Lloyd Gillies, Abiomed clinical consultant.
“This acts as a safety net to get [patients] through a high-risk procedure,” Gillies said.
Surgeons run the catheter pump through an artery in the groin area up to the heart, where Impella can pump 2.5 liters per minute. Although it pumps half the amount of blood needed, its main purpose is to assist hearts with limited function.
A minute Archimedes screw, or turbine, about one-eighth of an inch long runs at 50,000 rotations per minute. Cardiologist Todd Monroe of Northwest Ohio Cardiology Consultants helped demonstrate the pump at Toledo Hospital on June 18. Monroe operated on Slusarski.
The catheter connects to a small, wheeled cart. Doctors demonstrated the pump by placing it in a bowl of water, which turned the bowl into a swift-flowing whirlpool.
“There’s a real swirling action in the bowl but hopefully not in the patient,” Monroe said, laughing.
The pump acts as a bridge, Monroe said, and is usually meant for short-term procedures. It can either assist patients recuperating from heart attacks or other maladies or keep blood pumping during surgical procedures. But he said not all heart patients are candidates for the pump.
“I think it’s a very innovative device,” Monroe said. “We’ll be able to use it a lot in the future. It’s also user-friendly from a doctor’s standpoint.”
Slusarski was spry and joking with doctors after the Impella demonstration. His activity would have been unimaginable just one month ago. Merely eating or walking a short distance left him winded.
“I was feeling dragged down,” he said. “It’d be so bad I’d even get winded eating a sandwich. I had to do something, but they had the answer.”
The Impella 2.5 is not reusable, since it cannot be sterilized, Gillies said. The pump and the accompanying procedure cost $25,000, he said.
The heart pump allowed Monroe to operate on Slusarski safely. He operated to re-establish blood flow to the heart and unblock two arteries. Without the aid of the heart pump, it would have been impossible to safely operate on the non-functioning part of Slusarski’s heart, Monroe said.
It was gratifying to witness Slusarski walking about and talking energetically, Monroe said.
“It feels very good,” he said. “The first time I met him, he was very debilitated. It’s great to
see him bouncing around and feeling well.”
Slusarski said he hopes more cardiac patients can benefit from the pump that saved his life.
“I really credit that for getting me through it,” he said. “If it saves even one or two people, it’s worth it.”

In a battle to see who could go the slowest and still be fast enough to win the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series LifeLock 400 at Michigan International Speedway (MIS) on June 14, moderate Mark Martin coasted to victory, leaving Jimmie Johnson and Greg Biffle frustrated and their respective cars fuming, which is what race cars do when they’re totally out of fuel.
It was another fuel-mileage race, the mention of which sends MIS track officials into a flat-out frenzy. There’s a perception that fuel-mileage races are won by those who are considered not to exhibit stereotypical masculine behavior. They supposedly separate the boys from the men. The fastest cars don’t have any particular advantage. The misguided thought process is speed rules; strategy sucks.
It was the second “fuel-mileage” race in the past three NASCAR Cup events at MIS, with Dale Earnhardt Jr. sniffing out victory last June.
Afterwards, Earnhardt quipped, “They can write what they want, but we won one.”
That’s what they wrote, Junior. No one called you a sissy, fluky or even intolerable.
Later he would say, “It is what it is.”
And it was what it was June 14 at MIS. With just more than one lap remaining, Johnson ran out of gas; Biffle shot into the lead and then he ran out of gas, and Martin had been very content in third. He was smelling not fumes but the sweet fragrance associated with leaping into the Top 12 in the point standings, those of whom will participate in the 10-race Chase for the championship to end the season.
Let’s not forget that the NASCAR Sprint Cup race contest previous to Michigan, at Pocono, Pa., was won by owner-driver Tony Stewart and it, too, was a fuel-mileage race. Imagine telling Stewart to slow down? He didn’t get the nickname “Smoke” by hoarding fuel. But he turned from mashing the gas to putting his best foot back just a tad. At the end, he had everyone worshiping at his feet.
Stewart’s crew chief, Darian Grubb, knew he had a car fast enough to win the race, but when fuel mileage became the issue, it was time to access the remainder of the field, try to figure out his counterpart’s strategy and then counter with his own.
“We had to have Tony back off and save as much fuel as we could,” Grubb explained. “There were a lot of guys in the same position. You’ve got to play the strategy against them.”
Jeff Gordon, who finished second at MIS on June 14, refused to say fuel-mileage races can’t be interesting for both fans and drivers.
“It’s a strategy. It’s tense. It’s hard not to put your foot all the way down to the floor on the straightaways,” he explained. “To me, it’s just as intense and difficult to win in a fuel-mileage race as it is to go out there and compete with the fastest car and try to pass for the lead.”
There’s no disrespect in winning a fuel-mileage race. MIS is concerned that it might get the reputation of being a fuel-mileage race course. Yes, you don’t want that, but consider this: Had the June 14 race not been thrown into a fuel-mileage situation, Johnson would have run off with, at least, a five-second win, and the term “boring” is much more distressing than, “fuel mileage.”
Junior’s triumph in June 2008 was very popular. What has NASCAR’s most popular driver done since? One victory in his past 113 races going into Sonoma, Calif., and that was at Michigan. Had he not won at MIS, the Junior Nation might now be the Junior Desolation.
Guitar hero
You’ve heard of Pete Townshend, right? Me neither, at least not until recently when Kyle Busch did his impersonation of the guitarist from the English rock band, The Who.
Busch won the NASCAR Nationwide race at Nashville and was presented with a Gibson Les Paul guitar designed and painted by the renowned Sam Bass. Busch proceeded to smash the guitar on stage, a la Townshend, as Bass, Busch’s handlers and thousands of race car fans looked on in utter horror.
Busch said he wanted to have the remains cut into equal pieces and passed out as souvenirs to his crew members.
On June 14, at MIS, Busch was asked if he regretted his actions.
“Not really … made me think about it,” he responded. “In the end, I’m kind of like, you know what? No, I don’t regret it. I thought it was fun. It was fun, and a lot of people enjoyed it and thought it was different — sports not so vanilla. A lot of people hated it, and I guess those are the ones with 88 (Junior’s car number) tattooed on their arm. I’ve got no issues with Junior; it’s his fans that are crazy, but that’s all right.”
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series will return to Martinsville Speedway on Oct. 25, where track officials are, by all accounts, taking turns praying hourly that Busch does not win the race, the trophy being probably the most sought-after in all of NASCAR racing. It’s a seven-foot-tall handcrafted Grandfather Clock, manufactured by Martinsville-based Ridgeway Clocks and valued at more than $11,000.
Busch has already said he would not break that trophy if he won it. If he does, time will stand still.

Phil Levering and Craig Vanderkam are learning what it means to be team players.
The Mud Hens’ two media relations interns are part of a program General Manager Joe Napoli started in the mid-90s. It started with just a few interns and has grown to about 40.
“Honestly, I go to work every day not even labeling myself as an intern,” Vanderkam said. “I just try to fit in and go to work hoping for the betterment of the organization in all facets.”

Craig Vanderkam and Phil Levering work with coaches, players and media.

One day, Vanderkam wants to become a director of media relations for a major league team, while Levering wants to work in broadcast journalism. When Levering switched his major to broadcast journalism at UT, he received advice from Mario Impemba, play-by-play announcer for the Detroit Tigers on Fox Sports Detroit.
Impemba told Levering to contact Jason Griffin, director of public relations and announcer for the Mud Hens.
“Fortunately, when I did, the Mud Hens needed PR help because the interns for that summer were going back to school before the season ended,” Levering said. “I helped finish the year, and during that off-season, Jason continued to let me help with the behind-the-scenes PR work. As the next season approached, I reapplied and I got the experience of the full internship from start to finish.”
“Maybe the most interesting thing [about the internship] has been the extent that the Mud Hens organization relies on others just as they are reliant on us,” Vanderkam said. “The Tigers and their other affiliates all work in conjunction with each other to get the best out of each organization, through rehab assignments and other transactions between two clubs.”
Vanderkam and Levering work directly with the players, coaches, scouts, broadcasters and other media. They prepare for radio and television broadcasts, including collecting and organizing game notes, a 17-page statistics packet and writing a game recap for the Web site.
The duo is also responsible for lining up players for game-day events like autograph sessions and player appearances. The interns get programs signed for each home game and find a player to catch the ceremonial first pitches.
“I have learned how to plan ahead and anticipate,” Levering said.
Griffin said the goal is for his interns to feel comfortable and get prepared for a real job.
“They mean a lot because there are a lot of things to do,” he said. “There is some grunt work, but we give them a lot of responsibility, too.”
Vanderkam expects to graduate from BGSU in August, while Levering is set to graduate from UT in spring 2010.
Past interns have attained jobs with the Memphis Grizzlies, Wayne State University, MLB Network, Sports Illustrated, USA Today, Chicago Bulls and the Cleveland Cavaliers, among others.
Twenty-two Mud Hens and four Toledo Walleye employees are former interns. Virtually every single ticket employee with each team is a former intern, according to Griffin. Interns have also landed jobs as the public relations director for the Detroit Tigers, general manager of the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs Triple-A baseball team and online marketing manager for the Mud Hens.
“It’s a two-way street,” Levering said. “I think interns really do help get things done for the Mud Hens organization and they give the interns the responsibility to get important tasks accomplished. I think the program works so well because the interns want to get the most out of the experience. We work hard so that we can learn and contribute as best we can.”

It’s never too late to be a success, or too early.
Harland David Sanders, better known as Col. Sanders, was an American entrepreneur who founded Kentucky Fried Chicken.
As a young man, Sanders was a steamboat pilot, insurance salesman, railroad fireman, farmer and, as it turned out, a chef.
He opened a service station in Corbin, Ky., when he was in his 40s, where he cooked chicken dishes for his customers, even though it was a gas station and not a restaurant.
The popularity of his “Kentucky fried chicken” grew and, eventually, he opened an eatery that seated 140 people. He spent the next 10 years developing his unique and much faster method of cooking chicken in a pressure fryer rather than in a pan.
In 1935, Sanders received an honorary title of “Kentucky Colonel” and began sporting a white goatee and dressing in his now-famous Southern gentlemen outfit of a white jacket and a black string bow tie. Finally, after years of disappointment, he was on his way.
But wait, not so fast.
The construction of Interstate 75 bypassed the colonel’s restaurant and, with customer traffic reduced, he resorted to desperate measures. Most people would have given up.
Sanders, now 65, began spending his Social Security checks to fund visits by potential franchisees. It worked. In 1964, the colonel sold Kentucky Fried Chicken for $2 million.
Here’s another example of unexpected success.
Ever play that game where you slide a quarter across the table and you earn a point if it hangs over the edge without falling off? This was a simple game, born out of boredom by Matt Balick and Justin Lewis, two young entrepreneurs from Highland Park, Ill.

With some help from their parents, the 8-year-olds turned those little plastic thingies that come in the middle of a pizza into a business.

Flip-Itz became sports characters, animals, aliens and more, available in bright neon, see-through and glow in the dark designs.

Flip-Itz captured the attention and imagination of kids young and old, and soon was packaged with an array of games played with the three-legged jumping characters.

One more example:

After 21 years in education, this man was familiar with children’s fondness for candy. At age 45, the teacher-turned- entrepreneur opened a small soda and candy shop where he made a distinctive English toffee treat.

Business was brusque and, by 1931, the ex-teacher had moved to a bigger store where he was eventually forced into mass production to keep up with demand. Though his one-ounce toffee bar became world famous, the inventor never suffered the caloric consequences of eating too much of his own product. A small, spry man, he sometimes weighed less than 105 pounds. His name was Lawrence S. Heath.

Listen to Limelight America on Fox Sports Radio 1230 WCWA, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday 5 p.m. to 6 pm and online at www.limelightamerica.com. You can e-mail Shaw at mds@limelightamerica.com.

Be careful what you say because it just may end up on the Web. This is a phrase could save your dignity, career, marriage, etc. (Insert additional nouns here). Every 12-year old with a cell phone can capture video. And no doubt, if it catches you doing something stupid, it will end up on YouTube.

It is the double edge of the Internet. It may be fun to chat with friends, and watch funny videos of goofy people performing even goofier stunts. But what are the chances that goofy guy could be you?

Five years ago a former Youngstown TV Anchor found herself making headlines after pictures of her showed up on the Web. The pics were not headshots. The photos showed her topless during a wet T-shirt contest she took part in while on vacation. If a woman who has a camera on her every day can slip up, it is obvious anyone can.

There once was a time when news outlets were the watchdogs of society. Now journalists share that power with anyone with a computer. You would think this would stop people from doing outrageous things in public, but it apparently has not. It is evident in some of the scandals YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and other social networking Web sites have started and uncovered. The recent violence in Iran following the presidential election there has been aided by Twitter and video blogging. According to CNN, constant new updates continued out of Tehran despite an attempted media blackout.

We’ve seen similar internet fueled scandals erupt here in Toledo in recent weeks. First Toledo police officers were caught on tape allegedly beating a teen. Then the Mayor was captured on video calling a kid “fatso” and other similar (and not so nice) terms. No one is safe. It is all the more reason to watch your P’s and Q’s.

I went to college to become a television journalist. You don’t need a degree to post anything on the Internet. According to YouTube’s press section, the Web site hosts hundreds of millions of videos. It is hard to keep an accurate county because ten hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute. If that is the case, what are the chances some of that video might feature you?

Heather Miller is a reporter for FOX Toledo.

It seems President Barack Obama just can’t get enough control, not even after his well-publicized takeover of General Motors (a.k.a. Government Motors), as well as his blatant string-pulling in the board rooms of the nation’s largest banks (Bank of America, Goldman Sachs). Now, our commander in chief is pushing for even more (official) oversight of the financial system, and greater control of the media.
In case you missed it, ABC recently announced that on June 24 the network will relinquish control of programming to the Obama Administration so it can make its case, without debate, for government-run health care to the American people.
What we simply fail to understand is why the media is so enamored with Obama. We admit we’re just money managers from Toledo; how can we be expected to grasp the greatness of this man? But in all sincerity, will someone please explain to us why this guy is so special in the media’s eyes? What has he done, in his entire lifetime, to be deserving of such attention, praise and adoration?
In the meantime, we continue to watch as Obama takes this country in an entirely new direction. If you think I’m going to cry socialism, think again. No, Obama seems more set on achieving a different goal under the precepts of socialism: fascism.
Consider the following excerpt from Sheldon Richman’s article on “Fascism from The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics,” which begins with Richman’s simple statement that “fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer.”
“Under fascism, the state, through official cartels, controlled all aspects of manufacturing, commerce, finance and agriculture. Planning boards set product lines, production levels, prices, wages, working conditions and the size of firms. Licensing was ubiquitous; no economic activity could be undertaken without government permission. Levels of consumption were dictated by the state, and “excess” incomes had to be surrendered as taxes or “loans.”… To maintain high employment and minimize popular discontent, fascist governments also undertook massive public works projects financed by steep taxes, borrowing and fiat money creation.”
While the idea of Obama as a fascist is obviously one for debate, what we know is this: America’s foreign relations are suffering, especially since Obama took office. As an example, the world’s largest emerging markets, so-called BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) and others are seriously considering shifting away from dollar-denominated reserves. Representatives for many of these countries are meeting in Yekaterinburg, Russia, to discuss just such a move. U.S. officials were denied their request to attend these meetings, even as observers.
By now you may have inferred that, personally, we do not agree with Obama’s policies. However, frequent readers will remember that in previous blogs we have stressed the need to leave political preferences aside when it comes to managing money. So while we disagree with Obama’s policies, we can’t help but love the opportunities that he is creating to profit.
Like former President Jimmy Carter, Obama is digging himself into a hole. We know exactly where his policies lead, and we know how we will get out of this, and we know that as a result of his policies, many Americans will suffer. However, knowing the direction he will take means that we can make a lot of money from these policies, just like we made money under Carter. However, those people who aren’t prepared will undoubtedly suffer, just like they did under Carter.
Shifting gears, we want to talk a little bit about the Toledo mayoral and city council elections. Over the past 20 years or so, this city has worked its way into a major rut. This election may well decide the city’s fate. For that reason, these elections are perhaps the most important, and probably the most-watched local elections of this generation.
Due to the importance of this coming election, we want to hear the thoughts of our readers: What would you do to change Toledo? What we’re looking for is not just minor issues like repealing the garbage tax. Instead, we want ideas that could be used to formulate a comprehensive plan to turn this city around. For example, it is widely recognized that we need to attract businesses, residents and money within the city limits, especially Downtown. How could we make Toledo more business-friendly, safer, more fiscally sound, etc?

What we would like for you to do is to e-mail us your ideas. Our hope being that, with the help of Toledo’s residents, our new leaders after this election can put together a plan to revive this city and return it to its former glory. E-mail Dock2@TreeceInvestments.com.

Dock David Treece is a stockbroker licensed with FINRA. He works for Treece Financial Services Corp., www.TreeceInvestments.com. The above information is the express opinion of Dock David Treece and should not be used without outside verification.