Republicans hope voters’ fears about jobs and the economy will help them reclaim a handful of Mountain West and Southern states that were crucial to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential win.

Obama’s campaign appears just as determined to hold those states next year and force Republicans to spend precious resources defending places they’d like to consider safe.

Every four years, political operatives fixate on the dozen or so states that always decide close presidential elections.

This time, Obama hopes to play on as big an Electoral College map as possible, and his team insists it will compete for the first time in traditionally solid Republican states like Georgia and Arizona. Republicans, conversely, want a compact map, hoping for wins in big, always-contested states such as Florida and Ohio, which were key to George W. Bush’s victories in 2000 and 2004.

It takes 270 electoral votes to win the White House.

Obama won it in 2008 partly by prevailing in states such as Virginia and Indiana that had not voted for a Democratic presidential nominee in decades.

But with unemployment now at 9.1 percent, and the economic recovery slowed, many Republicans argue that Obama’s chances are notably worse in those states, as well as others in the vote-rich, economically struggling Midwest. They say they can win some, if not all, of three crucial battleground states _ Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania _ along with some smaller states that Obama carried, including New Mexico, Nevada and Iowa. Republicans thrived in all those states in the 2010 midterm elections, and GOP strategists hope the momentum will carry into next year, thwarting Obama.

“The map is very difficult for him,” said Rick Wiley, political director of the Republican National Committee.

Obama’s campaign sees it differently.

“We are going to take the old map and expand it,” Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said in an interview at his office in Chicago. He argues that demographic trends are moving in Democrats’ direction in several states, which could help them hold Virginia and North Carolina and possibly win Georgia and Arizona.

“Changes in the composition of the electorate” make the states attractive, said David Axelrod, Obama’s top political adviser.

The president carried North Carolina and Virginia in 2008 thanks largely to black voters, Latinos, college-educated workers and non-natives who are more open to Democrats than are many Southern-born whites. Those population groups are expanding in the two states, his backers say. The same is true in Georgia, a GOP-controlled state that hasn’t been strongly contested in many years.

Obama insiders say he could have won Arizona in 2008 if John McCain, the state’s senior senator, had not been the GOP nominee. They argue that with Arizona’s Hispanic population still growing, Obama’s chances are better this time because that group leans toward Democrats.

Many Republicans scoff at such talk. But they have their own problems, starting with the task of taking back most or all of the nine swing-voting states that Obama won in 2008 and that Democrat John Kerry lost in 2004: Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico.

“There are a million different maps,” Wiley said. But the GOP’s priorities start with those nine “top tier” states.

To oust Obama, the Republicans don’t need to win all nine.

If Obama keeps his grip on the Western states of Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico, and the Republican nominee wins the other six of the nine swing states, the GOP would reclaim the White House with 271 electoral votes. That’s assuming other states vote the same as in 2008.

Obama’s situation becomes more perilous if he loses a state that Democrats have won for several elections, although often narrowly. That might include Pennsylvania, Michigan or Wisconsin, a state that Democrats took by a whisker in 2000 and 2004. Obama handily won it in 2008.

Republican governors replaced Democrats last year in all those states, along with Iowa, New Mexico and Ohio.

In these battlegrounds with newly elected Republican governors, Wiley said, “you have that infrastructure that doesn’t get dismantled, and it’s a huge, huge advantage” to the 2012 GOP presidential nominee.

Not so, Democrats say.

New GOP governors such as Scott Walker in Wisconsin, John Kasich in Ohio and Rick Scott in Florida have clashed bitterly with various groups, especially unions. The result could be a fired-up Democratic base turning out heavily for Obama.

Top Democrats say it’s unlikely that Obama will lose Pennsylvania, which always draws huge attention but has voted Democratic in the last five presidential elections.

Privately, those close to Obama worry more about Ohio, which has 18 electoral votes. Its unemployment rate, 8.6 percent, is slightly below the national average. But its population growth is almost flat, and it doesn’t have the large numbers of unregistered minorities and young adults that the Obama campaign is targeting in other states.

No Republican has been elected president without carrying Ohio.

Of the nine targeted states that Kerry lost, Obama needs to hold only Ohio and one small state _ say, Nevada or Iowa _ to win re-election, assuming the other states vote the same as in 2008.

Florida, with 29 electoral votes, is even more vital.

If Obama holds no other state but Florida among the top-tier nine, he wins a second term.

Aubrey Jewett, a University of Central Florida political scientist, said the Sunshine State seems destined to play its toss-up role again.

“The economy is still not doing well here,” Jewett said, “and Obama is not very popular.” But Scott, the new Republican governor, “is extremely unpopular right now,” he said, and that could undo the GOP presidential nominee in a razor-thin race.

Finally, several plausible map scenarios would leave the 2012 presidential nominees in a 269-269 electoral tie. That would hand the decision to the U.S. House, where Republicans expect to hold their majority even if they suffer some losses.

The Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority announced June 20 that it has issued an $8 million taxable bond within the Northwest Ohio Bond Fund Program to Materion Brush Inc. for expansion of its manufacturing operations in Elmore, Ohio.

Materion Brush, formerly know as Brush Wellman Inc., used the bonds to acquire a 125,400 square-foot facility and to purchase new machinery and equipment for it.

The 10-year bond, which closed at the end of April 2011, has a fixed interest rate of 4.9 percent, according to the Port Authority.

Materion Brush, a wholly-owned entity of Materion Corporation based in Cleveland, is a fully integrated supplier of engineered beryllium materials to growing international markets, according to the press release from the Port Authority.

Officials from the company could not be reached for comment about the bonds or the project financed by them.

The company’s flagship manufacturing facility is located on a 480-acre site in Harris Township outside Elmore in Ottawa County. The plant presently employs about 600 employees in the 865,000 square-foot facility that began operations in 1953.

Brush Engineered Materials Inc. announced March 8 that it officially changed its name to Materion Corporation. The company’s common stock now trades under the symbol MTRN on the New York Stock Exchange.

Materion supplies highly-engineered, advanced materials to leading and dynamic technology companies around the globe. It’s the only beryllium producer in the world taking beryllium from the mine through the mill, according to the company.

Materion serves customers in more than 50 countries in North America, Europe and Asia and employs approximately 2,500 people worldwide according to their website, www.materion.com.

The Northwest Ohio Bond Fund finances projects from $1 to $8 million with fixed interest rates for the full term of the bonds. A typical transaction consists of 90 percent financing and 10 percent equity, according to the Port Authority.

The Northwest Ohio Bond Fund provides companies with access to the national capital market as if they were BBB Investment Grade companies. Its portfolio of projects includes BAX Global, Nagel Trucking, Dana, Owens Corning, Xunlight, and the Toledo School for the Arts.

“Since the inception in 1988, the Port Authority has issued more than $215 million in financing from the Northwest Ohio Bond Fund,” Paul Toth, president and CEO of the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority, stated in the press release.

“Over the 23-year history of the bond fund, no bonds have ever been in default and the program has never had to use the reserve funds to cure a default,” Toth stated.

The Port Authority recently increased the Bond Fund Program Reserve by depositing over $12 million in additional reserve funds through a partnership with the Ohio Manufacturers Association, Lucas County and a federal grant through the U.S. Department of Energy.

The Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority was the first port authority in Ohio to create a bond fund, according to the press release.

Port authorities were originally formed to oversee maritime and airport assets, but they have evolved into economic development agencies that fund job-generating projects. Port authorities are empowered by state law to play a role in forming public-private partnerships to finance business growth and economic development in Ohio.

The Northwest Ohio Bond Fund is one of only three bond funds in the state rated by Standard & Poor’s. It was given a BBB rating with stable outlook in August 2010, according to the press release.

The Port Authority has developed a national reputation for innovative business financing by assisting more than 300 economic development projects representing a total investment of more than $1 billion while helping to create and retain more than 16,000 jobs, according to the press release.

A Kentucky man is facing felony drug charges after Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers seized 240 Lortab tablets valued at $720, 89 Lorcet tablets valued at $445, 120 Oxycodone tablets valued at $3,000 and an additional $3,000 in cash during a traffic stop on June 17 in Wood County.

According to a release from the Ohio State Highway Patrol, Troopers stopped a 2011 Nissan Altima, with Kentucky registration, southbound on Interstate 75, near milepost 192, in Perrysburg Township for a speed violation at approximately 12:27 a.m. Criminal indicators were observed and a Hancock County Sheriff’s Office drug-sniffing canine alerted to the vehicle. A probable cause search revealed the illegal prescription medication and cash.

The passenger Simyon J. Minion, of Frankfort, Ky., was charged with three counts of trafficking in drugs and three counts of possession of drugs.

Perrysburg Municipal Court records list fourth degree felony, third degree felony and second degree felony drug abuse charges with a bond listed of $35,000 no ten percent on the fourth degree felony against Minion. Fourth degree felony, third degree felony and second degree trafficking in drug charges are also listed as well as one fourth degree misdemeanor charge of possession of drug paraphernalia. An additional $1,500 bond was set for that charge.

Minion is scheduled for a pre-trial hearing June 21 at 9:30 a.m. He is currently being held at the Wood County Jail. If convicted on all charges he faces up to 28 years in prison and a maximum fine of $55,000.

Federal regulators have been working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nation’s aging reactors operating within safety standards by repeatedly weakening those standards, or simply failing to enforce them, an investigation by The Associated Press has found.

Time after time, officials at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission have decided that original regulations were too strict, arguing that safety margins could be eased without peril, according to records and interviews.

The result? Rising fears that these accommodations by the NRC are significantly undermining safety _ and inching the reactors closer to an accident that could harm the public and jeopardize the future of nuclear power in the United States.

Examples abound. When valves leaked, more leakage was allowed _ up to 20 times the original limit. When rampant cracking caused radioactive leaks from steam generator tubing, an easier test of the tubes was devised, so plants could meet standards.

Failed cables. Busted seals. Broken nozzles, clogged screens, cracked concrete, dented containers, corroded metals and rusty underground pipes — all of these and thousands of other problems linked to aging were uncovered in the AP’s yearlong investigation. And all of them could escalate dangers in the event of an accident.

Yet despite the many problems linked to aging, not a single official body in government or industry has studied the overall frequency and potential impact on safety of such breakdowns in recent years, even as the NRC has extended the licenses of dozens of reactors.

Industry and government officials defend their actions, and insist that no chances are being taken. But the AP investigation found that with billions of dollars and 19 percent of America’s electricity supply at stake, a cozy relationship prevails between the industry and its regulator, the NRC.

Records show a recurring pattern: Reactor parts or systems fall out of compliance with the rules. Studies are conducted by the industry and government, and all agree that existing standards are “unnecessarily conservative.”

Regulations are loosened, and the reactors are back in compliance.

“That’s what they say for everything, whether that’s the case or not,” said Demetrios Basdekas, an engineer retired from the NRC. “Every time you turn around, they say ‘We have all this built-in conservatism.”’

The ongoing crisis at the stricken, decades-old Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear facility in Japan has focused attention on the safety of plants elsewhere in the world; it prompted the NRC to look at U.S. reactors, and a report is due in July.

But the factor of aging goes far beyond the issues posed by the disaster at Fukushima.

Commercial nuclear reactors in the United States were designed and licensed for 40 years. When the first ones were being built in the 1960s and 1970s, it was expected that they would be replaced with improved models long before those licenses expired.

But that never happened. The 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, massive cost overruns, crushing debt and high interest rates ended new construction proposals for several decades.

Instead, 66 of the 104 operating units have been relicensed for 20 more years, mostly with scant public attention. Renewal applications are under review for 16 other reactors.

By the standards in place when they were built, these reactors are old and getting older. As of today, 82 reactors are more than 25 years old.

The AP found proof that aging reactors have been allowed to run less safely to prolong operations. As equipment has approached or violated safety limits, regulators and reactor operators have loosened or bent the rules.

Last year, the NRC weakened the safety margin for acceptable radiation damage to reactor vessels — for a second time. The standard is based on a measurement known as a reactor vessel’s “reference temperature,” which predicts when it will become dangerously brittle and vulnerable to failure. Over the years, many plants have violated or come close to violating the standard.

As a result, the minimum standard was relaxed first by raising the reference temperature 50 percent, and then 78 percent above the original — even though a broken vessel could spill its radioactive contents into the environment.

“We’ve seen the pattern,” said nuclear safety scientist Dana Powers, who works for Sandia National Laboratories and also sits on an NRC advisory committee. “They’re … trying to get more and more out of these plants.”

Sharpening the Pencil

The AP collected and analyzed government and industry documents — including some never-before released. The examination looked at both types of reactor designs: pressurized water units that keep radioactivity confined to the reactor building and the less common boiling water types like those at Fukushima, which send radioactive water away from the reactor to drive electricity-generating turbines.

Tens of thousands of pages of government and industry studies were examined, along with test results, inspection reports and regulatory policy statements filed over four decades. Interviews were conducted with scores of managers, regulators, engineers, scientists, whistleblowers, activists, and residents living near the reactors, which are located at 65 sites, mostly in the East and Midwest.

AP reporting teams toured some of the oldest reactors — the unit here at Oyster Creek, near the Atlantic coast 50 miles east of Philadelphia, and two units at Indian Point, 25 miles north of New York City along the Hudson River.

Called “Oyster Creak” by some critics because of its aging problems, this boiling water reactor began running in 1969 and ranks as the country’s oldest operating commercial nuclear power plant. Its license was extended in 2009 until 2029, though utility officials announced in December that they’ll shut the reactor 10 years earlier rather than build state-ordered cooling towers. Applications to extend the lives of pressurized water units 2 and 3 at Indian Point, each more than 36 years old, are under review by the NRC.

Unprompted, several nuclear engineers and former regulators used nearly identical terminology to describe how industry and government research has frequently justified loosening safety standards to keep aging reactors within operating rules. They call the approach “sharpening the pencil” or “pencil engineering” — the fudging of calculations and assumptions to yield answers that enable plants with deteriorating conditions to remain in compliance.

“Many utilities are doing that sort of thing,” said engineer Richard T. Lahey Jr., who used to design nuclear safety systems for General Electric Co., which makes boiling water reactors. “I think we need nuclear power, but we can’t compromise on safety. I think the vulnerability is on these older plants.”

Added Paul Blanch, an engineer who left the industry over safety issues but later returned to work on solving them: “It’s a philosophical position that (federal regulators) take that’s driven by the industry and by the economics: What do we need to do to let those plants continue to operate? They somehow sharpen their pencil to either modify their interpretation of the regulations, or they modify their assumptions in the risk assessment.”

In public pronouncements, industry and government say aging is well under control. “I see an effort on the part of this agency to always make sure that we’re doing the right things for safety. I’m not sure that I see a pattern of staff simply doing things because there’s an interest to reduce requirements “that’s certainly not the case,” NRC chairman Gregory Jaczko said in an interview at agency headquarters in Rockville, Md.

Neil Wilmshurst, director of plant technology for the industry’s Electric Power Research Institute, acknowledged that the industry and NRC often collaborate on research that supports rule changes. But he maintained that there’s “no kind of misplaced alliance … to get the right answer.”

Yet agency staff, plant operators, and consultants paint a different picture in little-known reports, where evidence of industry-wide problems is striking:

The AP reviewed 226 preliminary notifications — alerts on emerging safety problems — issued by the NRC since 2005. Wear and tear in the form of clogged lines, cracked parts, leaky seals, rust and other deterioration contributed to at least 26 alerts over the past six years. Other notifications lack detail, but aging also was a probable factor in 113 additional alerts. That would constitute up to 62 percent in all. For example, the 39-year-old Palisades reactor in Michigan shut Jan. 22 when an electrical cable failed, a fuse blew, and a valve stuck shut, expelling steam with low levels of radioactive tritium into the air outside. And a one-inch crack in a valve weld aborted a restart in February at the LaSalle site west of Chicago.

One 2008 NRC report blamed 70 percent of potentially serious safety problems on “degraded conditions.” Some involve human factors, but many stem from equipment wear, including cracked nozzles, loose paint, electrical problems, or offline cooling components.

Confronted with worn parts that need maintenance, the industry has repeatedly requested — and regulators have often allowed –inspections and repairs to be delayed for months until scheduled refueling outages. Again and again, problems worsened before they were fixed. Postponed inspections inside a steam generator at Indian Point allowed tubing to burst, leading to a radioactive release in 2000. Two years later, cracking was allowed to grow so bad in nozzles on the reactor vessel at the Davis-Besse plant near Toledo, Ohio, that it came within two months of a possible breach, the NRC acknowledged in a report. A hole in the vessel could release radiation into the environment, yet inspections failed to catch the same problem on the replacement vessel head until more nozzles were found to be cracked last year.

Time Crumbles Things

Nuclear plants are fundamentally no more immune to the incremental abuses of time than our cars or homes: Metals grow weak and rusty, concrete crumbles, paint peels, crud accumulates. Big components like 17-story-tall concrete containment buildings or 800-ton reactor vessels are all but impossible to replace. Smaller parts and systems can be swapped, but still pose risks as a result of weak maintenance and lax regulation or hard-to-predict failures. Even when things are fixed or replaced, the same parts or others nearby often fail later.

Even mundane deterioration at a reactor can carry harsh consequences.

For example, peeling paint and debris can be swept toward pumps that circulate cooling water in a reactor accident. A properly functioning containment building is needed to create air pressure that helps clear those pumps. The fact is, a containment building could fail in a severe accident. Yet the NRC has allowed operators to make safety calculations that assume containment buildings will hold.

In a 2009 letter, Mario V. Bonaca, then-chairman of the NRC’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, warned that this approach represents “a decrease in the safety margin” and makes a fuel-melting accident more likely. At Fukushima, hydrogen explosions blew apart two of six containment buildings, allowing radiation to escape from overheated fuel in storage pools.

Many photos in NRC archives — some released in response to AP requests under the federal Freedom of Information Act — show rust accumulated in a thick crust or paint peeling in long sheets on untended equipment at nuclear plants. Other breakdowns can’t be observed or predicted, even with sophisticated analytic methods — especially for buried, hidden or hard-to-reach parts.

Industry and government reports are packed with troubling evidence of unrelenting wear — and repeated regulatory compromises.

Four areas stand out:

BRITTLE VESSELS: For years, operators have rearranged fuel rods to limit gradual radiation damage to the steel vessels protecting the core and to keep them strong enough to meet safety standards.

It hasn’t worked well enough.

Even with last year’s weakening of the safety margins, engineers and metal scientists say some plants may be forced to close over these concerns before their licenses run out — unless, of course, new compromises with regulations are made. But the stakes are high: A vessel damaged by radiation becomes brittle and prone to cracking in certain accidents at pressurized water reactors, potentially releasing its radioactive contents into the environment.

LEAKY VALVES: Operators have repeatedly violated leakage standards for valves designed to bottle up radioactive steam in the event of earthquakes and other accidents at boiling water reactors.

Many plants have found they could not adhere to the general standard allowing each of these parts — known as main steam isolation valves — to leak at a rate of no more than 11.5 cubic feet per hour. In 1999, the NRC decided to permit individual plants to seek amendments of up to 200 cubic feet per hour for all four steam valves combined.

But plants keep violating even those higher limits. For example, in 2007, Hatch Unit 2, in Baxley, Ga., reported combined leakage of 574 cubic feet per hour.

CRACKED TUBING: The industry has long known of cracking in steel alloy tubing originally used in the steam generators of pressurized water reactors. Ruptures were rampant in these tubes containing radioactive coolant; in 1993 alone, there were seven. Even today, as many as 18 reactors are still running on old generators.

Problems can arise even in a newer metal alloy, according to a report of a 2008 industry-government workshop.

CORRODED PIPING: Nuclear operators have failed to stop an epidemic of leaks in pipes and other underground equipment in damp settings. The country’s nuclear sites have suffered more than 400 accidental radioactive leaks during their history, the activist Union of Concerned Scientists reported in September.

Plant operators have been drilling monitoring wells and patching hidden or buried piping and other equipment for several years to control an escalating outbreak.

Here, too, they have failed. Between 2000 and 2009, the annual number of leaks from underground piping shot up fivefold, according to an internal industry document obtained and analyzed by the AP.

Jeff Donn AP National Investigative Team

Goodwill Industries of Northwest Ohio will celebrate the Halloween season by scaring up a new Toledo tradition.
“The Ghoulwill Ball” will take place at the Heather Downs Country Club on Oct. 28 and will feature music, food, a casket raffle, a cash bar and other surprises. The inaugural theme will be “Resurrecting the ’20’s.”
“We wanted to come up with a signature event that happens every year that people look forward to,” Director of Development and Marketing Mark Harris said. “We wanted to have a ball that would be affordable to most everybody to come and have a really good time while benefiting Goodwill and helping put people to work.”
Goodwill serves 13 counties in Northwest Ohio. Their program selling clothing donations back to the public gives back 84 percent of proceeds to help the less fortunate in part by improve employment numbers.
“Unlike other organizations we don’t have tax levies and we don’t go to you,” Harris said. “We ask you to donate your used clothes. We sell those and use those funds from the stores to provide job training, job placement and create job streams to individuals with barriers to employment so that they don’t have to be on public assistance.”
The idea for the Ghoulwill Ball in Toledo began originally in Texas six years ago.  The Goodwill in Austin designed the original Ghoulwill Ball, creating a Halloween celebration which would take place annually in a haunted hotel.
“It’s grown to be a huge social event within the community and that’s the kind of thing we want,” Harris said.
“When we have an event like this, you are really helping put people in Northwest Ohio to work and that’s what it’s all about.”
Although the Heather Downs Country Club is not a hotel, Harris said it was the exact type of facility they were looking for. The Club will also provide the food through its catering service, Catering by Scott.
“The whole place will be decked out to look like an old abandoned haunted mansion,” Harris said. “It’s just a beautiful, old type of building. “We thought ‘This is the feel. It looks like a mansion from the 1920s,’ which was when it was built.”
Harris has also suggested adding to the fun by recommending that the visitors can find their costumes at Goodwill.
“We encourage people to shop at their local Goodwill, put together the costumes with stuff they find there,” Harris said. “You don’t have to but it makes it even more fun. Again, everything that you spend there helps put people to work.”
Tickets for the Ghoulwill Ball will cost $50 for a single ticket, but will cost $45 each if you buy two or $40 each for a group of four or more.
“There will be a whole story built around the thing,” Harris said. “There will be dancing, food is included, there’s a cash bar and all kinds of surprises that happen. We want it to become something people really look forward to.”
For more information on the event, call (419) 255-0070 or email Mark Harris (mharris@goodwillnwohio.org) or Sheila Miano (smiano@goodwillnwohio.org).

Twitter’s great as a listening tool to discover great ideas from others, and as a talking tool to share your message efficiently. How do you focus your message? Use Twitter hashtags like a headline. With only 140 characters, a hashtag summarizes your idea.
Hashtags filter your message for curators with a simple pound (#) symbol. Use #hashtags like #webwriting, #nptalk, #startrek, #tcot, #detroit to focus followers  on a topic that they might be tracking. Hashtags are great to mark keywords or identify your ideas for likeminded people. Use the hashtag symbol before relevant keywords to categorize those Tweets so that they’ll show more easily in Twitter’s powerful search.
Clicking on a hashtagged word in any message shows you all other Tweets in that category.
Hashtags can occur anywhere in your message, but are better used toward the beginning of a tweet. Some text-shorteners (Twitzer) will cut off hashtags near the end of tweets.
Don’t just use hashtags willy-nilly. That’s like #spam #with #hashtags.
Don’t over-hashtag a single Tweet. Limit yourself to two or three hashtags per Tweet.
Use a broad tag with a narrower tag. #baseball will help you eventually join the conversation on #reds
Use only relevant hashtags. Don’t mashtag and litter a Twitter status with an epic array of unnecessary tags. You’re limited to 140 characters. Your followers will ultimately decide if you are the preferred curator of this topic.
Apply hashtags to any search or conversation effort on Twitter. What’s a practical application of a hashtag. Say that you’re a charity trying to get the word out about your nonprofit or fundraising effort.
Use popular Twitter #nonprofit hashtags, create your own branded hashtags (#mycharity), double-up on hashtags (#nonprofits and #nptech), and localize (tell ’em where your located — #toledo).
Replace the word nonprofit in a tweet with #nonprofit.
Build your tribe with #FollowFriday. Highlight other nonprofit organizations and show appreciation to contributors.
Follow #fundraising trends including #nptech
Ready for an event? Set your hashtags (#[event] and [campaign]). Make your group aware of the hashtags and consistently use them. Make sure that you produce a few tweets that explain what your hashtag means. Example: Toledo’s #exclaim http://bit.ly/22XXaa is a yearly music festival — join us #nonprofit.
Don’t forget to localize your event: #exclaim2011 set for #toledo
#volunteer[s] follow the call — call them with the hashtag.
Discover a Twitter chat,
build innovation and creativity with other nonprofit teams. Find groups of people crowdsourcing ideas by attending a Twitter chat (all times Eastern). Just follow the hashtag at the correct time.
#smNPchat — small nonprofits (Host is Pamela Grow; every other Friday, noon-1 p.m.)
#nptalk — nonprofit talk (Host is Nicole Harrison; every Wednesday, 3-4 p.m.)
#ynpchat – young nonprofit professionals (Host: Rosetta Thurman; first Wednesday of each month, 4-5 p.m.)
Twitter is like the diet strategy that calls for eating smaller meals more often. Use Twitter, hashtags and Twitter search to find and share your passion with others. If you find any fantastically fruitful hashtags share them with me at @kcesarz or @threadgroup.

Kevin Cesarz is director of social media and Web project manager at Thread Marketing Group in Maumee (www.threadgroup.com). Read more about social media and content strategy on his blog i scream social (klcesarz.wordpress.com).

“I just heard like a gunshot in the back of my right ear and I just fell to the ground.”
That was the last memory that Toledo junior safety Jermaine Robinson had of himself on a football field after rupturing his right Achilles tendon during a 34-32 loss to Florida International in the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl in December.
“I went to the middle of the field running just a normal zone read and planted,” Robinson said. “It sounded like somebody shot me, there was just a pop. I fell to the ground and touched my foot and it was moving. It didn’t hurt at all. I got up and started walking and my ankle just gave out and I knew it was something bad.”
Robinson had surgery two days later and has been rehabbing ever since. He wore a cast on his foot until March and was forced to use crutches. His recovery time is an estimated six to eight months.
As for his status in 2011, Robinson hopes to be back for the Sept. 1 opener when Toledo hosts New Hampshire in the Glass Bowl. Unfortunately, it is still unknown whether or not he will be able to return by that time.
“I went to see the doctor a few weeks ago and he said he just wants to see me before camp,” Robinson said. “That hopefully is the last one where he just lets me go ahead and puts it in the trainer’s hands. Hopefully, I can make [the opener].”
“I think he is coming along great,” Toledo head coach Tim Beckman said. “I would say that he is ahead of schedule, but we haven’t been able to see him since May 1 working out.”

Robinson said he has been working out at full capacity — including sprinting, backpedaling, cutting and even running a 40-yard dash with a time of 4.66.
“I’m just building it up each day as much as the pain will let me,” Robinson said. “I haven’t had much pain since last month.”
A speedy return is now even more important. Isaiah Ballard, who started all 13  games last season at the “star” position (linebacker/safety hybrid), was kicked off the team on May 25 after being charged with felonious assault, one day after reserve lineman Damien McIntosh was removed for the same offense. Ballard finished third on the team in tackles (83) behind only Archie Donald (146) and Dan Molls (143), who both finished in the top nine in the nation.
“Damien and Isaiah are great players,” Robinson said. “Damien was starting to have a good spring. He’s big, athletic and a good dude. Isaiah, everybody knows he was an All-Conference player and he could have even been All-American.
“Both of them were really good teammates. We had a lot of fun with them. I’ve known them since my freshman year. Sometimes you just make the wrong decisions.”
If Robinson is unable to return, senior Diauntae Morrow will take his place in the starting lineup. The former Iowa transfer played in every game last season.
Another option could be junior safety Vladimir Emilien, who is awaiting word from the NCAA on his eligibility for the upcoming season.
Despite the depth, Robinson is determined to make it back to the lineup for the beginning of the season to play in two tough rematches looming in weeks two and three. The Rockets travel to Ohio State on Sept. 10 before hosting Boise State on Sept. 16. The Buckeyes shut out Toledo 38-0 in Cleveland in 2009 while the Broncos rolled to a 57-14 victory over UT on its home turf last season.
“It’s a good thing for the program and the City of Toledo,” Robinson said. “Since my freshman year we have been playing BCS schools. It can be a big momentum builder and we can really do something special if we can go to Ohio State and beat them and then come home to Boise. You don’t see too many teams in the MAC that can bring a top-10 or even top-5 team for a home game on ESPN.”
Robinson and the Rockets should be catching Ohio State at the right time after head coach Jim Tressel was forced to resign in the midst of NCAA violations. Starting quarterback Terrelle Pryor, who set career-highs in passing (262) and rushing (111) yards while totaling four touchdowns against the Rockets, had been suspended for the first five games of the season for violations he committed, but has since left the team and declared for the NFL Supplemental Draft. Others suspended for the Toledo game include starting running back Daniel “Boom” Herron, wide receiver DeVier Posey, offensive lineman Mike Adams and defensive end Solomon Thomas.
“An Ohio State recruit has players behind them that are just as good. We have to go in there like Pryor, Tressel and the rest were still there,” Robinson said.

A chorus of critics across the political spectrum is rising up against plans by Ohio Republicans to privatize day-to-day operations of the state lottery and expand its reach into slots-like video lottery terminals at horse tracks.

June 17, the American Policy Roundtable and the Ohio Roundtable condemned an agreement between the state and Rock Ohio Caesars, the operator of planned casinos in Cleveland and Cincinnati. The conservative policy groups, which opposed the 2009 constitutional amendment that authorized four casinos in Ohio, said they anticipate multiple lawsuits challenging GOP Gov. John Kasich’s deal with the developer as well as lottery privatization.

“Of course we’re going to litigate,” said David Zanotti, CEO of the American Policy Roundtable, “and so are a bunch of other people. You can rest assured what they’re opening up is a Pandora’s box of lawsuits that is going to go on and on and on — because you can’t go about trying to make fixes the wrong way. You can’t do what they’re trying to do.”

Pointing to the Ohio Constitution and other provisions of state law, the groups say the lottery must be run by a state agency, its proceeds can’t be diverted from education, casino fees can’t be adjusted without a constitutional amendment, the governor doesn’t have the authority to unilaterally authorize VLTs at tracks and a tax on businesses’ commercial activity can’t be applied differently to various businesses or industries.

Zanotti accused Kasich of backroom dealing that’s thwarting the public, describing it as “some amazing political corruption.”

Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols defended the governor’s efforts as striving to secure better deals from casinos for Ohio taxpayers.

“We don’t comment on litigation,” he said. “Regardless, the governor is very pleased with the deal reached with Rock, with the additional $110 million coming to the state, and with the significant number of jobs and substantial economic development provided for under the agreement.”

The deal the governor struck dictates how the state’s commercial activities tax will apply to casino revenues and laid out rules for slots-style VLTs at Ohio’s seven horse tracks. In exchange, the company agreed to pay an additional $110 million to the state over the next 10 years and increase its investments in the state from $500 million to $900 million. VLT licenses would cost $50 million, with revenues taxed at 33.5 percent.

Gambling opponents aren’t the only ones disparaging changes proposed for the Cleveland-based Ohio Lottery Commission.

Innovation Ohio, a think tank led by former Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland’s chief policy adviser, said the VLT proposal Strickland laid out two years ago was a better financial deal for Ohioans than what Kasich and ROC CEO Dan Gilbert have agreed to. That plan was sidelined by a lawsuit.

The think tank pointed out that Strickland’s plan called for a 50 percent tax on operators of video lottery terminals at racetracks plus $65 million in licensing fees.

“While we applaud the Governor’s pressing them for more money, we believe the deal he struck with ROC poses some significant questions concerning what Ohio got versus what it gave up,” Innovation Ohio spokesman Dale Butland said in a statement.

June 17 Penn National Gaming Inc., the operator of two other casinos authorized in the 2009 amendment, reached an agreement in principle with the State of Ohio similar to the one with ROC. Penn owns a pair of tracks in the state that would be eligible under the agreement to operate VLTs.

The Ohio Civil Service Employees Association, a union representing 200 of 350 lottery employees, questioned the net job gain of the pact. At an event the union hosted June 16, former lottery commissioner Rudy Stralka said the jobs may be outsourced because many big players in the lottery industry are based overseas.

Jim LaRocca, a researcher for the lottery and OCSEA member, questioned how a private entity could operate the agency any better. He said the lottery has turned record profits and made record transfers to Ohio’s public education system every year since 2007.

Under the Ohio Constitution, lottery proceeds must go to schools, which is one of critics’ legal sticking points. State Sen. Michael Skindell, a Lakewood Democrat, questioned how Kasich can legally earmark the money for other purposes, and Zanotti predicted school districts would sue to protect their lottery payouts.

Backers of the privatization plan say limiting privatization to management, not operations, is a legal way around that requirement _ and a way to bring the benefits of public-private partnership to the lottery.

“The language still says that the state will be conducting the lotteries,” said Mike Dawson, a lobbyist for GTech, a lottery vendor.
“Whoever does it will just be managing the Lottery, they won’t be conducting the lotteries.” He noted that Illinois was recently given clearance to run its state-run lottery in the similar manner Ohio is debating.

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People occasionally joke with me that I seem to know everyone in town. Although I obviously don’t literally know everyone, my apparent propensity for collecting friends and acquaintances makes me sometimes wonder what it is exactly that causes some people to walk into rooms full of strangers and others to walk into rooms full of friends.
I spend the vast majority of my time at home with the same four people, so how I am generally able to spot a friendly face when I do make it out in public is slightly perplexing. I have a few theories, however:
Theory 1: I’m a native. Natives certainly have a leg up when it comes to acquaintance-spotting. Being in an area for the better part of 35 years allows one to recognize others and be recognized with greater regularity than someone who transferred in just a few years ago. I had an entire local contact list mentally filled with neighbors, teachers, friends, siblings’ friends, friends’ parents, siblings’ friends’ parents and so on before I even entered adulthood.
Theory 2: I’m not too picky. One of the greatest gifts my grandma, Lucille Purdy, bestowed upon me was the idea that no one was too important, or not important enough, to approach. In fact, when you implement the “talk to anyone” practice, you often find that those who may not appear to have much to say turn out to be the most intriguing and vice versa. I’ve never found how people look or even their reputation to necessarily be the best indicator of how much I am going to take away from a conversation.
Theory 3: I like to study. A not-so-fun little tidbit is that I’m actually quite socially anxious and
have been for as long as I can remember. However, in some odd way, I think the quiet detachment I held onto as a child allowed me to formulate some of my most useful social tools. When you are too shy to engage people, there is a lot of time to study the ins and outs of social interaction while standing awkwardly and invisibly nearby. I’ve also discovered that meeting many people one on one, which makes me only slightly uncomfortable, is an excellent way to increase my chances
of already knowing at least one person in a large, unfamiliar group, which still requires me to fight my flight instinct.
Theory 4: I genuinely like people and care about their details. When I was in high school, there was an upper classmate, who I didn’t really know, who drove a yellow car. I would see her driving around town at least once or twice a week. I began to wonder if we traveled in very similar circles or if paying attention to a particular detail about her made me take better notice when we did continually cross paths. I assumed the latter was true and have used it to gain an appreciation for how taking an interest in one another’s details gives us the opportunity to connect at least in some way on occasion
Theory 5: I make new friends but keep the old. While my husband may find my tendency to not let things go exasperating at times, it is a decent quality when it comes to staying in touch and on good terms with people. Although I have a small and tight-knit crew that I interact with on a regular basis, I also enjoy my intermittent friends and acquaintances and find there are moments in life when I need them almost as much.
As a child, I watched my parents take on the world with open arms as I struggled to imagine myself with the ability to ever quite do such a thing. Yet, learning by example and witnessing how it enriched our family life gave me the confidence and desire over time to create my own positive pattern of human interaction.
Having a child who seems to be following in my clam-up-and-cower past, I hope to pass on the tools that will eventually lead her to live an even more connected and loving existence.
I realize through my own experience that all of my children will struggle as they find that not everyone in the world is willing or able to connect with them, and that there will even always be people who don’t care for them in the least. I can only hope they find more success in foraging human relationships than not and that they never stop making the effort in a sincere and meaningful way.

Shannon and her husband Michael are raising three children in Sylvania. Email her at letters@toledofreepress.com.