Joe Bialek

[JOEBIALEK]

Permit me to introduce myself. My name is Joe Bialek and I was born on September 12, 1963 just 40 days before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. My family was originally from Cleveland, Ohio. It is the city of my current residence. I attended Padua High School in Parma, Ohio and went on to complete a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a Masters of Public Administration at the University of Akron. In 1993, I moved back to Cleveland and resided in my grandfather's house located in the neighborhood known as Slavic Village. This is where my grandfather immigrated from Poland and the house where my father was born. I then ran for city council against the incumbent who was elected in 1985. After work each day I would walk to each of the 9,000 registered households from April to August and seemed to make a positive impression among the voters. However two other candidates entered the race and I finished last. The strange thing about the results, however, was the disparity between the absentee ballots and the card-punched ballots. According to the absentee ballots, I lost by a 2-to-1 margin to the incumbent but won by a 16-to-1 margin over the other two candidates. But according to the card-punched ballots, I finished last by just 4 votes. I was so exhausted by the campaign that a recount was the furthest from my mind. In the general election, the incumbent retained his seat.

Shortly after the election, I was elected President of South East Clevelanders Together. The purpose of this non-profit group was to organize each of the twelve sub-neighborhoods located within Slavic Village (Ward 12) to address quality of life issues in an aggressive and systematic manner. Needless to say, it did not take long for our group to clash with the Councilman's housing group. Their primary objective was to build and rehabilitate housing without any real regard for the other issues affecting the residents and business owners. The councilman's father owns a large real estate company so I'll let you draw your own conclusion. Our funding was cut off from the City of Cleveland and efforts to raise money through foundations were sabotaged. Inevitably I was forced to use my own money to sustain the efforts of the organization. In spite of all the resistance, however, we were very successfull in organizing block clubs and civic associations as well as bringing pressure to provide solutions to the problems plaguing the community. All during this time, the councilman attempted to spin my intentions as simply an effort to prepare for a second council run. I did not run again in 1997 because I felt it would be more beneficial for the community if SECT continued to push for action rather than allow the entrenched councilman to ignore issues while his housing group pushed rehabilitations and new construction.

In 1999, I moved to the Old Brooklyn neighborhood of the city of Cleveland. I decided to withdraw from public life and shift my focus to reading philosophy, economics, sociology, religion, psychology and political theory. I also committed to writing a editorial piece once per month hence the reason for my monthly email and message board postings. I do this out of altruism and receive no compensation what so ever. My sole objective is to offer suggestions on how we may fine tune America and stear the United States in a positive direction. I know I've been guilty of posting to message boards and not returning to join in the discussion. But I have read most responses. Accordingly, I hereby commit to returning no sooner or later than 24 hours after my post to answer counter arguments. I'll only respond to intellectual contributions not insults or statements from those who treat message boards like their little fiefdoms. For those of you who would like to contact me, you may reach me at the email address listed below. Thanks and let us continue to "fine tune America".

Joe Bialek
Cleveland, Ohio
jgbialek@adelphia.net

[Resident Loser]

...and we should care...why?

Have you run into a fellow poster called J. Davenport Briggs from Caribou, Maine? I have a feeling you two would get on famously...

jimHJJ(...BTW, "stear" is spelled s-t-e-e-r...)

[JSE]

Hey Joe,

Nice to see you posting once again. Although I did sometimes question why you did not respond to posters replying to you, I have enjoyed your post and have taken part in the resulting discussions quite often. This particular forum has become stale and it needs some jump starting to get it going again. Glad to see you might be posting more.

PS.... RL, chill out man. Why must you be confrontational? Not everyone is looking for a fight all the time like yourself. You seem to have a lot of "frustration" built up inside.

JSE

[dean_martin]

Permit me to introduce myself. My name is Joe Bialek and I was born on September 12, 1963 just 40 days before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. My family was originally from Cleveland, Ohio. It is the city of my current residence. I attended Padua High School in Parma, Ohio and went on to complete a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a Masters of Public Administration at the University of Akron. In 1993, I moved back to Cleveland and resided in my grandfather's house located in the neighborhood known as Slavic Village. This is where my grandfather immigrated from Poland and the house where my father was born. I then ran for city council against the incumbent who was elected in 1985. After work each day I would walk to each of the 9,000 registered households from April to August and seemed to make a positive impression among the voters. However two other candidates entered the race and I finished last. The strange thing about the results, however, was the disparity between the absentee ballots and the card-punched ballots. According to the absentee ballots, I lost by a 2-to-1 margin to the incumbent but won by a 16-to-1 margin over the other two candidates. But according to the card-punched ballots, I finished last by just 4 votes. I was so exhausted by the campaign that a recount was the furthest from my mind. In the general election, the incumbent retained his seat.

Shortly after the election, I was elected President of South East Clevelanders Together. The purpose of this non-profit group was to organize each of the twelve sub-neighborhoods located within Slavic Village (Ward 12) to address quality of life issues in an aggressive and systematic manner. Needless to say, it did not take long for our group to clash with the Councilman's housing group. Their primary objective was to build and rehabilitate housing without any real regard for the other issues affecting the residents and business owners. The councilman's father owns a large real estate company so I'll let you draw your own conclusion. Our funding was cut off from the City of Cleveland and efforts to raise money through foundations were sabotaged. Inevitably I was forced to use my own money to sustain the efforts of the organization. In spite of all the resistance, however, we were very successfull in organizing block clubs and civic associations as well as bringing pressure to provide solutions to the problems plaguing the community. All during this time, the councilman attempted to spin my intentions as simply an effort to prepare for a second council run. I did not run again in 1997 because I felt it would be more beneficial for the community if SECT continued to push for action rather than allow the entrenched councilman to ignore issues while his housing group pushed rehabilitations and new construction.

In 1999, I moved to the Old Brooklyn neighborhood of the city of Cleveland. I decided to withdraw from public life and shift my focus to reading philosophy, economics, sociology, religion, psychology and political theory. I also committed to writing a editorial piece once per month hence the reason for my monthly email and message board postings. I do this out of altruism and receive no compensation what so ever. My sole objective is to offer suggestions on how we may fine tune America and stear the United States in a positive direction. I know I've been guilty of posting to message boards and not returning to join in the discussion. But I have read most responses. Accordingly, I hereby commit to returning no sooner or later than 24 hours after my post to answer counter arguments. I'll only respond to intellectual contributions not insults or statements from those who treat message boards like their little fiefdoms. For those of you who would like to contact me, you may reach me at the email address listed below. Thanks and let us continue to "fine tune America".

Joe Bialek
Cleveland, Ohio
jgbialek@adelphia.net

Since you've apparently taken yourself out of the rat race and devoted your time to higher thinking and erudite conversation, I would be interested in hearing your plans, goals or talking points for fine tuning America. Are you concentrating on a single issue or problem? How many issues/problems have you identified and are you able to verbalize them? (As a lawyer, I have found that if you can beat your opponent to identifying, framing and verbalizing the issues in a way that sticks so that the court adopts your language, you can jump out to an insurmountable lead.) Have you prioritzed the issues/problems?

My first sentence may sound sacrcastic, but it's not meant to be. I've often wondered how I would develop intellectually, spiritually, physically and emotionally if I dropped out for several months and concentrated on reading classic/modern philosophy, the Bible from cover to cover and simply observing what's going on around us. Would I have the will power to better myself (like Lincoln reading by candle light)? I would probably do absolutely nothing for at least a month.

[Resident Loser]

...how so? I doubt anybody cares about anyone's particular pedigree...I simply asked a question...

With re: to the comparison to JDB...if you are unfamiliar with his "work", then you obviously won't have a clue to that reference...if you are, the similarity should be apparent...then again, maybe not...

jimHJJ(...I too restrict myself to socio-politcal, economic, ethno-philisophical intellectual endeavors but have not withdrawn from public life...I have a real job...)

[Bryan]

Doing a quick search I have found the following posts started by you:

3/31: Prostitution
3/31: Political Primaries
5/1: Social Security
5/30: Terrorism
7/2: Poverty
7/25: Sexual Harrasment
8/24: Mortgage Fraud

And today we have the introduction. Seems very similar to JDB.

[JSE]

RL,

You mean to say that the title to your original post and the first sentence of your post was not confrontational? If that is what you are saying then I would have to disagree with you on that one.

BTW, I don't know who JDB is so I can't comment on that. Joe B. has raised some interesting questions with his past posts. What's wrong with that? I've never interpreted his posts as trolling. If you would like to fill me in on this JDB, please do. Was he here on this board or on another board?

JSE

[JOEBIALEK]

Thanks for the positive feedback. I too do not know who JDB is. As for prioritizing the issues of today, I don't think it is appropriate as these are ongoing problems that will never go away since today's solution maybe tomorrow's new problem.

[Bryan]

JDB = J. Davenport Briggs

Basically he was your ultra high end, know-it-all-things audio kind of guy who thought anything less than $5K was a waste of time. Tooted his own horn when no one else would dare sing his praises. He used to post on this board quite some time ago.

Joe B. and Tia were two of our best regulers. It was a shame to see them go.

[Resident Loser]

...but in NYC, who cares?...tootin' yer own horn is not a trait looked upon without scorn in the Big Apple...

And c'mon...I have removed myself from public life to concentrate on blah, blah and all the rest...???...again, who cares about the pedigree...

Anyone who sees the current socio-political climate as something in need of a "fine tuning" hasn't a clue...that attitude doesn't even recognize the fact that every thread of the fabric that makes up American society is in a serious state of disrepair...that one thing impinges on another...that it's not simply this or that, but pretty much everything...putting band-aids on really insignificant(in the grand scheme of things)issues is like installing a nice, shiny brass weathervane on a structure whose foundation is in danger of collapse...that the American public has brought most of it on themselves and that as long as most are content being just fat, dumb and happy, the gov and big business is gonna' get away with everything they can...we would have to undo about 60yrs of history to undo the damage that has been done...

jimHJJ(...and I don't know about you, but I simply do not have that kind of time left...)

P.S. Never said anything about "trolling". Where did that come from?

[JSE]

[QUOTE=Resident Loser that attitude doesn't even recognize the fact that every thread of the fabric that makes up American society is in a serious state of disrepair...that one thing impinges on another...that it's not simply this or that, but pretty much everything...putting band-aids on really insignificant(in the grand scheme of things)issues is like installing a nice, shiny brass weathervane on a structure whose foundation is in danger of collapse...that the American public has brought most of it on themselves and that as long as most are content being just fat, dumb and happy, the gov and big business is gonna' get away with everything they can...we would have to undo about 60yrs of history to undue the damage that has been done...[/QUOTE]


So nobody should even try to improve it? I agree with with many of your takes on American society but I can't bash someone for wanting to make it better. Also, I don't think he was trying to show his pedigree. I think he was just giving his background and his plans for the future. Was it a little self absorbent? Maybe, but if you don't care, don't respond. Simple as that. Not everyone is trying to be better than you. Some just are! Nothing you can do about that.

"P.S. Never said anything about "trolling". Where did that come from?"

I know you never said anything about trolling but you mentioned this person JDB from the past. I thought maybe he was a troll. You did not give any specifics about him.

JSE

[Resident Loser]

...did we read the same post?

"...I decided to withdraw from public life and shift my focus to reading philosophy, economics, sociology, religion, psychology and political theory..."

"...My sole objective is to offer suggestions on how we may fine tune America..."

All that preceeds these statements, while not neglibible, is rendered somewhat moot IMO...band-aids and "fine tuning"? The former can soothe, but ignore the underlying causes and can impart a false sense of complacency...the latter...well, we are far beyond that...what is needed is a radical readjustment of our sensibilities.

"...So nobody should even try to improve it?..."

Never said nor implied that. But, that is not what I've taken issue with, is it?

On the issue of "better"...I simply choose not to wear things on my sleeve...that's altruism...

jimHJJ(...and there's nothing you can do about that!...)

[dean_martin]

I tried to give the guy a chance to list the problems he's identified (since he's obviously got more time than most of us working stiffs - BTW, RL, I intentionally avoided going there in my first response though it was difficult) and maybe some of his theorized solutions. He responded with generalities. It makes me wonder about his sincerety. In his previous posts re: mortgage fraud and sexual harassment, I tried to give him advice as I would a client or friend who asked for advice, but got no thanks or comment. What does all this mean? Heck, I don't know. It's kind of like someone who talks just to hear himself talk.

[Resident Loser]

...you were meting out your response carefully...

jimHJJ(...not to mention the rope...)

[Rich-n-Texas]

So Joe, what kind of A/V equipment do you own?

I'd like to know if you have something other than social commentary to talk about, seeing as how you've been around here since what... 2004?

[JSE]

Holy Crap Rich! A 3 year dig up. Nice work!

Oh and since this thread has been revived,

RL, I now concede to your prior arguments. JB did in fact turn out to be a self involved blowhard. I'm pretty sure I spoke out against him over the last couple of years. He post here and a ton of other random sites. He rarely responds.

[JSE]

Holy Crap Rich! A 3 year dig up. Nice work!

Oh and since this thread has been revived,

RL, I now concede to your prior arguments. JB did in fact turn out to be a self involved blowhard. I'm pretty sure I spoke out against him over the last couple of years. He post here and a ton of other random sites. He rarely responds.

[Rich-n-Texas]

DOUBLE POST BONEHEAD!!!

[basite]

*opens door*

AARHG!!! holy thread revival

*closes door and quickly leaves*

Nice dig-up rich

[Rich-n-Texas]

I did a search on this guy and found out he never talks about anything remotely connected with Home Theater. Only his conspiracy theories and personal rants, as JSE pointed out.

I think he bounces from site to site trying to find his tin foil hat.

BTW JSE, RL doesn't play here anymore.

[JSE]

DOUBLE POST BONEHEAD!!!

Sorry

[JSE]

DOUBLE POST BONEHEAD!!!

Sorry

[JSE]

I gotta catch up with your post count somehow!

BTW, I know RL has gone MIA but I figured he still reads the forum.

[GMichael]

WTF?!

So now we're digging up old troll threads to revive our dead home?
Ya suckered me in too. I was halfway through the original post when I noticed the first reply was from RL. That's when I checked the date.

I miss RL. We should have an AR memorial for him or something. He'd think we were idiots. That's perfect.

[Luzmirr]

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