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The
views expressed
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necessarily
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New CNO columnist
Meet Joe
Facinoli
“I'm getting back in the mood more now, after the shock and numbness
has started to wear off from last fall's results, so I'm anticipating
there will be a few more thoughts, hopefully readable, on ‘just a few’
current and pertinent topics, to clutter up cyberspace a bit more.”
“I was heartsick, depressed and felt like I had been physically kicked
in the gut! Am just now starting to dust myself off, unruffle my
feathers and decide that if I give up, I will not be happy with
myself. So, onward!!!”
One of the things our readers seem to enjoy is CNO’s lack of
restrictions regarding content, other than the usual “ethical and
legal, with the author taking responsibility for his or her comments.”
As a result, we continue to add new columnists on a regular basis. The
above was part of a “cyberspace” conversation between a CNO reader and
a small businessman, Joe Facinoli, in Timonium, Md., just a few miles
north of Baltimore…
“The writing I do started out of ‘self-defense,’ living here in
Maryland, now the Bluest of the blue states,” he said. “I would argue,
and verbally wrestle, with Dems and Libs here, trying vainly to make
them see even a small degree of common sense, in virtually all areas.
“Not much luck in that endeavor, but it started me reaching out to
others, one at a time usually, who were like minded and just as
frustrated as I was.”
His latest column, to be introduced Monday, floated around several
Darke County email “boxes” before it got to CNO.
“And on and on it goes, until now I communicate with quite a large
number of folks, all around the country. I love not only the
process of writing, having a thought or idea and then making it work as
a readable entity, but also the interaction it stimulates, from both
the right and the left. I also write on non-political topics as
well, enjoy storytelling very much, and observing the human condition
through the printed word.”
A graduate of Towson University in Maryland, Facinoli employs 15 people
in his service industry business. He does not claim to be “a Rhodes
Scholar.” He adds he has never been an assistant DA or heavyweight
litigator, and never spent any time as a lobbyist or “community
organizer,” but said he has done a “few things”…
With his wife, though now divorced, he raised two sons, both currently
in the business world. He added that one is also a jazz musician.
Facinoli said he was born in Washington, D.C., and still does some
business there. “It’s an amazing city,” he said, “just crazy.”
As an entrepreneur he has bought, rehabbed, rented and then sold about
30 houses and townhouses over about a 7-year time span. He has coached
youth baseball and basketball for 17 years in various places:
private high schools, middle schools, and upper level recreational and
advanced summer leagues.
So why does he write? In addition to saying that it is simply “fun,” he
is one of the majority of people in the U.S. (according to the polls)
who believes the country is headed in the wrong direction…
“I have always been "engaged" in politics,” he said, “at least with the
discussion of it, and love the interplay between history and politics,
especially when the various interpretations of these disciplines don't
line up with reality. That's when it's really "fun"…
“We have a long, tough hill to climb,” he says, “and it will take all
hands available.”
Facinoli’s columns, “From the Other Side of the Edge”, debut on Monday.
County News Online also looks for writers wishing to promote a more
balanced approach to politics and the state of our country, as well as
those who wish to take the totally opposite view.
The only requirement, as noted above, is that the columns maintain a
sense of ethics and legality, and the author is willing to take
responsibility for his or her comments.
As a seasoned newspaper editor once said nearly 50 years ago, “If you
only read the front page, you don’t get the full story. To know what’s
really going on, you have to read the Opinion page.”
Of course, Opinion pages were more balanced then.
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