From now on any posts that I make to this blog will actually be composed on my facebook page and the title of future posts will be a direct link to the text of that post on my facebook page. I hope some of you continue to read this blog, but you will be able to access these posts and much more on facebook. Just search for Stuart Solomon in Springfield, MO and you should be able to find me. Please notify me if you have any trouble.
Stu
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Facebook | Stuart Solomon: City Government is Still Missing the Point!
Facebook Stuart Solomon: City Government is Still Missing the Point!: "City Government is Still Missing the Point"
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Attention Gamers!
Attention Gamers!
I know this blog is primarily reserved for political and community subjects, but I also know that many of you spend a large part of your day on your computers with an internet browser constantly running. I would like to introduce you to the world of Evony. Evony - Forever is a real-time strategy game that is a medieval mixture of city simulation building, diplomacy and warfare that can be as rewarding as you make it. It requires no monetary committment to play the game. It is free and is a wonderful way to meet new people and experience a world that you may have never even considered being part of.
Beginning players may accustom themselves with the world of Evony by either following detailed quests that are provided by the Game Masters or they may join an alliance and gain valuable experience and advice from advanced players who want nothing more than to see new players succeed.
Evony is not a game world where you are immediately thrown to the wolves and are devoured by the unscrupulous and dishonorable players that sometimes prey upon newcomers in other gaming situations. Instead, you are given a beginning protection period of a week, in which to prepare to meet the challenges awaiting all players in the world of Evony. New servers are being added regularly and there is ample opportunity to develop and expand an empire of your own.
Since it is a real-time strategy game, it is not a game that requires your constant attention. Build a new structure and go back to your web-surfing or project at work and check back on your progress later in the day. Evony has been a great addition to my gaming experience and I have met many new and interesting gamers. I have even risen to a high rank within my alliance.
In the world of Evony-Forever Iam known as Lord Tyresiusi and I play on server 48. If you would like more information on Evony, you can click on the title of this post and it will direct you to the home page of Evony - Forever, or you can contact me at stuartcsolomon@yahoo.com, and I'll be happy to answer your questions. You may also post a comment with any questions to this blog posting and I'll be happy to respond.
I hope some of you will explore this new world of Evony-Forever and enjoy it as much as I have over the last few weeks.
Stu
I know this blog is primarily reserved for political and community subjects, but I also know that many of you spend a large part of your day on your computers with an internet browser constantly running. I would like to introduce you to the world of Evony. Evony - Forever is a real-time strategy game that is a medieval mixture of city simulation building, diplomacy and warfare that can be as rewarding as you make it. It requires no monetary committment to play the game. It is free and is a wonderful way to meet new people and experience a world that you may have never even considered being part of.
Beginning players may accustom themselves with the world of Evony by either following detailed quests that are provided by the Game Masters or they may join an alliance and gain valuable experience and advice from advanced players who want nothing more than to see new players succeed.
Evony is not a game world where you are immediately thrown to the wolves and are devoured by the unscrupulous and dishonorable players that sometimes prey upon newcomers in other gaming situations. Instead, you are given a beginning protection period of a week, in which to prepare to meet the challenges awaiting all players in the world of Evony. New servers are being added regularly and there is ample opportunity to develop and expand an empire of your own.
Since it is a real-time strategy game, it is not a game that requires your constant attention. Build a new structure and go back to your web-surfing or project at work and check back on your progress later in the day. Evony has been a great addition to my gaming experience and I have met many new and interesting gamers. I have even risen to a high rank within my alliance.
In the world of Evony-Forever Iam known as Lord Tyresiusi and I play on server 48. If you would like more information on Evony, you can click on the title of this post and it will direct you to the home page of Evony - Forever, or you can contact me at stuartcsolomon@yahoo.com, and I'll be happy to answer your questions. You may also post a comment with any questions to this blog posting and I'll be happy to respond.
I hope some of you will explore this new world of Evony-Forever and enjoy it as much as I have over the last few weeks.
Stu
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Straight From the Horse's Mouth
I know health care reform is a hot topic. I don't think everyone fully understands what is being proposed. I'm not pretending to know everything about it. I do know there are a lot of different sides to this issue.
The key thing that I understand is that our current president is a moderate. He is not a radical seeking to overthrow the entire structure of "Corporate America." By extension, neither is he attempting to force government-controlled health care down the American public's throat.
President Obama has called for health care reform legislation that includes a public option that would give people who cannot currently afford to privately purchase health insurance the opportunity to enroll in a government-administered health insurance program.
I know that there are many people who believe that the fiscal bottom line is what should be used as a governing rule of any new government expenditure. I believe in fiscal responsibility as well. I am also a pragmatist and realize that the needs of the citizenry change and take precedence over what any party believes to be the appropriate fiscal/political agenda.
This country's citizenry is under-insured, but at the same time generates the largest per capita health care expenditures: the underlying reason for this is that health insurance providers' primary objective has shifted. Reasonable profits accrued from the provision of insurance to the most people possible is not the industry standard. Maximization of profit through selective recission of policies and denial of policies to those with "existing conditions" has permeated the industry.
There are many reasons for our country have the largest per capita health care expenditures. Two of them are: 1) Artificially inflated costs created by the necessity of using urgent care facilities for health maladies that could and should be handled in health clinics rather than hospital emergency rooms, and; 2) The unregulated Wall Street mentality that currently governs all health insurance providers to ensure that profit is maximized and expenses are minimalized.
I am not calling for universal coverage for all people under a government-administered health insurance program. I am joining the President in his call for responsible and meaningful health care reform that includes a public option for government-administered public insurance.
The title of this post is a link to Bill Moyers Journal where you can watch an interview with Wendell Potter, a former CEO and communications officer of CIGNA; a leader in the health insurance industry. Please click on the link and watch Mr. Potter's interview with Bill Moyer. The interview includes excerpts of Mr. Potter's congressional testimony.
The key thing that I understand is that our current president is a moderate. He is not a radical seeking to overthrow the entire structure of "Corporate America." By extension, neither is he attempting to force government-controlled health care down the American public's throat.
President Obama has called for health care reform legislation that includes a public option that would give people who cannot currently afford to privately purchase health insurance the opportunity to enroll in a government-administered health insurance program.
I know that there are many people who believe that the fiscal bottom line is what should be used as a governing rule of any new government expenditure. I believe in fiscal responsibility as well. I am also a pragmatist and realize that the needs of the citizenry change and take precedence over what any party believes to be the appropriate fiscal/political agenda.
This country's citizenry is under-insured, but at the same time generates the largest per capita health care expenditures: the underlying reason for this is that health insurance providers' primary objective has shifted. Reasonable profits accrued from the provision of insurance to the most people possible is not the industry standard. Maximization of profit through selective recission of policies and denial of policies to those with "existing conditions" has permeated the industry.
There are many reasons for our country have the largest per capita health care expenditures. Two of them are: 1) Artificially inflated costs created by the necessity of using urgent care facilities for health maladies that could and should be handled in health clinics rather than hospital emergency rooms, and; 2) The unregulated Wall Street mentality that currently governs all health insurance providers to ensure that profit is maximized and expenses are minimalized.
I am not calling for universal coverage for all people under a government-administered health insurance program. I am joining the President in his call for responsible and meaningful health care reform that includes a public option for government-administered public insurance.
The title of this post is a link to Bill Moyers Journal where you can watch an interview with Wendell Potter, a former CEO and communications officer of CIGNA; a leader in the health insurance industry. Please click on the link and watch Mr. Potter's interview with Bill Moyer. The interview includes excerpts of Mr. Potter's congressional testimony.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Councilmen Refuse To Admit Key Fact
Once again, certain members of Springfield's City Council just aren't seeing the forest for the trees. When I read Doug Burlison's letter to the editor in the June 3-16, 2009 issue of the Community Free Press, wherein he lectures the community on its political mandate cocerning tax increases, and the future of the police and firefighter pension fund, I had to laugh, and then I started screaming!
Being relatively new to the community and, admittedly, being to the far left of the political spectrum of Springfield, it is my impression that the voting public has been very supportive of educational levies and bonds. Furthermore, it has embraced certain sales-tax initiatives presented to it by the "governing council" as direct fund-raising vehicles for specific projects.
Bob Stevens is a newcomer to the council and he informs the community (in his Guest Column of the same issue of CFP) that there are "no easy decisions" for council members. With all due respect, Mr. Councilman, you knew that when you ran. This incarnation of the council has some of the most serious fiscal issues that the council has had to face in its history. This is not to render the issues of the past insignificant, in any way, but the here and now are what most people are directly concerned with; whether or not that perspective may be typically indicative of the voting public's lack of foresight.
Doug Burlison is well aware that I am no fan of his. He touts himself as THE citizen who "called for an audit of this city." Well, Mr. Burlison, my contention is, has been, and probably always will be, that the city council that you voluntarily became a part of has always made it a regular practice of granting tax easements to the big-wig developers as an incentive to "keep it local". Where else was JQH going to put his namesake ballpark, Mr. Burlison? Was BKD really going to take their headquarters elsewhere?
Let me spell it out for all of you who think that this tax easement argument is old or doesn't accomplish anything. A 30-year tax easement means that a company developing a commercial or industrial property in this city pays only 33% of the taxes that it would normally pay on such a property over a 30-year period. Nobody who is against tax easements is proposing new taxes. We are asking that the approved tax code for the various sectors of development are reasonably adhered to, rather than to be set aside by a conveniently declared "emergency bill" such as the one that permitted BKD to immediately commence construction of its new headquarters, and granted it a tax easement.
I want every public employee to have an adequate pension. Springfield is not to blame for the knee-jerk legislative reaction that the entire country had to 9/11. To be sure, pension funds of police and firefighters were insufficient, but a legislative mandate that placed an untenable burden on communities of all sizes was clearly not the answer. It should have been the response of every self-respecting city council member across the country to actively oppose such reactionary and emotionally manipulative legislation.
What communities across America did, rather than mount rightful protest, was acquiesce to an unfair piece of legislation that demanded a disproportionate fraction of nearly all communities' operational budgets to be apportioned to the pension funds of police and fire fighters. The imminent failure of the public education system has been staring this country's communities, particularly smaller communities like Springfield, in the face for decades, but no similar legislative response has been forthcoming from national, state or local legislators.
Respectively, Mr. Burlison and Mr. Stevens, it does not suffice for you, our elected representatives to the Springfield City Council, to lecture us on how difficult these decisions are. The plain truth is that you, or people like you, had the opportunity to provide this community with millions of legitimate tax revenue dollars from commercial and industrial property development. Instead, city council played the patsy.
Neither Mr. Burlison or Mr. Stevens have made any substantial suggestions to remedy the fiscal problems facing the city. Mr. Burlison, at one time, proposed a fire sale of community infrastructure and equipment. What was it in your letter that you said about a "band-aid" being insufficient, Mr. Burlison? Your suggestion for a city parking garage sale would have even been akin to putting a swatch of toilet paper on a fatal slash to the jugular!
No friends, these council members are simply making excuses and seeking absolution in advance for having to make the unpopular decisions that have been placed upon them by their predecessors who chose to take road most taken in this country: the road to corporate greed and manipulation of legitimate taxation processes that are in place to provide the public sector with the appropriate revenue it needs to perform its function in a free society.
Hopefully, this will teach more Springfield voters to turn out for an April election. I personally believe that local elections should be held at the same time state and federal elections are held, in order to ensure a higher level of voter participation.
Being relatively new to the community and, admittedly, being to the far left of the political spectrum of Springfield, it is my impression that the voting public has been very supportive of educational levies and bonds. Furthermore, it has embraced certain sales-tax initiatives presented to it by the "governing council" as direct fund-raising vehicles for specific projects.
Bob Stevens is a newcomer to the council and he informs the community (in his Guest Column of the same issue of CFP) that there are "no easy decisions" for council members. With all due respect, Mr. Councilman, you knew that when you ran. This incarnation of the council has some of the most serious fiscal issues that the council has had to face in its history. This is not to render the issues of the past insignificant, in any way, but the here and now are what most people are directly concerned with; whether or not that perspective may be typically indicative of the voting public's lack of foresight.
Doug Burlison is well aware that I am no fan of his. He touts himself as THE citizen who "called for an audit of this city." Well, Mr. Burlison, my contention is, has been, and probably always will be, that the city council that you voluntarily became a part of has always made it a regular practice of granting tax easements to the big-wig developers as an incentive to "keep it local". Where else was JQH going to put his namesake ballpark, Mr. Burlison? Was BKD really going to take their headquarters elsewhere?
Let me spell it out for all of you who think that this tax easement argument is old or doesn't accomplish anything. A 30-year tax easement means that a company developing a commercial or industrial property in this city pays only 33% of the taxes that it would normally pay on such a property over a 30-year period. Nobody who is against tax easements is proposing new taxes. We are asking that the approved tax code for the various sectors of development are reasonably adhered to, rather than to be set aside by a conveniently declared "emergency bill" such as the one that permitted BKD to immediately commence construction of its new headquarters, and granted it a tax easement.
I want every public employee to have an adequate pension. Springfield is not to blame for the knee-jerk legislative reaction that the entire country had to 9/11. To be sure, pension funds of police and firefighters were insufficient, but a legislative mandate that placed an untenable burden on communities of all sizes was clearly not the answer. It should have been the response of every self-respecting city council member across the country to actively oppose such reactionary and emotionally manipulative legislation.
What communities across America did, rather than mount rightful protest, was acquiesce to an unfair piece of legislation that demanded a disproportionate fraction of nearly all communities' operational budgets to be apportioned to the pension funds of police and fire fighters. The imminent failure of the public education system has been staring this country's communities, particularly smaller communities like Springfield, in the face for decades, but no similar legislative response has been forthcoming from national, state or local legislators.
Respectively, Mr. Burlison and Mr. Stevens, it does not suffice for you, our elected representatives to the Springfield City Council, to lecture us on how difficult these decisions are. The plain truth is that you, or people like you, had the opportunity to provide this community with millions of legitimate tax revenue dollars from commercial and industrial property development. Instead, city council played the patsy.
Neither Mr. Burlison or Mr. Stevens have made any substantial suggestions to remedy the fiscal problems facing the city. Mr. Burlison, at one time, proposed a fire sale of community infrastructure and equipment. What was it in your letter that you said about a "band-aid" being insufficient, Mr. Burlison? Your suggestion for a city parking garage sale would have even been akin to putting a swatch of toilet paper on a fatal slash to the jugular!
No friends, these council members are simply making excuses and seeking absolution in advance for having to make the unpopular decisions that have been placed upon them by their predecessors who chose to take road most taken in this country: the road to corporate greed and manipulation of legitimate taxation processes that are in place to provide the public sector with the appropriate revenue it needs to perform its function in a free society.
Hopefully, this will teach more Springfield voters to turn out for an April election. I personally believe that local elections should be held at the same time state and federal elections are held, in order to ensure a higher level of voter participation.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Literacy Should Count!
Well, I haven't been posting much because I am very busy with my endeavor to attain certification as a paralegal in a 7 month time-frame. So no apologies for not posting, just an explanation. As I'm sure you all know, I'm not short on opinions, even though I may not have been sharing them.
I am not making any direct endorsement for any of the city council candidates. Personally, I believe that all the incumbents should be ousted and the city should hire a new attorney. Knowing this will not happen is a cup of bitter brew I must reluctantly drink from.
Ok. So we know that some incumbents will retain their elected seats. I would like to say, however, that elected officials do reflect their constituency. I urge all voters to carefully read what the candidates are trying to say and determine if they say it effectively and in a literate manner.
Literacy should count! In my mind and experience, a person who doesn't know the difference between "their" and "there" is likely to not recognize many of the subtleties in proposals made to a city council for consideration. So if such a person is elected to the city council, they are far more likely to be lead or mislead by the advice of the city attorney and city staff officials who are not elected, but certainly have an agenda of their own.
Candidates are free to run on whatever platform they wish. In my opinion, "Keep your hand out of my pocket!" is a perfectly valid sentiment for an aspiring city council candidate to advocate. I think this sentiment is adequately represented in the present makeup of the city council, however. I don't care if there is another "libertarian" or "fisal conservative" elected to city council. City council is never going to reflect my values and I will always oppose tax abatements for developers who are perfectly capable of paying real estate, commercial and industrial taxes that our city is in desperate need of.
I will also always object to the notion of people who don't know how to effectively elocute ideas and specific proposals for the people whom they supposedly represent. It is not enough for an elected representative to merely reflect the sentiments of their constituents; such a representative must possess critical thinking skills and have the ability to express the mindset of the people they represent proficiently.
With that in mind, I have serious misgivings about the candidacy of several aspiring city council members of both the incumbent and non-incumbent variety. I urge all voters to consider not only the ideas that candidates represent, but also their ability to express those ideas. Remember that debates and campaign speeches are rehearsed and prepared for and do not in any way reflect a candidate's ability to think critially in a public forum. Almost every individual is keenly aware of the "bottom line" and that family and government purse strings are being drawn closed.
We do not need representatives at any level of government who do not possess the communication skills that are so essential to the efficient performance of their duty as elected officials. Sharing a common belief is insufficient cause to elect someone incapable of the eloquent expression of those beliefs. Don't settle for Elmer Fudd or Miss Piggy as city council members. Sharing their hate of Bugs or their love for Kermie is simply not a good enough reason to vote for an under-qualified candidate.
I am not making any direct endorsement for any of the city council candidates. Personally, I believe that all the incumbents should be ousted and the city should hire a new attorney. Knowing this will not happen is a cup of bitter brew I must reluctantly drink from.
Ok. So we know that some incumbents will retain their elected seats. I would like to say, however, that elected officials do reflect their constituency. I urge all voters to carefully read what the candidates are trying to say and determine if they say it effectively and in a literate manner.
Literacy should count! In my mind and experience, a person who doesn't know the difference between "their" and "there" is likely to not recognize many of the subtleties in proposals made to a city council for consideration. So if such a person is elected to the city council, they are far more likely to be lead or mislead by the advice of the city attorney and city staff officials who are not elected, but certainly have an agenda of their own.
Candidates are free to run on whatever platform they wish. In my opinion, "Keep your hand out of my pocket!" is a perfectly valid sentiment for an aspiring city council candidate to advocate. I think this sentiment is adequately represented in the present makeup of the city council, however. I don't care if there is another "libertarian" or "fisal conservative" elected to city council. City council is never going to reflect my values and I will always oppose tax abatements for developers who are perfectly capable of paying real estate, commercial and industrial taxes that our city is in desperate need of.
I will also always object to the notion of people who don't know how to effectively elocute ideas and specific proposals for the people whom they supposedly represent. It is not enough for an elected representative to merely reflect the sentiments of their constituents; such a representative must possess critical thinking skills and have the ability to express the mindset of the people they represent proficiently.
With that in mind, I have serious misgivings about the candidacy of several aspiring city council members of both the incumbent and non-incumbent variety. I urge all voters to consider not only the ideas that candidates represent, but also their ability to express those ideas. Remember that debates and campaign speeches are rehearsed and prepared for and do not in any way reflect a candidate's ability to think critially in a public forum. Almost every individual is keenly aware of the "bottom line" and that family and government purse strings are being drawn closed.
We do not need representatives at any level of government who do not possess the communication skills that are so essential to the efficient performance of their duty as elected officials. Sharing a common belief is insufficient cause to elect someone incapable of the eloquent expression of those beliefs. Don't settle for Elmer Fudd or Miss Piggy as city council members. Sharing their hate of Bugs or their love for Kermie is simply not a good enough reason to vote for an under-qualified candidate.
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