Correct traffic hazard

Every morning and afternoon in the area of Interstate 435, Nall Avenue and 119th Street, cars are backed up because of the intersections. I have seen countless accidents in the area, and I have been in one myself.

Rush hour in the area is a mess and could use some work.

Sage Mason

Leawood

Let voters decide KCI

Clearly, there’s a divided runway regarding a new Kansas City terminal.

I recently flew into Milwaukee, which has one terminal. I walked for miles, or so it seemed, to get to the baggage claim area. This is fine exercise if you’re fit or not encumbered with carry-on luggage.

When I returned to Kansas City International Airport, I walked off the plane into the baggage area and out the door to curbside pick-up.

I know there’s controversy about some of the terminals being too busy while others are deserted. It would seem with our 21st-century technology we’d be able to move things around to make all three terminals functional.

The question is perplexing. Who decides whether we tear down the current airport in favor of building a new one?

Is it the aviation board? Is it the City Council and mayor? Is it the voters of Kansas City?

It would seem the taxpaying voters should decide the fate of the airport. After all, they’re the ones, in part, who are digging into their well-worn pockets to pay for this.

It is time to let them decide the fate of KCI.

Teede Stipich

Kansas City

Clean out Congress

We have all heard the definition of “insanity” — doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. We, the people, are stupid.

Unless we start firing the career politicians such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, House Speaker John Boehner, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and many others, they will just keep doing the same irresponsible, selfish, counterproductive-for-the-people, hypocritical stuff they have been doing for a long time.

Wake up, America. We are the only ones who can make a change.

They are not going to get serious about working for us until a whole bunch of the senior ones are looking for new jobs.

Will Miller

Mission

Rethinking in Kansas

Mortgage interest tax deductions will be discontinued if Gov. Sam Brownback gets his way. The original goal of this deduction was to encourage home ownership.

Home owners enhance a sense of community. Landlords know that renting makes it easy to move in and move out.

Kansans live in a petri dish of experimentation, being tested with theories that negatively affect schoolchildren, the infirmed and poor. Current goals in Topeka include making certain that sales taxes stay high, which hits those who earn the least but must stretch their earnings to survive.

How can we justify this? Are our hearts in the right place?

Should we stronger members go to bat for the rest? Let’s rethink our priorities?

Kay Shepherd

Overland Park

Bishop Finn must go

With the news that Cardinal Keith O’Brien (2-26, A2, “Cardinal resigns”) resigned, hope rises that our Bishop Robert Finn will follow suit. After all, Cardinal O’Brien had not yet been charged with any criminal act, let alone been convicted.

We Catholics can only pray that Bishop Finn sees the light and does what is best for his flock so we can have a new beginning of our faith.

David Biersmith

Kansas City

Ban assault weapons

I’m writing in support of the proposals offered by the Vice President Joe Biden committee on gun control.

Can we wage economic war and take military action against nations that attempt to obtain weapons of mass destruction when we allow anyone who attends a gun show to buy weapons of mass destruction?

That is really what automatic weapons with 30-round clips are. Those weapons aren’t meant for hunting or self-defense.

They are weapons of mass destruction.

How can we be against abortion at any stage of a women’s pregnancy and allow the ability of any private citizen to take more than 20 lives in seconds with a weapon of mass destruction?

The writers of the Second Amendment weren’t thinking of arms in the hands of any citizen on the street that fire 45 rounds of armor-piercing ammunition in 60 seconds.

Ask your congressmen to vote for reasonable and rational controls on weapons of mass destruction.

No assault weapons, no multiround clips, no armor-piercing ammunition and no unlicensed sales at gun shows or anywhere else.

And let’s install a buy-back program for WMDs already out there.

The only folks armed with WMDs should be the military.

William Hartel

Olathe

Fix Second Amendment

The ability to buy ever more powerful weapons and then even more powerful weapons hasn’t helped anyone hunt better or protect themselves better, but it has enabled deranged individuals to get their hands on them and kill innocent children and adults in mass slayings.

The ability to purchase these weapons legally is a horrible, misguided and irresponsible abuse of the Second Amendment and one that cannot be justified.

Judy Beyer

Lee’s Summit

TV weather guessers

It seems to me the meteorologists in Kansas City think they are right even when they are wrong. The first thing they must learn in school is never admit you missed a forecast.

I cannot ever remember them saying they were wrong. Each station has too many meteorologists and too much equipment and models to look at. They recently predicted a quarter to three-quarters of an inch of rain. I got only a tenth of an inch, as did most of my friends.

One weekend, one to three inches of snow was predicted. I awoke Saturday morning thinking about my shovel. But I looked outside, and not a snowflake was to be seen.

Then you watch the TV weathermen, and they show Harrisonville and Clinton and the snow they got.

It seems like when a system is coming to Kansas City, they really do not have much of a clue what is going to happen.

Meteorologists’ battle cry: “Remember the October snow surprise.”

Dwain Lovitch

Independence

Snow removal foil

I’m sure I’m not the only individual in the metro area nursing some sore muscles in my back from having to shovel all this snow out of my driveway of late. After pushing, lifting and hoisting through a number of storms, I’ve cleared my driveway a few times over the past week. So I’d like to ask the snowplow drivers why they insist on undoing my work? You see, I live in a cul-de-sac. And when the snowplow drivers go clockwise around the cul-de-sac at about 18 mph in the one pass they make, they push all that snow back into the driveways that my neighbors and I worked so hard to clear. It creates a wall of snow about 31/2 feet high at the end of every driveway.

I’m not quite sure why they can’t simply drive in the other direction and push all the snow into the center of the street, which they don’t bother to plow anyway.

I appreciate the clearing of the roads. I don’t appreciate this inconsiderate behavior.

Jeff Spears

Kansas City

Shoveling, heart strain

I was shoveling the drive when my neighbor stopped by and said he thought that because of my heart condition I wasn’t supposed to be doing that.

I told him that I mentioned that to my wife and she said that I had plenty of insurance so not to worry about it.

Bill Coffman

Lee’s Summit