Can't we time our traffic lights better?
Traffic lights play a crucial role in regulating traffic flow and ensuring the safety of drivers, pedestrians and cyclists. However, poorly timed traffic lights can cause significant inefficiencies on roadways.
When traffic lights are not synchronized correctly, drivers find themselves in stop-and-go traffic that increases fuel consumption and emissions, causes unnecessary wear and tear on vehicles, and wastes time.
When traffic lights are not synchronized, intersections can become clogged with cars, causing backups that spill over into other parts of the road network, causing commuting delays.
There are two downtown intersections that are particularly poor. In the mornings, eastbound MLK at Chestnut is horrible. The light is red at Broad while the light at Chestnut is green, so there is no flow and frequently blocked intersections. The other one is off the access road from Highway 27 southbound turning left onto Fourth Street. The left turn light is red while the northbound ramp light is green, and vice versa. This one is particularly maddening as this is one-way traffic.
In the day of computers, AI and almost limitless data, we should be able to have a system that keeps traffic flowing much better.
Mike Willingham Lookout Mountain, Ga.
‘Uplifting Voices’ concert spectacular
Words are not enough to describe the musical and emotional heights reached at Memorial Auditorium on Monday night (2/27/23) during the brilliant program: "Bessie Smith: Orchestrating the Blues: Uplifting Voices, Both Past and Present."
Conductor Ismael Sandoval and choral director Darrin Hassevoort led the talented musicians from the CSO and the CSO Youth Orchestra, engaging over 150 powerful voices from almost a dozen outstanding Chattanooga choirs -- youth and adult -- unleashing their power and beauty to a packed audience.
Following a great tradition, soloist Neshawn Calloway gave honor in word and song to a famous Chattanoogan of the 1930s, Bessie Smith, known nationally and internationally for her voice and courageous stand for freedom and dignity. Also honored: Chattanooga composer Roland Carter. Well-known singer/educator LaFrederick Thirkill narrated the program.
Maestro Sandoval and vocalist Calloway: You laid plans for this majestic musical apex a year and a half ago. Please, don't let another year go by without a similarly inspiring evening which brings an appreciative Chattanooga audience to its feet!
Franklin & Tresa McCallie
Dropping Dilbert a sign of TFP's end
Well, you folks must be proud of yourselves by canceling the "Dilbert" comic strip. We deplorables understand your progressive angst about anything that does not fit into your Clay Bennett mindset. The paper's demise is getting closer. I hope you go out of business sooner rather than later.
R. Burns
Would TFP cancel a Black cartoonist?
The woke TFP listened to the leftist crowd by getting rid of the best comic in its paper, "Dilbert." It offered an excuse of a "racist" statement by cartoonist Scott Adams. All Adams did was reference a Rasmussen Reports survey that had asked whether people agreed with the statement "It's OK to be white." Most agreed, but Adams noted that 26% of Black respondents disagreed. He then stated to stay away from these people if they hate whites.
So much for free speech in America. Everything's racist. Say something contrary to the woke, leftist minority, and you will be labeled a racist, vilified and canceled. And the TFP plays along. If this were a Black criticizing a white, you wouldn't hear a peep out of the TFP. Do you think that if Robb Armstrong, the black cartoonist of "JumpStart," said anything derogatory about whites that the TFP would cancel "JumpStart"? I doubt it. That would be racist.
G. Hayes, Ooltewah
Anti-LGBTQ bills morally bankrupt
The General Assembly has wasted no time in pushing a raft of anti-LGBTQ legislation. Two are just steps away from the governor's desk (with more before various committees): One would prohibit gender-affirming care for transgender minors, and another would impose an adults-only restriction on drag performances by reclassifying them as "adult cabaret."
Sponsors justify these laws on the grounds of protecting children. But "protecting children" is a ruse. These laws are solutions to problems that don't exist, and no children will be protected by them. There is, however, great potential for these laws to cause harm to children -- and those seeking gender-affirming medical care are but the tip of the iceberg. These laws send a message to all LGBTQ children (and adults) that they are not important, that they are something to be ashamed of, and that they should not even exist. These laws reinforce the notion that it's OK to dislike and even mistreat someone because they don't fit a certain mold. Is that really a message we want to teach?
These laws do not protect anyone; they only serve to generate intolerance and fear. They are morally bankrupt, as are all those who vote in favor of them.
Shawn Trivette, Signal Mountain, Tenn.
Feeling ashamed about being 'vanilla'
First of all, if you want to stop printing "Dilbert" strips, that is the decision of your editors alone. I am not here to force you to do anything.
What I do want to say is that Adams' recent comments are abhorrent. To know that a comic I loved so dearly is created by a man as horrible as the evil Catbert is something I never saw coming.
But, it brings me to the point I want to make. As a straight, white, cisgender male, I am told (if not outright yelled at) that "others" are trying to make me feel ashamed of being white.
However, the reality is that remarks by other white people like Adams, Tucker Carlson, et al., are really the ones that are making me feel ashamed of the behavior of my vanilla counterparts.
Brian Lake, Rossville, Ga.
Health-cost sharing scams are plentiful
Moments ago, I read with considerable interest the editorial reprinted from The Kansas City Star in last Sunday's Times Free Press about federal law enforcement officials in Missouri shutting down a fraudulent faith-based company, Medical Cost Sharing Inc.
Coincidentally, the day before, ProPublica published a lengthy article on a similar fraudulent operation, Liberty HealthShare. This one, though, by far eclipses Medical Cost Sharing in both magnitude and diversity. With a decades-long history of shadowy business endeavors, Liberty HealthShare is headed by Daniel J. Beers, 60, patriarch of a family-operated enterprise headquartered on a 700-acre ranch north of Canton, Ohio.
For readers interested in knowing more about these appalling scams, here is a link to the ProPublica article: tinyurl.com/2p8hs4cw.
Douglas L. Baxter, Hixson, Tenn.
Hunter not 'as bad as rest of his kin'
The Hunter Biden boosters' absolutions given him for his numerous misdeeds remind me of a story long ago told to me.
It seems a local punk with a lengthy rap sheet had been shot and killed in a robbery attempt. The pastor was called upon to conduct his funeral service and was extremely perplexed at what nice to say. So he prayed for divine intervention.
It's said God answers every prayer, and this is what the pastor came up with:
"At least he wasn't as bad as the rest of his kin."
Claudos Spears, Young Harris, Ga.