MAILBAG:

After reading comments by John Wayne Airport officials and the airport’s noise consultant Vince Mestre, both of whom downplayed the noise decibel increase caused by increased flights, I conclude neither of them must live under the flight path of the 350 daily flights.

If they did, as I do, they would know UCI professor [Fan-Gang] Zeng is correct in his opinion that even a 2% increase is discernible by the human ear. If you live under the flight pattern all conversation stops during any take-off since the noise level of the commercial air carriers and biz jets exceeds that sound level.

Every time a flight is added we give up more conversations along with TV listening. I have been calling in noise complaints for the last 20 years. There is a biz jet that goes out at 7:30 a.m. that resonates all the way beyond the coastline.

What has not been carefully studied or accurately discerned is the amount of air pollution those planes cause and how much of it settles on our homes, schools, and environmentally protected Back Bay area.

Daily we spend more time cleaning oily residue from our front and back patios.

If airport officials downplay the noise impact, who can we trust to give accurate evaluation of all the other dangers of a busy, expanding airport that has no business located within blocks of thousands of homes, schools and the Back Bay.

DONALD AND MARCIA MARLOWE

Newport Beach

Cassity’s problem list missing few items

My wife encouraged me to e-mail you regarding Chuck Cassity’s solutions to every problem America faces (“Solutions to every single problem America faces,” Jan. 8), and I responded with a rather flip message. On reflection, it occurs that a more serious response is in order.

Not on Cassity’s list of every problem a president faces are a few rather weighty problems. Foremost, of course, is the wrong war. Shortly after declaring Iran, North Korea and Syria the axis of evil, our current president of the United States invaded none of the above. Instead he sent troops into a quagmire nobody can now justify and destabilized an entire sub-continent we rely on for much of our energy.

Also missing are the federal deficit, the balance of payments problem, the declining dollar, Social Security, Medicare, America’s loss of prestige in the world, and a crisis in the voluntary military system.

He includes illegal immigration and gun control on his list, which in the grand scheme of things rank right up there with flag burning, the gay marriage crisis and the Mormon crisis as things we shouldn’t be distracted by. I could go on, but by now you should get the point.

BOB SCHMIDT

Newport Beach