EDITOR’S DESK: On a hair trigger, but not half-cocked

A number of folks out there - possibly even some of you - don't have much use for guns. They envision a world that's free of those and perhaps other man-made explosive devices that can cause so much harm. I'm not even going to try to pontificate on such weighty subjects. All I know is that right now on the Westside there's a lady who's gained a world of self-confidence, and it came, so to speak, at the point of a gun. Audrey Ward took a class, worked hard and found the joy in learning how to defend herself. And, in the process, she set a strong example for older citizens like herself, that they don't need to sit in their homes, weak and fearful that some hoodlum will seek them out for theft or worse. And what allows that transformation? Why, it's having a gun and knowing how to use it safely and wisely, If that's wrong, as the country song goes, I don't want to be right.        Gee, what other subjects can I tackle today that might make people mad? How about the Stormwater Enterprise? I know that a lot of people are still grumpy about the way City Council created that entity without a vote a couple of year ago, and it may still have some billing inequities and design shortcomings. But my point is, based on what's happening with Douglas Creek, we would be fools as a community to just throw the whole concept out. Just four emergency fixes on that concrete channel cost half a million dollars. And similar high costs face us elsewhere in the future, lest we flirt with disaster. That money has to come from somewhere. Better to spend limited public funds on something real like flood control than some fantasy like global warming. Oops, there I go again. - K.J.