Robert C. Koehler: The cynic's monkey wrench

If you depart from an “us vs. them” philosophy of life, your first confrontation is likely to be with the cynics.

Last week, for instance, I wrote about the weekend I spent, a decade ago, getting handgun training from the NRA — and what I learned, which is that the things you need to fear are endless, and when one of them pops up in your life you’d better be prepared to kill it. One reader said he wondered “if Robert has ever truly felt as though his life or those he values were threatened” and quickly answered his own question: Of course not! And then he crooned, oh so tenderly: “Must be nice for Robert to live in such