A few weeks ago, I contributed a comment to the WAYWO thread, and fell into a brief but friendly email exchange with emeraldmaiden because I mentioned blacksmithing.  She was kind enough to suggest a diary on the subject instead of tucking it into what was essentially a fiber arts get-together.  More recently, I sent her a draft of this entry, and she kindly offered to let me host this week.  I'm really flattered.  

Smithing is kind of like the story about the blind men and the elephant, because what it is depends on your point of view.  There are farriers (horse shoeing specialists), artist and ornamental blacksmiths, knife makers, re-enactors and demonstration smiths, folk art schools, hobby smiths, and tool makers, just to name a few.  Last time I tried to write about smithing, I got bogged down in the practical details—safety warnings, how to find a forge and anvil, and how to manage a coal fire.  This time I want to do more of an essay about the magic and mysticism of iron work.  

As we have moved around over the decades, I have been "represented" in Congress by Dick Cheney (Wyoming), Bob Dole (Kansas), and now by Ted Stevens, Lisa Murkowski, and Don Young (Alaska).  Is it any wonder I'm a Democrat?  These people are such arrogant idiots that I don't even want to hear them talk, let alone have people think that they are saying something I would ever support.  Don Young set me off this morning, with articles in both the Fairbanks Daily News Miner and the Anchorage Daily News.

I live in bush Alaska.  From my house, it's about 300 miles by air to Fairbanks, and there isn't any road for most of that distance.  All of our fuel comes by barge down the Yukon River during the summer months when it isn't frozen solid.  Gasoline cost about $4.50 at the pump, or $3.89 in bulk, and the prices will go up radically as soon as the first barge arrives next June.  Without diesel this summer, we won't have electricity next winter.  The opinions about ANWR seem to be divided between two extremes--

Dollar signs--more oil is cheaper oil, and
Treehuggers--no development nowhere, especially in the wilderness.  

Personally I don't agree with either one.  

I have been thinking more all the time of my college days when the Vietnam war was in full flow--trying to figure out how much different this war really is. If you don't want to read more about Iraq war, now is the time to bail out.

We are probably at a slightly different stage in the process--Circa 1968-1972 was what, 7 years or more after the US got involved in Vietnam. The troop levels were higher, the body counts were higher, there was a draft and an active anti-war movement going on. It was "communists" that threatened the world then instead of "terrusts" (yeah, I know it's misspelled). Like this war, there were really two stages of folly; getting involved in the first place, then staying involved because there really isn't any good way out. The tar-baby phenomenon. As soon as you touch it, you are stuck to it.

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