[TheForge] ebay scam alert -- first hand experience

[Peter Fels And Phoebe Palmer]

Reynolds;
Tom Clark is a good  fellow and a very able smith. No doubt it is worth=20
paying rapt attention to anything he has to say about smithing. Language =

does not seem to be his area of specialty. Not advocating emulation of=20
profane ways..just toleration of them and other equally irritating=20
 behaviors ( like, say, emoticons!).
I'm not saying you are prissy of course; But  rather objecting  to=20
unnecessary limitations on style in these discussioins. The loud louts=20
are people too. Some of them are smart and valuable to our art. Most of=20
us are strong headed, self motivated, self made characters. Frankly, you =

won't see me in church next sunday.
The idea here, as I see it, is that what we have in common is working=20
hot iron. Otherwise, we cover a wide swath of social and cultural=20
 divergence. Under other circumstances, we might not get along all that=20
well. We hold widely disparate political, social and religous views,=20
enough to easily chafe on each other. In order to function here, it=20
helps a whole lot to tolerate as wide a range of expression as we=20
possibly can. Style of expression is no more than that.
Where we might otherwise go head to head, we gotta just shrug most of=20
that irritating shit off; so we can get on with  conspiring to bother=20
chunks of metal.
My "rationale" was a tongue-in-cheek  tweak at the " it's traditional so =

it must be OK" posture many of us take.
What I was trying to express is that limiting our  participants to the=20
well spoken and upright citizens amongst us is going to exclude  a fair=20
percentage of  metalworkers  from whom we could learn a lot. Those=20
strictures will exclude some of our most creative smiths because they=20
wouldn't " behave. =20
I'm uncomfortable imposing any limits that are less than absolutely=20
necessary.  Decorum is trivial when the cost is freedom.
Besides, the DELETE button is so "empowering".
         Pete

Reynolds wrote:

>
>Pete:
>
>Tom Clark objected to Andy's gratuitous profanity. I happen to agree wit=
h Tom. Tom was not suggesting we speak such that Shirley Temple would app=
rove, he just suggested this is not the place for trash talk. Take it som=
ewhere else.
>
>Your rationale for using profanity is pretty weak, however. By your logi=
c, stealing is perfectly acceptable because it is an "ancient part" of ou=
r human history. Listen to what you are saying! You go on to say "rough l=
anguage has been also traditionally associated with blacksmithing." Yeah?=
 Where did you get that idea? Some blacksmith tell you that? That is as m=
uch a myth as truth. But, swarthy pirates seem more interesting than a ci=
vil haberdasher when Hollywood makes them out to swagger and swear. I hav=
e a journal of an 18th Century blacksmith that is colorful, eloquent and =
descriptive without one word of profanity in 8 years of writing. So just =
because a few people in centuries past chose to show they were miscreants=
, doesn't mean we should all rush to emulate them. If we want to be like =
"them," why not fashion our behavior after a Pennsylvania Dutchman that w=
as both articulate with pen and artistic in ironworking. I'll take the hi=
gh road; you go the low road if you think=20
> that makes you more of a craftsman. I'm not prissy as you suggest, I ju=
st learned there is an avenue to travel that doesn't require I wade throu=
gh the muck with the nefarious knaves.
>
>Reynolds
> =20
>