Redunculous

 

No, it is not a spelling error…really.  And, no, it’s not a word… yet.  It’s just one of my specialty.  A word coined to help find the appropriate emotion to attach to a situation.  This, the latest of my installments to the Webster’s dictionary, is the combination of the words redundant and ridiculous. I did this all by myself.  For some reason, Webster keeps sending back my offerings of literary coinage and asked that I please stop, as it has caused the great patriarch of the book, Noah Webster himself, to turn incessantly in his grave.  I guess that would be rather unsettling.

But I like the word.  It has an essence to it, the essence of economy.  Oh yes, I economized.  We all have to nowadays.  I took the two most prevalent manifestations of the liberal mind, redundant and ridiculous behavior. I combined them into one word and, now, I can respond to them both at once.  I….I….feel so focused.

And quite timely, I might add, because we have had a slew of redunculous behavior swirling around the State of Maine.  We just had the Senate President, Justin Alfond, make a speech assuring State workers an increase in the pensions and wages, while the those in private sector, who pay for those wages and pensions with their taxes, can barely put food on the table for their families.  This was a follow up to his speech attacking private schools.  The Senate President doesn’t seem to be fond of the private sector.

Mr. Alfond suffers from the liberal illusion that Maine people have an unlimited supply of revenue and that we work at our jobs simply to give it to him to disperse amongst his government allies.  I have to agree with the great conservative apologist Thomas Sowell who asked, “…why it is ‘greed’ to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take someone else’s money.”  Alas, I fear Alfond and his allies think its good policy; that is, if you look at the budget they passed. Tax increases to pay for those government employee raises.

Strange, Maine is looking at a $58 million surplus for the closing fiscal year, before these tax increases.  So, why, Mr. Alfond, would you want to increase taxes on a struggling economy when you don’t need to?  Oh, is that my “greedy” old self, wanting to keep my money in my wallet for my family to use.  I’m just so greedy that way.

That leads me to another issue to be resolved.  Recently, I criticized those activists, who seem bent on telling people what to do in their own backyards.  I feel very strongly about the sanctity and privacy of a person’s private lands.  I have been rebuked by some of those activists, saying that if I don’t want anyone to tell me what to do in my backyard then I shouldn’t criticize public government officials.

Let me try to help and clarify the issue.  There is a huge difference between private and public issues.  I do not criticize any official on what he does in his private home and on his private lands.  I have, and will continue to do so, criticized public officials on the actions or inactions in the public tax funded sector.  It is the taxpayer’s job, since our dollars fund their public decisions, to critique the exercise of their representative duties.

Secondly, I have been admonished that, because I am a Christian, I should not publicly criticize or rebuke public officials.  This individual obviously did not read the story of Jesus cleansing the Temple, nor has he read the accounts of Paul the Apostle rebuking Roman leaders to their very face, also of rebuking Peter to his face.  The idea that I should abdicate my God-given liberties for the sake of some contrived sense of propriety and allow myself to be relegated to the doormat of society as a reflection of my faith has no intellectual, Constitutional or, for that matter, Biblical merit.  The very conception of such an idea is utterly and unequivocally redunculous.

Of Brave Young Men

 

 

All of Piscataquis mourns the loss of one of its greatest treasures, her youth.  A young man named Dacano Arno drowned recently in the currents of Sebec River.  Even for those such as myself who did not know the boy personally, there is an overwhelming since of grief at the loss of promise, talent and personhood that we experience as a community. A parent’s heart aches for the grief that those that bore him, nurtured him and now say goodbye to him feel in their hearts.  For this there is only love and prayer for a balm.

But as we all grieve in our several ways, let us not lose sight of the heroism this young man showed.  Caught in the grip of a treacherous current, he still thought of his friend above himself, pushing him to safety.  It is this test of courage that has shown the mettle of so many brave young men.  Dacano is not the first, nor will he be the last, to pass this hallmark of bravery on his way to eternity, but, for Piscataquis, he is ours.  For, with all that is wrong in our Nation, Dacano Arno represents what is right.

There are still brave young men who fight for this Nation on the battlefields of war and for their friends in the rivers of the Maine wilderness.  Their courage is the same.  It runs through their core.  And it is the backbone of who we are and how we stand.

General Patten once said that we should not mourn the loss of brave young men, but, rather, rejoice that such men lived.  I suspect it would be near impossible not to grieve this loss, even for a hardened old general.  But I do rejoice that Dacano lived.  That he left behind an example of leadership, selflessness and love of his fellow man for his friends to follow.

I did not know this young man personally, but he is a tribute to his parents, family and friends.  It is easy to see what manner of man he was by his final act, tested in the crucible of death.  At his core, this young man lived by this timeless truth: “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for a friend.”

A Highlands Christmas

 

The whisper of snow

As it falls through the trees

Climbing it, piling it

To each child their glee

High in the mountains

Betwixt snow and ice

The water still thunders

The pictures so nice

And on down the mountain

Through Gulf Hagas Gorge

‘Till the river moves Pleasant

Past the old Iron Forge

Past depots in Brownville

In Milo a meeting

Two brothers called rivers

And three now are greeting

Way up in the Highlands

With tales told of yore

The great lake called Moosehead

Its grand icy shore

In its forests of bounty

They searched and found gifts

But deep in its depths

Lay old ghostly ships

So much that surrounds us

Such beauty to see

How oft’ we forget this

We just see one tree

We bustle to fill it

With ribbons and bows

Despair if there’s nothing

Beneath its fir boughs

But while we are shopping

For Foxcroft’s fine wares

In Dexter, in Guilford

In here or in there

Remember the blessing

To live in this place

Wrapped in God’s beauty

His picture of grace

From Greenville to Dover

His birth for us all

From KI to Milo

May all heed His call

Written by Andy Torbett

Dec. 17th, 2012

The Thanksgiving in ME

The thanksgiving in me
Looks forward to see
What blessings this season does bring

It’s more than the feast
The dough and the yeast
It’s freedoms we hale, we sing

We gaze misty eyed
At heroes who’ve died
To insure that we celebrate free

A child’s pleading eye
For a big piece of pie
In part is thanksgiving in me

To view nature’s charm
With my wife on my arm
Indeed, this is heaven on earth

The trees shed their leaves
Children play as they please
Oh, how I treasure their birth

This dinner of cheer
Heralds winter is near
Soon Dad, cut our big Christmas tree

Mom’s final say
Picks the tree that will stay
I love this thanksgiving in ME

The land soon will bow
With snow covered boughs
We’re all warm and cozy inside

This land that I love
Blessings sent from above
Is why I still live here with pride

The things dear to me
The thanksgiving in me
Is why I will never refrain

To thank God above
For my family I love
This is Thanksgiving in ME