O.J.T. *

Think back to when you have begun new jobs. How much time elapsed before you felt pressure to be "up to speed?" At relatively simple jobs, like my short-lived career at a pizza parlor during college, it might have been only a day or so. In more complicated jobs, it might have been weeks.

So, think back to the more complicated jobs. How long could you get away with blaming your poor performance on the mess that your predecessor had left? Everyone gets a little bit of slack to start off with, so the first time you said, "Yeah, I would have had that nuclear reactor all engineered right up, if it hadn’t been for Mahmoud spilling his goats’ milk all over the plans and ruining them," your colleagues might have rolled their eyes at you behind your back and kept silent. The second time you blamed something on Mahmoud, you probably got a snide comment from the boldest, least polite person at the water cooler, Duncan, who had the social skills of a lizard, but somehow, miraculously, had entrenched himself so insidiously into the fabric of the company that he seemed invulnerable to normal office politics.

That was it. Game over. It was put-up-or-shut-up time, suckuh. You knew you didn’t have the political skills, or the mean streak, necessary to defeat the wondrously mediocre, mysteriously connected Duncan. So, you went home, told your significant other what a jerk that "Funkin’ Duncan" was, and then laid out your plan for survival, so that you would never again have to resort to blaming your own ineptitude on your predecessor. Because you knew that if you did, the tide would turn with the entire staff, which had been cutting you some slack up to that point because you were the newbie. They would all think back to Duncan’s comments, and even though they would secretly like to pee in Duncan’s coffee cup while he was in the boss’s office, kissing ass, they would be persuaded that, in this one instance, Duncan was right - the newbie was hopeless. After that, your requests for assistance would be met with distracted stares and improbable excuses. Sorry, the boss has me on a deadline to draft the roster for the fantasy football pool. As someone with at least a modicum of pride, you just couldn’t go there.

So you sucked it up, played the game on the field that had been laid out by the once-great patriarch of the company, Dr. Ruud-Gut, and achieved your equilibrium at the passable level of competency that would mark your entire career at the company. You KNEW that if you had ever again said, "Well, if Mahmoud hadn’t..." you would have been blasted with a chorus of groans to rival the reaction to the announcement of Miley Cyrus as a nominee for the Academy Award for Best Song. So, you never again uttered Mahmoud’s name. You took responsibility for your own output, from there on out.

UNFORTUNATELY, Barack Obama has apparently never worked in the private sector. I can assume that, in the world of "community organizers," blaming any and all of your own shortcomings on your predecessor is considered de rigueur. Because expectations for community organizers are so low; and because, despite that, everyone you work with is busily hiding their own inability to meet expectations; no one notices that you have no clue as to how to do your job.

Most people with any self-esteem treat this sort of situation as an unfortunate, temporary chapter in their careers - a learning experience, in which the crucial lesson is "aim higher." Okay, maybe not as high as President of the United States, but higher. Maybe get a little real, private sector work experience before you decide to run for President. Or the Senate. Or county dogcatcher.

So, finally, to my point: How long should the Chief Executive of the United States of America blame all of the problems he encounters on his predecessor? Do those of you old enough to remember the awesome presidency of Jimmy Carter remember Ronald Reagan ever blaming anything on him? NO! And, trust me, there was PLE-E-E-E-ENTY to blame on the celebrated peanut farmer from Georgia. If nothing else, we can blame the now viral mispronunciation, "nucular" on him, which should be enough to earn him at least the title of the biggest a$$hole in history. But did Ronald Reagan ever mention Carter’s commodious shortcomings (yes, I chose that adjective for its obvious similarity to the word, "commode")? Never. When Ronald Reagan was at the helm of the good ship, American Dream, there were no excuses! We didn’t need no stinking excuses!

Honestly, for a guy who supposedly held the collective consciousness of the entire country in his hands until about a year ago, President Obama’s is the most tone-deaf performance I have ever heard. This is not a country of excuses. Grow a pair, Barack. (Or borrow Michelle’s). Admit that the country is nothing like the Chicago neighborhood where you cut your political teeth. Admit that you don't have a clue, and then approach the job in the way you promised you would - by enlisting the assistance of people from both sides of the aisle.

* O.J.T. - Obama Job Training

Plant a tree for future generations

Today, I planted a tree. It’s a tree that I started from the pit of a particularly tasty avocado. While a grafted tree might bear fruit in only a few years, a tree started from a pit will probably take ten years to reach maturity and bear fruit.

To plant the tree here on the island of Hawaii, I had to invest considerable time and effort. Had I planted it just anywhere on our lot, I would have only needed to excavate a hole. Because the Hawaiian Islands are volcanoes, and because Hawaii is the youngest of them, many places on the island have very little soil on the surface, and a lot of lava rock. To dig a hole and plant something here is a commitment. In this case, it was even more of a commitment, because the place I wanted to plant my avocado tree had a large stump rooted through the rock. It took me two full afternoons to extricate the stump - which was about 18" in diameter at the cut, and weighed over 200 pounds - before I could begin digging the hole for the avocado.

I suppose some might think it odd that I would invest that much time and effort into planting and nurturing a tree that will not benefit me for ten years. I am betting, however, that none of those people would be farmers. Especially farmers whose livelihood depends upon crops from trees; peach farmers, orange farmers, almond farmers, etc. Those people understand the value of investing time and effort now, for a future payoff.

My daughter is now in her second year of college. She has committed herself to four years of hard work, to earn her bachelors degree. Though that’s not quite the commitment that I have made in planting my avocado tree (yes, I am joking), it is still effort expended for future benefits. At 19, she understands that.
Why, then, do our elected representatives refuse to understand? Ideally, we would elect the best and the brightest to represent us. Unfortunately, we elect the best self-promoters and the brightest hucksters. So, when gasoline prices rose to over $4 per gallon across the U.S., and citizens, tired of being dependent upon hostile foreign countries for fuel, were pushed to the edge, they screamed, "Drill here! Drill now!"

I was not surprised to hear prominent elected officials utter, as an excuse, "It will take ten years to realize any results from domestic oil exploration." Yeah?!? So? If we don’t do anything, the ten years won’t start ticking. Let’s start the process! In ten years, we will be so proud of our foresight!

What those low-life, lying, condescending, pandering scumbags (I mean, Congressional representatives) were really saying was, "We don’t want to discover more oil under American soil, because that would not fit in with our political agenda. So we are going to appeal to the basest instincts of the lowest common denominator of our constituents - the instant gratification generation - to obscure the truth and promote our agenda."

Now that gasoline prices are back down, we, the sheeple, have relaxed about energy independence. We are being led around by our noses, by a bunch of scheming, plotting idiots. Well, let’s wake back up before things get really out of hand!

The "green" jobs that President Obama promoted are already going overseas! And we have already saddled the next several generations with phenomenal, unconscionable debt. Let’s exhibit a little bit of the foresight and sacrifice for the future that previous generations so generously employed for our benefit. Sure, put up some windmills and solar panels, but drill! Drill here, and drill now!