Weasels

I try to differentiate between criminals and Weasels. Certainly there are a lot of criminals that are Weasels - but criminal behavior is motivated by many factors, so the two are not always synonymous. Weasels can often be nasty, deceitful, and dishonest without technically breaking any laws.

However, occasionally I see criminal behavior so heinous and reprehensible that it could only be committed by someone with the true soul of a Weasel. Such is the case of Roberta Lillie, who was recently sentenced to life in prison for beating her 88-year-old mother to death with a wine bottle and an oxygen tank. Lillie testified she went to her mother’s apartment to return credit cards she had stolen from her. She also told the court she had told her mother and aunt she needed money for cancer surgery, when she actually was just behind on her debts. Instead of apologizing and returning her mother’s credit cards, she chose instead to beat her Mom to death while the old lady sat in her recliner. Lillie justified her actions by saying once at her mother’s apartment she "began to ponder all that had gone wrong in her life". One can only hope Lillie continues to ponder her situation for the next forty or fifty years from an 8 by 10 cell.

In my book one of the Weasels I profile is The Grave Robbing Weasel, a particularly nasty fellow that literally stole the boots off a dead guy. I find Weasels that choose to torment the defenseless a particularly nasty breed of vermin, and there are few more vulnerable than the elderly, the dead, and their mourners. We need a special part of the prison for the folks that con old people out of their life savings, rob the homes of mourners while they are at funerals, and sell overpriced air tight coffins to poor people distraught over the death of a loved one.

According to an article I read in The Oregonian, Carolyn Franklin, co-owner of Woods Funeral Home in Oakridge, Oregon is alleged to possess some of these exceptional Weasel qualities. She was arrested last month and charged with five counts of first degree theft and forgery. Investigators claim that Franklin was filing funeral policy claims for people that had not died yet, and collected over $34,000 by forging signatures and billing for services that had not been rendered. The scheme was discovered when one of the elderly policy holders did pass away, and when the family tried to collect on the policy they were told the death benefit had been paid three years earlier. Since death is inevitable and someday all the policy holders will die, Franklin’s alleged antics seemed doomed from the beginning. But I guess a Weasel doesn’t have to be smart.

Unfortunately every culture has to endure the antics of the Weasel - even the southern Oregon Indian tribe, the Klamaths. According to the Dictionary of Klamath Language, the Klamath name for Weasel, or more specifically the Weasle, is Tchashkai. The Tchashkai’s curious pranks and tricks are often alluded to by Native Americans, and in fact the Klamaths even named a minor deity after the Tchashkai, and there is a section on the Southside of Crater Lake named in honor of the Weasel God. Of course this small amount of nearly useless information probably leads to a couple big questions. First and foremost, why am I reading the Dictionary of Klamath Language? Well, it came recommended on Amazon when I bought Funny Sioux Sayings. Also, I am considering developing a Klamath version of the book, Warriors, Workers, Whiners, and Tshashkais. It would be the only new Klamath language book introduced in a hundred years, and I have a feeling the language is due for a renaissance. Anything to sell a few more books.

One might also wonder why a culture would name anything after a Weasel. I’m certainly not familiar enough with Klamath Indian culture to comment specifically on the Tshashkai, but in our world there is a Nixon library, and the Nobel Peace Prize is named after the man that invented dynamite.

In my book I borrow the above quote from my nephew Auggie Smith, a stand-up comedian who finds very funny ways to preach personal responsibility. And isn’t that what being a Warrior is all about - taking responsibility for your actions, be they good or bad? As Mel Gibson should probably attest to, drinking to excess doesn’t make you different - it just makes you more of what you are - and it sometimes leads to very bad photo opportunities.

Last week another Weasel crawled out of his hole and into the bright lights of forced personal responsibility and a public revealing of sexual peccadilloes. Congressman Mark Foley, who previously had not been shy about condemning others for their less than responsible activities, was revealed to have been harassing young male pages with sexually explicit e mails. In a Washington version of the Vatican pedophile scandal, it was also revealed that other members of congress might have known about Foley’s penchant for perviness, but chose not to address it.

In a classic response, Foley is "blaming the booze", saying he is going in for treatment. He also has indicated he had undergone some childhood trauma that placed him in his unfortunate position. In Foley’s "Devil Made Me Do It" world we are all potential victims that victimize others. It’s like some sick multi-level marketing pyramid - where everything bad resonates from the evil doers that victimized our great great grandparents as kids five or six generations ago.

We shouldn’t buy it. Certainly alcoholism and abuse can permeate and infect the family tree - and as a society we need to do all we can to break the cycle - but it doesn’t justify continued victimization of new generations. Foley is a smart and connected guy that had the resources to get the necessary assistance to temper and control his creepy urges. And if others in Washington knew of his penchant for the barely post-pubescent, and chose to do nothing, they should be sent back to their home states in disgrace to work the late shift at Burger King, alongside the former Catholic Bishops that failed to police the priests.

Of course, in fairness to both Catholic Priests and politicians (though I am not quite sure why I feel compelled to defend either), I guess I should state that as a young man I served as both an Alter Boy and a Page, and neither Priest nor Politician coerced me into an uncompromising position.  Of course, I was pudgy and a bit mean.

Since I started writing Warriors Workers Whiners and Weasels, I’ve noticed that, as a culture, we have recently been confronted with an abundance of particularly heinous Weasels operating on a large scale. They range from the white-collar thugs who ran Enron and WorldCom and robbed thousands of unsuspecting people of their life savings while pillaging their companies, to the most dangerous kind of Weasels who periodically rise to haunt mankind – namely, the terrorists who killed thousands of people on September 11th and who continue to plague the world by killing innocent people in the name of fanaticism.

Although I would never dare equate the run-of-the-mill nasty folks each of us may encounter in our daily lives with the kind of individuals who randomly slaughter innocent people, both are Weasels of different degrees. History is filled with the unfortunate rise of social, religious, political, and military Weasels—individuals and groups who cause tremendous pain to the masses and who temporarily stall society in its tracks, as we all attempt to deal with actions that are almost impossible for us to comprehend. Instead of channeling their energies to change the problems they complain about, they instead focus on harming others in retribution.

In their fanaticism, they exhibit typical cowardly Weasel tendencies, although on a much larger and more dangerous scale than the con men and creeps that we more commonly encounter. They are blind to the concerns of others, and they justify any action they may decide to take. They whine about the injustice they perceive is heaped on them, and they use it to explain their immoral and criminal behavior. Yet despite their pontifications, they refuse to take responsibility for the havoc they wreak.

As Americans, we have been raised to loudly proclaim the superiority of our political system over less free and forthcoming governments, which made the terrorists’ actions all the more baffling. They feel strongly enough about their cause that they commit suicide while murdering thousands, seemingly with no regret, yet they are so cowardly that they refuse to publicly acknowledge their actions. Although the atrocities of other groups and governments are not often more tolerable, as a culture, we at least find it more palatable to have enemies who have the courage of their convictions to publicly identify themselves.

As previously explained, weasels are not only annoying and sometimes dangerous, but they are also incredibly expensive! In fact, we all pay essentially what amounts to a Weasel tax—and this tax is probably a lot more than most of us imagine, plus it’s increasing every year. In the past I talked about the impact of petty crimes, such as vandalism on society. Now let’s take a look at the impact of more serious crimes.

Moving way up the scale of seriousness is gun violence. The cost of gun violence in the country runs more than $100 billion a year, and much of it is paid by taxpayers. In fact, each gang murder ends up costing taxpayers more than a million dollars, once all the costs for enforcement and trials are tabulated; when you add in the cost of incarcerating the murderer, that number goes to $1.75 million per gang murder. In Southern California alone, there were more than 3,100 gang murders in the last five years. Over the last fourteen years, Southern California spent $271 million treating gunshot wounds—96 percent of which was paid for with public funds.

And when we do catch these criminals, housing them is the next huge expense. The budget just for the Federal Prison System in 2006 is estimated at $4.8 billion.

There is nothing more disgusting than a Weasel who takes advantage of the disadvantaged—the elderly, the young, the handicapped, and those in need. And unfortunately, there is no lack of such stories—about creeps who deal in human slavery, pedophiles, con men who steal an elderly person’s last dollars—the stories go on and on.

But one must really wonder about the kind of Weasel who decides to take advantage of his own elderly grandmother. A fellow passenger on a plane told me about the black-sheep Weasel in his family. His brother, a rather “down-and-out” young man, had taken a renewed interest in visiting their grandmother. Knowing the disreputable character of their brother, the siblings were a bit suspicious, but the elderly woman was so enjoying the attention that they all felt it might be okay.

It was only when the grandmother fell ill that they uncovered what a Weasel their brother really was. The doctor discovered that the creep had been stealing the grandmother’s vital medication and replacing it with vitamin pills. When the family did a little more investigation, they found that the thief had also slowly been stealing the old lady’s possessions and selling them to buy his own drugs.

In today’s society, Weasel behavior has become so common that instead of immediately condemning it, we have come to expect it, sometimes even embrace it, lowering our expectations of our fellow man. Our tolerance level for the selfish, lying, destructive, and sometimes deadly habits of Weasels has risen to a point that should cause us all concern about the coming years. Workplace Weasels are wearing us down, often winning the battle due to society’s hesitation to hold ourselves to a higher standard and the easy temptations that Weasels use as recruiting tools.

We are told that success and money are our God-given rights and that almost anyone might achieve enormous wealth and success almost by accident. The end justifies the means, so go ahead and do whatever it takes to get what you want. Who cares about ethics and credibility? Acquiring the most “bling bling” is the objective.

Everyone deserves to be famous. We worship at the altar of the celebrity, where fame based on talent has been replaced by infamy at any cost. Magazines and newspaper headlines seldom feature inspirational accounts of people improving society; instead, we get to know the intimate and lurid life details of accused murderers and celebrity criminals.

Live the “lottery lifestyle.” Simply answer the door and Ed McMahon might be standing there, ready to present you with an oversized check that will change your life! Drop all your life savings into one Internet stock so you can become a billionaire. Go ahead and live well past your financial means. Charge that credit card to the max, take out second and third mortgages, live like a rock star, and somehow it will all work out.

I heard this story from a woman I met in Vancouver, Canada. A few years earlier, she had fallen in love with a handsome, charming man she met at a fund-raising event. He was a successful architect, and after dating for a year, they became engaged. He explained that as a wedding gift, he was building them a weekend cabin in the woods, and for the next few months, he would be gone on many Saturdays and Sundays, staying in a tent on the property while he constructed their love nest. She at first objected, saying she wanted to be with him, but he insisted that this was a wonderful romantic gesture he wanted to make by himself to start their lives together. “Our little cabin in the woods will be like a monument to our love,” he insisted.

One Saturday night, while he was off working at the cabin, she attended another fund-raising event by herself. She was seated next to an attractive woman about her age, and as they conversed, she was pleased to learn this woman was also engaged to be married. The conversation went something like this:

“So what does your fiancée do?” woman #1 inquired.

“He’s an architect,” said woman #2.

“Wow, what a coincidence, so is mine,” she replied enthusiastically.

“Maybe they know each other. Where does he work?” And after hearing the reply, she replied with growing unease, “Wow, what a coincidence, my fiancée works there, too.”

I am sure you have guessed the rest. The architect had been engaged to both women for a year. He told woman #2 that he was working on an out-of-town project and could only see her on the weekends, and of course, he used the “most likely fictional cabin love nest” excuse on woman #1.

After expressing their mutual outrage, the two women decided to do a little Weasel confrontation. Woman #1 informed my friend that Romeo Weasel was due to come to her house later that night. (For some reason, he had been unavailable to attend the dinner with her—perhaps there was fiancée #3?) The two women went back to her place to wait, and when he came through the door, they were both calmly sitting in the living room sipping wine.

According to my friend, Romeo Weasel turned white with shock, fell to the ground, pulled himself into a fetal position, and began wailing like a baby. He cried out ridiculous excuses about how he never felt loved and that was why he acted in such a shameful manner. “He actually did us both a favor by reacting that way,” she explained with a laugh, “because as we looked at him, I knew both of us were thinking ‘wow, how could we have ever been in love with that?’ although we did have to fight the temptation to kick him around the room a bit.” Needless to say, Romeo lost two fiancées that night.

At the corporate level, analysis paralysis usually spans several levels of management, and it’s almost always accompanied by varying levels of Whiner and often Weasel behavior. Look A few years ago, at early stages of the growth of the Internet, I encountered a classic case while working on an advertising and marketing project for a well-known multibillion-dollar telephone company. The company was considering an innovative marketing campaign to attract consumers to sign up for its new Internet service. Because of its market position, huge brand name, and massive resources, it was natural for this company to take a leading role in online services.

My initial contact at the company, a vice president named Ted, told me that, although he was very much behind the project, he needed to be able to demonstrate to his boss that it was going to work. He therefore authorized us to do tens of thousands of dollars worth of research before actually authorizing the creation of the marketing campaign. I objected, explaining that for the cost of the research, we could actually just create and test the campaign and know if it worked, rather than waste money on research. “Why spend money finding out if we should test it, when for the same price, we can just go ahead and see if it works?” I argued.

“Nope,” Ted said. “I know that you are right, but if it does fail, I need the backup of the research so it looks like I did my job. It’s just corporate policy here, and I can’t leave myself open to question.”

So let me get this right,” I asked, somewhat confused. “You want to spend twice as much money, because if it doesn’t work, it will be better for you than if we spent half as much?”

“Exactly,” Ted smiled, obviously privy to some bizarre economic formulas only available to massive and wasteful major corporations.

The research was positive and indicated we should go forward with the new campaign, but Ted’s boss had her own set of testing parameters that we had to deal with. Sarah, who was new to her position, was concerned that our approach was too innovative and that we did not know enough from the research to guarantee success.

“It is impossible to guarantee success no matter how much research we do,” I argued. “Ultimately, only the consumer decides whether or not they buy a product, and if we could just research everything with guaranteed success based on the results, this would be the biggest and most profitable company in the world. Let’s just do the test without wasting any more time or money.”

Sarah was unmoved by this argument, and she explained that her boss was a big believer in a new focus-group technology. She instructed us to spend another huge sum of money for more research. Again, the focus groups responded positively, but just when I thought we would move forward, Ted explained that he and Sarah were changing departments, and the project would have to go through an entirely new review by their replacements.

The new group wanted fresh research (undoubtedly to protect themselves in the corporate hierarchy), and to make a long story a little shorter, nobody in the company was ever able to make a decision. They failed to move forward, but their smaller and stealthier competitors were not stricken with the same analysis paralysis. Perhaps that is why this once-great company’s stock is now worth a fraction of what it was ten years ago, and the company is a relatively minor player on the Internet. In comparison, companies like Google and Yahoo, which didn’t even exist a few years ago, have eclipsed it.