you got to admit, this guy comes from the right place for his new job….

before we get to this week’s winner of the “hey abbott award” we have to explain about the “association for retired persons” (aarp).

its primary purpose appears to be selling all types of insurance to older folks.

it also specializes in hustling pseudo medical cures, wheelchairs, walkers and a great deal of senior citizen oriented crap. the organization is probably the nation’s largest user of direct mail which is underwritten by the u.s. taxpayer.

if you could get a peak at its travel and entertainment expense accounting, you would see that the “aarp” fat cat executives are probably having a grand old time spending grandpa and grandma money.

so, when catherine ventura-merkel, the managing director for publications for “aarp” wanted a new editor for her magazine “aarp bulletin” where better to look than to a sleazy, lying, cheating publication like “newsday?”

it is a new york city area publication, that has just been found to be making up its circulation figures. advertisers are fit to be tied and at least three executives at the newspaper are on their way to jail.

she picked james toedtman, who brags that he was member of two pulitzer prize-winning teams when he was at “newsday,” to be the editor of “aarp bulletin.”

how much you want to bet that his two prize winning teams at “newsday” at least suspected that the circulation figures were a lie?

we give the “hey abbott award” this week to catherine and if she likes, she can share it with jimmy.

as an aside to all of this, “newsday” has been absolutely horrible in its coverage of the iraq war. it has twisted the truth and in some instances it has aided the enemy by publishing certain military specifications that should have been left not reported.

if he had even the slightest suggestion of decency, james toedtman should dump his pulitzer prizes since the “pulitzer” is orchestrated each year by the columbia school of journalism. columbia is the university that prides itself on having a professor who said he hoped all the american soldiers would die in iraq as they had in somalia.

that all fits in quite nicely with the "newsday" never ending anti-united states military rhetoric.

it is bad enough getting old and it is bad enough having health problems as you approach your sunset. “aarp” takes advantage of the elderly in everyway it can and it needs a guy like james toedtman to continue shoveling the various hustles.

people like catherine and james who take advantage of the elderly will one day be elderly and hopefully they will get it all back.

from their pictures, however, both of them look like they are already there. they have matching bags under their eyes.