The Nittany Turkey

Primarily about Penn State football, this is a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

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AARP Sucks

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I am taking a breather from football long enough to go off about something that has royally pissed me off. Hey, what good is having a blog if I can’t go off in it every now and then?

It is no secret that the Turkey is an old fart, a so-called Baby Boomer, one of those aging drains on society who for the rest of your working lives you’ll be toiling to support via your contributions to dwindling mythical Social Security and Medicare pools. As such, I have a great big beef with our favorite Grey Power lobbyists and dysfunctional support organization, which used to be called the American Association of Retired Persons but is now officially known as simply AARP. (That’s pronounced A-A-R-P, spelled out, rather than sounding like a burp. The ostensibly non-profit organization made the name change so it could sell insurance to people who are not retired.) Notwithstanding their shift to the “progressive” far left, which is anything but representative of the successful members of the mainstream elder segment of our society, I submit that this supposedly non-profit, elder protective organization scams senior citizens in much the same manner as do those nefarious businesses they condemn for doing the same thing.

A Case in Point

Back in 1996, when this Turkey turned 50, I received a membership solicitation from AARP. At the time, there was an option to sign up for lifetime membership for approximately $40, which seemed to be an excellent deal. I went for it because not only was AARP offering a package that provided significant discounts for rental cars, hotels, cruises, and so forth, but also their political orientation was much closer to middle-of-the-road with a serious eye toward advancing the needs of the aging population. I considered their views generally representative of mine and, by and large, those of my contemporaries. Thus, a lifetime membership for $40 seemed like a win-win proposition.

The first indication that something was awry came in the form of a membership card with an expiration date in 2007. Say what? I bought a lifetime membership. A lifetime membership expires when I do. Did AARP know something I didn’t? They seemed to know when I was going to turn 50, the minimum age necessary to qualify for membership, having sent me the membership solicitation one month before my 50th birthday. Did they also know when I was going to expire? Back at the time, I got some mileage out of telling that story, but then I quickly forgot about it. Ten years rolled by without giving it more than a passing thought.

When 2007 rolled around, I received an expiration notice from AARP. What the hell? I had paid for a lifetime membership! According to them, my lifetime was up in April 2007! Obviously, I threw the notice in the wastebasket. The notices kept coming. Each month my mailbox would have yet another expiration notice; each month it was immediately transferred to the trash. Finally, today, I received a “reinstatement” offer that would “entitle” me to re-establish my membership for 1, 3, or 5 years at the current going rate ($12.50, $29.50, or $39.95, respectively). I had had enough of this crap, so I scrawled some puerile epithets on the mail-in card and sent it back to AARP in their postage-paid reply envelope. I’m certain that it will quickly make its way into the garbage, but I felt better having done it.

I’m Not the Only Scammee

It gets better. Interestingly enough, without me prompting him and without him knowing anything about my AARP situation, a friend recently mentioned to me that he, too, had paid for a lifetime membership in AARP back in 1996 or 1997 and was also apprised this year that his lifetime had expired. Furthermore, when I mentioned to another friend that I was writing this piece, he told me that he, too, had been hoodwinked similarly. So, my situation is not a fluke. Apparently, this unscrupulous practice is widespread among AARP’s unknowing lifetime members.

Did I miss some fine print somewhere? That print had to be pretty damn fine! As any reader of The Nittany Turkey knows, I’m a cynic and I generally don’t take anything at face value. The word AARP used in the membership solicitation was lifetime. How the hell many different interpretations are there for the word lifetime? Can it mean something less than a lifetime? An approximate lifetime? A sorta lifetime? What? I cannot believe that I would have missed wording such as “until death of the member or 2007, whichever comes first.” The irony here is that AARP regularly decries similar “lifetime” offers made by others as scams against the elderly. I suppose the rules don’t apply to them.

An honorable business—and don’t think for a minute that AARP is not big business—lives by its commitments. If its policies change, grandfathering in (no pun intended) those who have been given deals under old policies is the only equitable and acceptable treatment. Arrogant businesses that fail to uphold commitments certainly do not deserve to have my business. AARP won’t have mine.

Clearly, the AARP’s political philosophies have diverged from mine, so I’m not going to miss them. They’re just not representative of my interests or of those of many from my generation, and I feel that their agenda is in many ways deleterious to the very people they are supposedly supporting. That is my opinion. Furthermore, does AARP exist to support elders or to sell them insurance? Many of their lobbying efforts seem directed at greasing the skids for their insurance rake-off. Therefore, one has to wonder not only about the definition of lifetime, but also about the definition of non-profit in the AARP distorted dictionary. Accordingly, from my perspective, they don’t deserve any more money from me. However, more importantly, they should not be able to abrogate a lifetime membership contract with impunity. I’d still like the discounts, which are what induced me to sign up in the first place.

I have to wonder about exactly how many of their constituents (or former constituents) they’ve screwed over in this manner.

Want More Info?

This Isn’t the Old AARP, by Dale van Atta, Los Angeles Times
On Issues From Medicare to Medication, AARP’s Money Will Be There, Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, Washington Post
AARP Says It Will Become Major Medicare Insurer While Remaining a Consumer Lobby, Robert Pear, New York Times

Alamo Bowl Match-up Set

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It’s the Aggies

It was announced today that Texas A&M (7-5, 4-4 Big 12) will be Penn State’s (8-4, 4-4 Big Ten) opponent in the Valero Alamo Bowl, to be held in San Antonio, Texas on December 29. The game is being hyped as a rematch of the 1999 Alamo Bowl, in which the Nittany Lions cleaned the Aggies’ clocks 24-0.

Of course, any comparison of 1999 and 2007 is strictly hype. However, this might turn out to be the most beatable of any of the various bowl opponents the Lions could have drawn. They’re not in it over their heads, and that’s a good thing. This Turkey will be back atcha with counterhypical observations and punctilious predictions sometime between now and the fifth day of Christmas.

In the meanwhile, the bowl picture solidified today. Let’s look at some stuff.

Other Noteworthy Big Ten Bowls

It is going to be a bad, bad, superbad year for the Big Ten once again in post-season play. Penn State and Wisconsin might well have the best chances at winning.

Michigan, however, will be decimated by Florida in the Capital One Bowl. The Wolverines could have wound up with a winnable game had Illinois not been selected for a BCS bowl, as UM would have then played in the Champ’s Sports Bowl.

As for Illinois, lots of luck in the Rose Bowl with USC. You might recall that USC and LSU were everyone’s pre-season picks for the still somewhat mythical national championship (SSMNC). Well, USC had some rough breaks along the way and won’t play in the SSNMC Good Hands Bowl (brought to you from New Orleans by the folks who wouldn’t pay your Katrina claim). Instead, they’ll get to feast on the bowl-starved Illini, who haven’t seen Pasadena since 1984 and who will pay dearly for their comeuppance this year. The Zookster will make his presence known in the BCS in the future, but this year might just be embarrassing.

Similarly, the gratuitous extra Allstate It Don’t Decide Nothin’ Bowl for the SSMNC will feature another overmatched Big Ten squad getting crushed, this time by SEC opponent LSU. The Ohio State Buckeyes managed to get in the back door, just when it looked like they would be relegated to the Grandaddy of Them All. While LSU hasn’t looked impressive of late, they’re playing in a tougher conference and they’ve been beaten up. The recuperative layoff should bring back the Tigers many of us thought could win it all—and they will. Another “woulda coulda shoulda” chance for tOSU, sadly (but not too sadly).

In the Outback Bowl, Wisconsin has drawn a beatable opponent. Tennessee is coming off a tough loss to LSU but they should prevail against the Badgers. Well, they should have prevailed against the Nittany Lions last year, too. This Turkey thinks they’ll get screwed again this year.

Moo U. will face Boston College in the Champs Sports Bowl. Who knows which Michigan State team will show up that day? One thing is for certain—the over/under is likely to be the biggest of all the bowl games.

Another bowl-starved up-and-comer, Indiana, will square off with Oklahoma State in the Insight Bowl. I have no great insights into this game. (Get it? Get it?)

We round out the Big Ten Bowl picture with the Purdue Boilermakers traveling to that dream vacation winter wonderland, Detroit, to play the MAC champs, the Central Michigan Chippewas, in the Motor City Bowl. Detroit is not far at all from Kohler, Wisconsin, and it represents the epitome of rust-belt fun vacation spots. Reminds me of a Russian travel brochure touting the wonders of a power plant tour.

Joe Wants to Coach Another 3,4,5 Years…

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Now that we know that Joe Paterno earns a salary of a little more than half a mil per annum (see this Post-Gazette article), which puts him in the bottom quartile of Big Ten coaches, we’re also finding out what he thinks about coaching beyond the end of his current contract, set to expire after the 2008 season. He wants to coach, “…maybe three, four, five more years as long as the good Lord keeps me healthy.”

“I think the perfect ending is you drop dead at the end of a game after you’ve kicked the winning field goal and you’re carried off the field and everybody is singing, ‘So long, Joe. It’s been wonderful.’ ”

This Turkey wonders how it will actually play out. One thing is for certain—the on-line grousing and grumbling will increase in volume and Paterno will be cast yet again as a stubborn, selfish old man, a drag on the program, bla bla bla, ad nauseam. Face it, folks: it’s hard to foresee there being much originality in the coverage this issue will get because it has been beaten to death repeatedly over the past decade. I challenge bloggists and legitimate journalists to come at this thing from new angles to keep us entertained instead of boring us to tears with the same old “Joe Must Go” crap.

As for this Turkey, I’m on the fence. While I’ve perceived a decline in coaching efficacy—from my admittedly naïve viewpoint—I also believe that Paterno has done a great deal to earn his elite status. He put this Penn State football program on the map. He personally funded a major library expansion. If indeed he has outlived his usefulness to the program, it is sad that he cannot see it. It brings to mind the end of Muhammad Ali’s boxing career: after losing to Leon Spinks, he gave us a brief flash of hope when he won the rematch, then was torn apart by Larry Holmes, and in his final fight, had nothing at all left for journeyman stumblebum Trevor Berbick. Joe gave us that false hope back in 2005, but he is now showing his age. He really should retire before he looks like Ali did with Holmes and Berbick, else he runs the risk of being remembered that way. But Paterno has shown that he gets what he wants from the administration at Penn State, so don’t bet against him dying with his boots on.