You Are Kidding!!!

When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a nursing home in North Platte, Nebraska, it was believed that he had nothing left of any value.

Later, when the nurses were going through his meager possessions, they found this poem. Its quality and content so impressed the staff that copies were made and distributed to every nurse in the hospital.  One nurse took her copy to Missouri .

The old man’s sole bequest to posterity has since appeared in the Christmas edition of the News Magazine of the St. Louis Association for Mental Health. A slide presentation has also been made based on his simple, but eloquent, poem.

And this little old man, with nothing left to give to the world, is now the author of this ‘anonymous’ poem winging across the Internet.

Crabby Old Man

What do you see nurses? . . .. .. . What do you see?
What are you thinking . . . . . when you’re looking at me?
A crabby old man . . .. . . not very wise,
Uncertain of habit . . . . . with faraway eyes?

Who dribbles his food . . . . . and makes no reply.
When you say in a loud voice . . . . . ‘I do wish you’d try!’
Who seems not to notice . .. . . . the things that you do.
And forever is losing . . . . . A sock or shoe?

Who, resisting or not . . . . . lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding . . . . . The long day to fill?
Is that what you’re thinking? . . . . . Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse . . . . . you’re not looking at me.

I’ll tell you who I am. . . . .. . As I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding, . . . . . as I eat at your will.
I’m a small child of Ten . . . . . with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters . . . . . who love one another.

A young boy of Sixteen . . . . with wings on his feet.
Dreaming that soon now . .. . . . a lover he’ll meet.
A groom soon at Twenty . . . . . my heart gives a leap.
Remembering, the vows . . . . . that I promised to keep.

At Twenty-Five, now . . . . . I have young of my own.
Who need me to guide . . . . . And a secure happy home.
A man of Thirty . . . .. . My young now grown fast,
Bound to each other . . . . . With ties that should last.

At Forty, my young sons . . .. . . have grown and are gone,
But my woman’s beside me . . . . . to see I don’t mourn.
At Fifty, once more, babies play ’round my knee,
Again, we know children . . .. . . My loved one and me.

Dark days are upon me . . . . . my wife is now dead.
I look at the future . . . . . shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing . . . . . young of their own.
And I think of the years . . . . . and the love that I’ve known.

I’m now an old man . … . . . and nature is cruel.
Tis jest to make old age . . . . . look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles . . . . . grace and vigor, depart.
There is now a stone . . . . where I once had a heart.

But inside this old carcass . . . . . a young guy still dwells,
And now and again . . . . . my battered heart swells.
I remember the joys . . . . . I remember the pain.
And I’m loving and living . . . . . life over again.

I think of the years, all too few . . . .. . gone too fast.
And accept the stark fact . . . . that nothing can last.
So open your eyes, people . . . . . open and see.
Not a crabby old man .. . . Look closer . . . see ME!!

Remember this poem when you next meet an older person who you might brush aside without looking at the young soul within. We will all, one day, be there, too!

PLEASE SHARE THIS POEM… The best and most beautiful things of this world can’t be seen or touched. They must be felt by the heart.

New York, November 23 — Providing deeper insight into the climate change scientific establishment, the hundreds of emails hacked from a British university and posted online has sparked another climate change debate.

This time it has raised questions about the authenticity of the data provided by the scientists at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia.

The global warming skeptics say that the e-mail messages, highlighting the correspondence between prominent climate change researchers in America and UK, show that scientists have manipulated data to fit their theory that humans are responsible for global warming.

“We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps,” stated the hacker on the site Air Vent.

E-mail conversations
The e-mails include discussions of efforts to ensure the report from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change includes their findings and exclude all contrary data.

In one of the e-mails, CRU’s professor Phil Jones wrote that he was worried about the Freedom of Information request seeking data that he has used to support his findings. In order to make research fit the conclusions, he was contemplating to delete some unrealistic figures.

“I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd [sic] from1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline,” stated an email from Jones in 1999.

In another e-mail Kevin Trenberth wrote, “Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past twodays for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low.”

He further added that they are not able to account for ‘lack of warming’ at the moment and it is a ‘travesty’ that they cannot.

The identity of the hackers is not certain but the stolen e-mails and documents have been posted on a site called‘an elegant chaos’.

E-mails taken out of context
Though the university officials have confirmed the leakage, many believe that the move is meant to undermine the climate change summit in Copenhagen in December.

Government representatives from 191 nations, NGOs, journalists and others are expected to meet in Copenhagen to reach consensus over limiting emission of green house gases.

Trenberth was quoted by Associated Press as saying, “It is right before the Copenhagen debate, I’m sure that is not a coincidence.”

He further added that he was shocked at the selective use of e-mails and so by the fact that they have been “taken out of context”.

Even Jones denied claims that facts have been manipulated and asserted that the word “trick” used by him means “a clever thing to do”.

Read it here:

http://www.themoneytimes.com/featured/20091123/scientists-debunk-global-warming-manipulation-id-1091804.html