Henry Payne for August 20, 2013

There does seem to be increasing interest in life in space or on another world as our own is steadily poisoned and abused by those seeking to enrich themselves while sacrificing future generations.Chief Seattle is said to have admonished us to remember, “We do not inherit the earth from our fathers, we borrow it from our children.” The entirety of the speech is worth reading to those with open minds and open hearts.^http://www.halcyon.com/arborhts/chiefsea.html^This is Mr. Obama’s 14th vacation. In the same amount of time, Mr. Bush was on his 50th. I do not begrudge Mr. Bush’s vacation record, but having seen so many commentators criticize Mr. Obama for the number of vacations he has taken, I do feel a need to keep things in perspective.Vacations aside, we must remember always….Man can live weeks without food, days without water, and minutes without air. Our planet has gone from being a lush landscape to an overpopulated spaceship whose population has made large sections unlivable and who, in the name of profit, destroy the very substances from which the spaceship is built. It is unwise, but worse, since those perpetuating this damage expect to be dead and gone before the damage is truly realized, it is evil.Like a terrorist, these greedy polluters have lit a fuse that will ultimately blow up in the faces of our children or their children. These ‘terrorists’ are not party affiliated beyond the point they will support any candidate who will allow them to continue their quest for ‘gold’.As you go about your day, look at the babies and laughing children. They are the future victims of our present behaviors. Money will be the least of their problems. Clean water/air/food will be of far greater concern as they wade through the sludge of their parents’ and grandparents’ hubris.Respecfully,C.

Presidents never take vacations. The job is with them 24/365. Congress on the other hand….

There are several good reasons to criticize Obama, so why do some cartoonists and posters harp on this completely stupid non-issue?

By Steve Persall

Times Movie Critic

The poor inherit the earth and the rich leave it to them in Elysium, writer-director Neill Blomkamp’s vision of a 22nd century without universal health care. Not a pretty sight, but pretty entertaining until brawn overcomes the screenplay’s brains.

Matt Damon stars as Max Da Costa, who needs extraordinary medical measures after being irradiated in a work accident. The only place he can find help is somewhere he can’t afford, thanks to a technocracy radically segregating haves and have-nots.

The utopian Elysium glistens like a blinged-out Mercedes-Benz hood ornament in the sky, separated from the rabble of Earth by a 19-minute shuttle ride. Buying a ticket on one of those escapes is practically impossible for anyone not there yet. Even the movie’s middle class representative, a hospital nurse named Frey (Alice Braga), can’t afford care for her daughter stricken with leukemia.

Matt Damon stars as Max Da Costa, who needs extraordinary medical measures after being irradiated in a work accident. The only place he can find help is somewhere he can’t afford, thanks to a technocracy radically segregating haves and have-nots.

The utopian Elysium glistens like a blinged-out Mercedes-Benz hood ornament in the sky, separated from the rabble of Earth by a 19-minute shuttle ride. Buying a ticket on one of those escapes is practically impossible for anyone not there yet. Even the movie’s middle class representative, a hospital nurse named Frey (Alice Braga), can’t afford care for her daughter stricken with leukemia.

Frey is lifelong friends with Max, an ex-con and currently an assembly line worker making android servants for Elysium residents. Max gets irradiated at work, leaving him only days to live. Only a session in a fast-healing med-bed, built into ritzy Elysium homes like chandeliers, can save him. A former accomplice in car theft (Wagner Moura) offers Max a way to earn a ticket.

Fitted and riveted into an exo-suit turning Max into a brawling thumb drive, he’ll brain-jack lucrative information — bank codes, passwords and the like — from a corporate executive. Max chooses his old boss (William Fichtner), who secretly entered a deal with defense secretary Delacourt (Jodie Foster) to reboot Elysium’s program and oust the paradise’s president. Max inadvertently has the keys to the kingdom locked in his noggin, with Delacourt’s national security forces on his tail.

The nastiest of the troops is Kruger (Sharlto Copley, District 9), a sadistic enforcer introduced by blowing up an illegal refugee flight to Elysium with women and children aboard. Copley is standard issue evil with only an odd accent separating him from the Zods and Khans of this summer. Somewhere between Foster’s sophistication and Copley’s snarls there’s a villain worth hissing.

Elysium proves better at social polemics than escapism, a balancing act Blomkamp managed well in District 9, with its allegory of South Africa’s apartheid era. The setup intrigues, although instead of harping on Earth’s slumdog culture, a few sharp jabs at Elysium’s affluence would be smart. The third act loses track of Blomkamp’s egalitarian themes when bullets and body parts start flying, turning deep thoughts into a typical sci-fi climax.

And about that ending, which won’t be spoiled here. See it, take Elysium’s resolution to its next logical consequence, and wonder if the conclusion you may reach is what Blomkamp intended, after everything preceding it. Blomkamp sees the future, and it looks a lot like what scares some people now.

only the left calls accurate shots cheap.

Doing his job not attending another photo-op

The only one’s who’s thinking is off the planet are the far-right reactionaries and their Tea Party co-hearts.

Right on!

Right! Actually, they proved it FALSE. But the media chose to say, ‘questioned’ in an attempt to downplay their findings.

How does anyone really know who did how much work while on vacation? If you weren’t there, you have to depend on what others tell you, and it seems that many people have the desire to tell you what you want to hear.

that night of 9/11/01 bush gave speech from oval office

Regarding Benghazi: Nine congressional investigations. Lots of promises that “if” someone says this or that, it could blow up the entire administration. Lots of “some people say” this or that.

Nine. Conducted by people we can all agree would love to see anything they could hang on Obama. Still waiting for a report that does so. Or do we need a tenth one?

Payne and his ilk are the only ones living off-planet.

Any ‘vacation’ where the President is working is a working vacation and something of which I approved in the comment to which you replied, Mr, Kiser. However, the vacations where he fished and cut wood at his ranch are less impressive to me.

Thank you for reminding us of the varioius epochs that have passed along with the life forms that existed in those time periods. There are plenty of astronomical phenomena that can, and probably will, one day destroy the planet. That’s fine. I’ll find a place with a good view if it happens before I die. What bothers me are the people who, from greed or ignorance, are making this rock less habitable with their current behaviors, behaviors that punish my children and grandchildren. It is immoral and unethical to destroy something that others need just because you personally don’t care or have a need for it. I’m glad you are so comfortable with the next great waves of extinction. I just wish the reason such extinctions will occur were beyond our control instead of something we could help fix or at least make less harmful.btw, I prefer 7-11 Columbian blend coffee to anything produced at Starbucks and I use my refill cup.My ‘hubris’ comes from the illusion my words might actually open hearts and minds. And if anything, I take a VERY long view of the future and what it could entail for a civil and respectful people.It is the actions of those who put money above our duty to our neighbors and our planet who demonstrate short sightedness.You are another whose paradigm I would like to better understand. What makes a person who writes with such intelligence show such callousness?Curiously,C.

when I was a kid, I could drink from streams on our ranch in Texas, as a young man, I could pick oysters around Charleston SC and eat them raw, I could eat meat and veggies without worrying about being poisoned by herbicides and pesticides…I can’t do that now

“Bush went home!….and …..worked…”My gosh, onguard! You… are… absolutley… right!!!!

“Trees fall in the forest by themselves too, so that proves Man can never cut down a tree.”nurf-nurf

I’ve just… realized… onguard is… Bill Shatner!

Well said, PAJ!Perceptions are based on paradigm, education, heuristic knowledge, and so much more. It is how those perceptions are expressed that challenges me. If you are ever going to be in the Hampton Roads area, you should write to my sanesaint@hotmail.com addy so we can talk over coffee or beer. Perceptions can be changed. I know my own perceptions are challenged frequently and have indeed been changed as new information was presented.Glad you’re having fun with your chains tho. ;)Take care, PAJ.Sincerely,C.

Mr. Obama continues to disappoint me and so we are mostly in agreement on your first paragraph.I don’t believe in any earth spirit, but I do believe in God and take his instruction to be good stewards to heart.A 15th century Muslim cleric wrote that jihad is within a person. It is the war against evil within the individual. Jesus had similar comments.It is easy to agree with your 2nd and 3rd statements in regard to man’s success and his ability to the be the salvation of the species with which we share the planet. I lose you after that. Sorry you find me such a puny spirit, Mr. Kiser. Anyway,I have never read about the origins of coffee and simply assumed it was native to South America. I’ll research that further. Never considered myself an eco warrior. I do compost and recycle, but I’ve neighbors who go out in canoes and other boats on the “Save the Bay” days to collect debris. They’re really walking the walk… or rowing the boat.^Thoughtlessness is so prevalent and so oft practiced, it would be hard for any thinking person to be that calloused.So, except for your low opinion of me, I find myself mostly in agreement. Ever read Marcus Aurelius, Mr. Kiser?Just curious.C.

Been there, did that

3 of them, from Apollo 15,16, and 17. There are also a couple o Golf Balls that Alan Shepard put there