Skyler Saunders
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I will be publishing a story every Tuesday. Make sure you read the exclusive content each week to further understand the stories.
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The surface seemed like talcum powder. Soft and giving yet somehow a bit firm. Two women prepared to walk out from the Martian module and experience the landscape firsthand. One woman, Commander Wanda Vicente, stepped forward onto the soil first. Another, Command Module Pilot Floral Cheever put her boots on the surface second, a few minutes later. They scooped up samples and made note of the temperature and surroundings. Then the two women heard the hatch to the Martian module shut and lock. Martian Module Pilot Bianca Coales ventured out of the vehicle.
By Skyler Saunders7 years ago in Futurism
Righteous Minds
Like most systems of mysticism, there can be found nuggets of truth, bits of wisdom, and pieces of thought by which to live. Though most of it is wrapped around contradictions, embedded in fallacies, and tangled around falsehoods, billions of people live by these codes, consciously or unconsciously. With the Nation of Gods and Earths, a movement that arose during the Black Nationalist movement with ties to the Honorable Wallace Fard Muhammad, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and the Nation of Islam by Clarence 13, there exist three types of people in the world. There are the 85 percent who are the “deaf, dumb, and blind,” or those who possess a philosophy, but cannot articulate or embody it with adroitness. They go about their days with any mishmash of utterances, visits to psychics, and also point to the zodiac for guidance.
By Skyler Saunders7 years ago in Futurism
He Made 'Sense': How a Documentary by Michael Paxton on Ayn Rand Propelled My Life
Documentaries can sometimes come off as highfalutin, “in the know,” ways of signalling to people that you possess more information than they do. And to some extent, people are right about this. Often hoity-toity and dealing with heavy subject matter, few directors, unlike the muckraker Michael Moore, ever get their due. Not even at the Academy Awards (which Moore has won). But one documentary that stands out as one of the best autobiographical works is the Oscar® nominated Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life by writer, director, and producer Michael Paxton. It concerns the life and love story of the most profound mind in just over two thousand years, Miss Ayn Rand. I first encountered this documentary after listening to a snippet from a radio show. It didn’t stop there.
By Skyler Saunders7 years ago in Geeks
Striving for More
There are levels to this thing called life. Structures and strictures determine what people think, how they act, and what they wish to do with what reality presents them. In America, the freest, most noblest country in human history, we possess the rights and the luxuries and privileges that allow us to break down into classes what people have and don’t have. Or better put, what people produce and don’t produce and then consume. The lowest rungs of the ladder, the poor, are still far richer than billions of other people the world over. People with median household incomes of twenty thousand dollars or less may have running water, toilets, electricity, functioning refrigerators, washers and dryers, and even smartphones among the ability, of course, to rise from their a destitute position. Few places on Earth allow for such meager beginnings to flourish into greater wealth.
By Skyler Saunders7 years ago in The Swamp
Delaware: The Rodney Dangerfield of States
On a date that occurred over 231 years ago today (December 7, 1787), Delaware (my birth state) came into being. Because of figures like George Reed, Gunning Bedford, Jr., John Dickinson, and Richard Bassett, there's such a thing as Delaware. The vote for Delaware to be a state stood as unanimous, 30 to zero. Now, some will say that the First State claims its moniker based on a technicality. History proves this to be wrong as evident by the fact that Virginia was the first colony, but not the first state.
By Skyler Saunders7 years ago in The Swamp
Short-Sellers' Paradise
When recessions and depressions strike, only real men and women of thought and ability are able to surmount the difficult times. Those who get swallowed up by debts and other calamities experience this not because they are stupid or lazy, it’s because they have not found a foolproof plan to counter any catastrophe. In recent days, the stock market has proven to be weak. Large sell-offs have made investors skittish. The short sellers are the real heroes of these times. They know when to short and when to cover. If they perform with excellence at their task, they can expect significant returns that other investors would only crave.
By Skyler Saunders7 years ago in Trader
Juggernaut for Good
The mystery and intrigue dripping from the screen is what is at the crux of the Amazon Video series Homecoming. Based on the podcast by Micah Bloomberg and Eli Horowitz, the show is an eerie, slightly funny, engrossing work helmed by Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail. But what stands out in the series is the contrast between corporations and government. Already a skeptic at best and a severe critic of business at the worst, Esmail pits the bumbling bureaucrat Thomas Carrasco (Shea Whigham) and the uber-eccentric, fast-talking, abrasive Colin Belfast (Bobby Cannavale) against each other. In the middle are the two people who form the basis of the main plot. Julia Roberts, at once steady, frazzled, and assured plays Heidi Bergman who is tasked with addressing the concerns of returning veterans under the Homecoming program, a subsidiary of the agency surrounded in secrecy suggested in its title, Geist. Stephan James offers his talents as the thoughtful, grounded, and playful retired serviceman.
By Skyler Saunders7 years ago in Geeks
Familiar 'Book'
What is worse than white guilt? The suppression of black unity is the case. The film Green Book (2018) comes in shades of the denial of black unity all over the place. The tussle between the two ideals play out with Viggo Mortensen’s character Tony Lip and Mahershala Ali’s Dr. Don Shirley based on actual people. And that’s the crutch of the entire affair. Any criticism that may be leveled against the picture is often met with the vapid phrase, “but it’s based on a true story.” That does not give the film credence. The current trade in the arts from literature to cinema is to portray actual events and call them art. Some stories like 12 Years a Slave (2013) and Spotlight (2015) work because of the dynamics of the stories that are discussed. Though Slave shows the “white savior” in its portrayal of Brad Pitt’s character in mid 19th century America in the South, it displays the brutality of America’s original sin. In Spotlight, the Catholic Church is skewered with precision from the mighty pens and computers of dedicated journalists.
By Skyler Saunders7 years ago in Geeks
The Dead, Alleged, Ex-Cracked Leader of the Semi-Free World
The late President George Herbert Walker Bush has received adoration and adulation upon the event of his demise. But the man stood for pragmatism, a dogged and nasty racist streak, and an ugly view of mankind. For all the bombast that bloviating, talking heads have spewed over the last few days, little is critical or, especially, objective. It’s as if a time capsule full of all of Bush Sr.’s misdeeds had been sealed up and cast out into the Earth’s exosphere. But what must be remembered remains the inconsistencies and outright lies concerning Bush Sr.’s Presidency.
By Skyler Saunders7 years ago in The Swamp
Permanent Exit for the Former Milquetoast-in-Chief
Aside from the dry bromides, empty promises, and stale platitudes, the now deceased former President of the United States George Herbert Walker Bush stood for weakness. He may’ve been a decorated Navy veteran but somehow he lost the nerve in later years. When it came to running for office, he sought to be a people pleaser and stretched himself too thin in appeasing everyone.
By Skyler Saunders7 years ago in The Swamp
Cyborgs Like Us
Her eyes fluttered for a few seconds. It happened like this every workday. Her alarm clock under her eyelids reflected the time: six thirty. Tyquinae Sandifer would wake up to the skies, a grayness clung to the morning atmosphere. She had charged her batteries with a wireless connection. Once she undid the the electronic bed on which she slept, Tyquinae would prepare her two children for their home studies. Her metallic arms glowed turquoise and purple. They moved like dueling swords; there existed in them a rapidity that remained precise and determined. On her left arm, the news report and the weather issued warnings of possible snowstorms. She thought, I may not have to come in today. Another thought dismissed this ideation. Tyquinae knew that she had to put the work in and earn her credits. Her legs also featured the two colors of her arms and glistened as well. She pulled them from the charging pad and extended her arm to reach her shoes. She dressed herself in the usual garb; Tyquinae donned a tunic of a blue color with matching blue bottom pumps. Once she exited her room, her little ones had already dressed and been prepared for school. The school consisted of a hologram of the teacher transmitting educational materials from a space station one million feet from the Earth. The doors locked upon her leaving the domicile and the security and surveillance systems protected the children from intruders. Their day was regimented to provide breakfast and lunch samples from the private school program. Tyquinae named her little boy, aged seven, Syquan and her little girl, aged five, Ryella.
By Skyler Saunders7 years ago in Futurism
