Renee Hendricks

When I was younger, I was rather adept at lucid dreaming. I had a reoccurring nightmare where I was stuck in a large field and I was about to be trampled by a herd of buffalo. I would never actually get trampled but I would always wake up in a cold sweat with my heart beating furiously. At some point, I told myself that if I took out a purple crayon that was in my pocket and drew a spiral, by the time I got to the very middle, I would wake up. After a few lucid dreaming sessions, my nightmare completely disappeared, never to reoccur. Subsequent dreams were filled half-and-half by my ability to control events. Along with the buffalo dream, one that has always stuck in my mind is my chat sesssion with "God". I was sitting in a very comfortable chair with the Almighty Deity in a similar chair a few feet away from me. As a Christian child, I had so many questions for "him". When I finally got around to asking "him" the biggie - why are we here and what is the purpose of our lives - "he"... - Renee Hendricks

There is an alarming trend as of late - people reading and not responding to what has been said but rather to what they want to believe has been said. Case in point: Harriet Hall's recent open letter to feminist critics While delving into quite a bit of false identification as an "enemy of feminism", Harriet writes a bit about minorities joining together in solidarity: I shouldn’t have to say this, but for the record, I have no objection to minorities joining together in solidarity in any way they choose. I have a personal preference to participate as an integral member of the general body of skeptics, rather than meet with a subset of women skeptics. I would be distressed if the skeptical movement were balkanized into ineffectiveness by creating separate meetings for every conceivable minority group. Do we need a conference devoted to elderly transsexual black Hispanic scientists? OK, so that’s ridiculous; but at what point does it become ridiculous? Think about it for a moment. Be... - Renee Hendricks