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Nature is cruel; see illness and death, see animals eating each other. See extinctions and starvation and catastrophe, White Nose Syndrome in bats, Alzheimer’s in humans.

By Nature, I mean God. God is cruel. How can we accept that, and why should we?

God is not held to the same standards as humans because God is not human, and humans are not God. If a man kills another man, it is a sin. But God kills men all the time; indeed, God kills ALL men. God makes disease; that is Nature. If man makes disease and unleashes it on ...

The post Autoimmune Disease appeared first on Nina Paley.

For my 57th birthday I got a diagnosis of Bronchiectasis, a chronic incurable lung condition often associated with Crohn’s disease.

In addition to coughing for the rest of my life and being extremely susceptible to infections, there’s the problem of pronouncing it. The syllabic emphases are like “bronchi-ecstasy,” although it is in fact bronchi-agony.

Or, as my friend Caroline called it, Brontosaurus Ecstasy:

A week ago, the day after my birthday, I went to “Convenient Care Plus” because my pinkeye and nosebleeds had returned and my cough never left. They gave me a CT scan ...

In March 2023 I got COVID which kept me in bed for 6 weeks. The following month it kept me in bed every other day. After that I got back to normal, except my body temperature remained a degree-and-a-half higher than before and, unbeknownst to me at the time, I developed Crohn’s Disease. I was diagnosed by the end of that year, and the first few months of 2024 I spent with worsening symptoms while getting infusions of Skyrizi, a monoclonal antibody treatment. It kicked in after about 4 months and I stabilized by Summer 2024.

Skyrizi is an ...

Why I am returning to my regular dose of Prozac after 2 years of tapering off.

A few days ago, at a candy store in another town, I asked if I could buy some empty chocolate boxes. The co-owner came out and said no, “we’re a candy store, we want you to buy candy not boxes.” I gave her the 4 homemade saffron-cardamom chocolates I had brought for her — she tried one right there, saying “ooh, funky!” I assured her I was just needing a few boxes to give away my culinary experiments to friends ...

I have an excellent musical memory. I forget everything else, but music stays. Music plays in my head 24/7, and has my whole life. I can remember entire symphonies my sister would spin on our record player, although I have no idea what their names are, or the names of their composers, let alone conductors or orchestras. Names are the weakest part or my memory by far. Music is the strongest.

Musical memory evolved to preserve epic poetry and precious human culture, to bind the tribe and pass on important wisdom to future generations. Yet mine is full of ...

I launched an older T-shit design on TeeSpring over the weekend:

So today (Monday) I emailed TeeSpring, and they replied:

There can be many things that may have caused your listing to be taken down. I’m unable to provide any insight about your listing being disabled, but I’ve forwarded your case over to our Trust & Safety Team for review. They’ll get back to you as soon as they can.

Good ol’ Trust & Safety. Yes indeed I can only guess why ...

When I was younger, art skills were meaningful and important.  Filmmaking was too expensive for any but the elite; there was more demand than supply of “media.” Animation was drawn by hand, every frame. Even a short animated film required money in digits that blew my mind, and whole teams of “talent” and managers.

So when I figured out how to make animated movies on my own, I suddenly advanced to elite status. I could do for little money, by myself, what many huge overfunded studios couldn’t achieve. And before that, I drew. When my work made it to ...

“Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”

In George Orwell’s 1984, the past is altered, but war is constant; the names of the combatants are changed retroactively, but combat is continuous. 

Members of nations at war bond more tightly with their compatriots. War offers a shared dream of triumph over a common enemy. Thus, continual state of war is an effective means of social control. It doesn’t really matter who Oceania is at war with, as long as Oceania is, and always has been, at war.

1984 illustrates how supporting wars is a sucker’s game. War ...

A poem about connecting with my Ashkenazi heritage.

Today I am a woman.
Today I am a Jew.
Today I have an ailment
my ancestors all knew.

For many generations,
my Fathers’ guts have hurt.
My Mother can’t eat chocolate:
a most unjust dessert.

I gather all my chocolate;
I give it all away.
No more can I digest it,
And I have Crohn’s today.

I feel myself much older
than I have ever known.
Today I have a Crohn’s disease;
Today I am a crone.

The post Bat Mitzvah appeared first on Nina Paley.

Diagnosis: Crohn’s.
The Autoimmune Empire
has colon-ized me.

The post Crohn’s Haiku appeared first on Nina Paley.

Today I was supposed to speak to an animation class via video. College I’d never heard of, teacher I’d never heard of, small thing, figured they knew who I was. Made plans, blocked space in my calendar. Barely an hour before I’m supposed to log onto their zoom link, I get this:

Full email thread pasted below, because it’s so typical. I will never accept another speaking invitation unless they promise not to do this.

Lately I am informed that nuclear energy is safe, clean, and the only sensible solution to our climate and energy woes. Opposition is ignorant and parochial, because “the technology is better now.” This is usually said by earnest and reasonable people who are at least a decade younger than me.

When I was a young’un, the idea was that we would reduce our energy consumption. “Technology” would help us do that, by becoming ever-more energy efficient. 

Hahaha. Oh, the naiveté of youth. 

Today, I live not far from a “solar farm,” acres covered with solar panels. The panels are ...

Any bets on whether my local bike club will survive beyond this season? Emails lightly edited for brevity, all names anonymized except my own.

Sat, Mar 19, 2022
MEMBER A:
I was able to renew my membership with the link to the Website.  I noticed that the application requires a “gender” designation that only includes male or female.  This is now very out of date.  I identify as Female, but there are many who find this restrictive.  We need to replace the gender with more options for our gender-queer or LGBT or other gender options friends.  I can recommend a ...

I just drew this for myself but it could be a Hundred Dollar Drawing.

I’m one of those self-unemployed introverts who is adjusting quite well to our pandemic lockdown. I feel especially peaceful because forced quarantine has temporarily quieted many of the garden-variety “alpha” humans, the ones who thrive on dominating others. They have to stay at home too, and haven’t been able to conduct their usual bullying and stirring up trouble. Under “normal” circumstances, they have power over other people, and the other people just aren’t available to lord it over right now.

But that will end. I don’t dread getting sick as much as I dread what the ...

A year or two ago my friend Brewster Kahle told me he had been asking people, “when is the last time you read a book? Cover to cover?” Predictably, the answers were discouraging. In the age of the Internet, people still talk about books, praise books, and condemn books; but actually reading books is rare.

When I first heard of feminist author Andrea Dworkin, in the early 1990’s, I was told she said all heterosexual sex is rape. In popular discourse, “het sex is rape” was considered the gist of her work.

Well, I could easily form an opinion ...

The Internet is broken,
The Freedom Train has stalled.
The Netizens are woken,
The gardens all are walled.
If anyone’s outspoken,
They soon will be recalled.
The Internet is broken
and I’m sitting here, appalled.

The Internet is busted;
its people are at war.
The principles I trusted
I don’t trust any more.
Our minds are maladjusted,
but we cannot restore
the Internet we busted
to the one we had before.

This song actually has a cheerful melody, but since I can’t write musical notation you’ll just have to trust me on that, until I ...