Bat Mitzvah

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.

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“We at Northeastern University stand for inclusion and diversity.”

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.

Every time I think, “good, they don’t care, it’s blown over,” and EVERY TIME this happens. I’m like Charlie Brown trying to kick Lucy’s football.
This was such a small thing I was doing AS A FAVOR TO THEM.
No more.

Parul Wadhwa <parwad@gmail.com>

To:

Wadhwa, Parul

Cc:

Nina Paley

Tue, Nov 14 at 10:32 AM

Hello Nina

We at Northeastern University stand for inclusion and diversity. We stand against your stance with TERF as expressed on your website and will therefore have to cancel our lecture today and withdraw this invitation.

Apologies for the inconvenience.

Thanks for your understanding and interest.

Parul Wadhwa

On Wed, Nov 8, 2023 at 9:24?PM Wadhwa, Parul <p.wadhwa@northeastern.edu> wrote:

Perfect, thanks Nina. See you Tuesday!

Parul Wadhwa

Lecturer, Mills College 

College of Arts, Media and Design (CAMD)

Northeastern University 

Oakland, CA

From: Nina Paley <nina_paley@yahoo.com>

Sent: Wednesday, November 8, 2023 2:05 PM

To: Parul Wadhwa <parwad@gmail.com>

Cc: Wadhwa, Parul <p.wadhwa@northeastern.edu>

Subject: Re: Guest Lecture request at Northeastern University virtually

 

Hi Parul,

Got it! 

You can use the bio at https://sedermasochism.com/director/

See you Tuesday,

–Nina

http://www.ninapaley.com/

On Tuesday, November 7, 2023 at 02:36:18 PM CST, Parul Wadhwa <parwad@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Nina

I am looking forward to having you come to our class next week Tuesday at November 14th, 10am PST. 

Can you please share your bio that you’d like me to use to introduce you to our students at Northeastern University.

Please let me know if you have any questions!

Looking forward to meeting you next Tuesday.

Thank you for your time,

Parul Wadhwa

PS- Here is the zoom link for joining the class: Parul Wadhwa is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: ARTD2370 20327 Animation Basics SEC 30 Fall 2023 [OAK-1-TR]

Time: Nov 14, 2023 08:30 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

        

Join Zoom Meeting

https://northeastern.zoom.us/j/91462978281?pwd=S1RXYmdQQ1NUTmUxWk44T0RDV1Z2QT09

Meeting ID: 914 6297 8281

Passcode: 881802

One tap mobile

+12532158782,,91462978281# US (Tacoma)

+12532050468,,91462978281# US

Find your local number: https://northeastern.zoom.us/u/abQwIVKUea

On Mon, Oct 30, 2023 at 3:34?PM Nina Paley <nina_paley@yahoo.com> wrote:

Thank you!!

—Nina

Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 30, 2023, at 5:27 PM, Parul Wadhwa <parwad@gmail.com> wrote:

Yes, that works too.10-11am PST, Nov 14th it is then. I will send you a calendar invite this week. Thanks!

On Mon, Oct 30, 2023 at 3:25?PM Nina Paley <nina_paley@yahoo.com> wrote:

Hi Parul,

Can we do it an hour earlier?

—Nina

Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 30, 2023, at 5:19 PM, Parul Wadhwa <parwad@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Nina

That’s great. Tuesday the 14th of Nov works for me. Let’s keep it at 11am PST?

Would you have about 15 minutes any day before that so we can discuss the lecture briefly? I can meet on zoom/phone any Friday for 15-20 mins. 

Thanks so much for your time. Looking forward to having you in class.

parul

On Fri, Oct 27, 2023 at 8:26?PM Nina Paley <nina_paley@yahoo.com> wrote:

Hi Parul,

Great! Any of those Tuesdays would work. How about the 14th?

—Nina

Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 27, 2023, at 9:27 PM, Parul Wadhwa <parwad@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for your interest, Nina. Yes, my class meets virtually every Tue 9-12pm PST. 

Would a meeting over zoom work for you?

Would any Tues between the 14th Nov-5th Dec work for you?

thanks,

p

On Fri, Oct 27, 2023 at 6:44?PM Nina Paley <nina_paley@yahoo.com> wrote:

Hi Parul,

I’d love to, but I live in Illinois. Would this be a remote video visit?

Thanks,

—Nina

Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 27, 2023, at 4:23 PM, Parul Wadhwa <parwad@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Nina

My name is Parul and I am an artist and educator currently teaching at Northeastern University, Oakland as a Lecturer. My current offering is an Animation Basics course (syllabus attached) that introduces undergraduates to the 12 basic principles of animation and their applications in 2D and 3D using animation tools.

I am writing to you to invite you as a Guest Speaker to my class. 

I teach Tuesdays 9am-12pm PST  virtually so any coming Tuesday would work for me. Would you be available for about 40-45 mins + 10 mins Q&A to speak to my class? 

I was hoping you could share about Sita sings the Blues (which is my favourite piece of yours) in the context of the class. I was wondering if you could introduce your journey into animation and working on this film, the animation techniques you used and the storytelling process. Also, anything else from your work that you might want to include.

There is a stipend of $150 from the university for your valuable time.

Please let me know if you are available and interested. 

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Have a good weekend.

Sincerely,

Parul Wadhwa

MFA, Digital Arts and New Media

https://www.parulwadhwa.com

<ARTD 2370 + ARTD 2371 .pdf>

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IndieGoGo cancels Agents of H.A.G.

IndieGoGo just canceled  Agents of H.A.G, my first comic book in 30 years, AFTER the campaign successfully ended with 150% of goal. I already ordered books from the printer. Now all the money, all the orders, gone. No appeal, just gone.

I discussed this on the Heterodorx Podcast yesterday, please listen.
I’m traveling this weekend but I hope to have another plan for Agents of H.A.G. next week. Please stay tuned.
This is just another chapter in the story of my cancelation that began in 2017:
Please share.

Order Books

I’m going punk-rock DIY and filling orders by hand.

Media (list to be updated):

The Post Millennial: https://thepostmillennial.com/indiegogo-cancels-cancel-culture-comic-book-artist-after-successful-fundraiser-offers-no-appeal

FIRE discusses crowdfunders canceling comic books, including mine: https://www.thefire.org/news/indie-no-go-popular-crowdfunding-sites-cancel-fundraisers-comic-books-about-gender-identity

more to come…

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Our Nukey Future

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 expensive, took a lot of energy to produce, transport, and install, and will be outdated and obsolete in a decade or so.

My region builds ever-expanding “wind farms,” miles of enormous turbines. These make audible and inaudible vibrations, kill birds, disrupt local water tables and wells, and resemble science-fiction alien invaders. They are expensive, took a lot of energy to produce, transport, and install, and will be outdated and obsolete in a decade or so. Their construction converted many miles of formerly bike-friendly country roads into nightmarish hell-gravel.

Wind and solar would save us, we thought in the ’80’s. Turns out they’re costly, disruptive, rely on fossil fuels and mining to produce, and barely make a dent in supply. People recognize they’re more of a symbolic gesture than practical, and it’s time to stop playing these expensive, silly hippie games. If we’re going to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, we need nuclear. 

And so I see popular support, especially among young people and Libertarians, for building more nuclear power plants. The Fukushima disaster was barely 11 years ago, but memories are short. And optimism, so lauded as a desirable character trait, informs points like “the technology is better now.”

The technology was “better now” when Fukushima was built, too. All previous nuclear power plants were new once. They were all the latest, best technology, rigorously vetted for safety.

The Chernobyl Disaster occurred late April 1986, when I was 18. I heard about it on the radio, went back to my university dorm room, and cried. My assigned roommate, a born-again Christian, rolled her eyes and explained that she was “saved” so had no worries about things like that.

When I was 20, I moved from Urbana, IL to Santa Cruz, CA, and immediately volunteered at the anti-nukes community newspaper, The Monthly Planet. A project of the Nuclear Weapons Freeze, it also opposed nuclear power, both for its own sake and its role in supplying radioactive materials to war machines.

When I was 30, my future-ex-husband wrote and performed a one-man play called Deep U, about depleted Uranium. At the time, Depleted Uranium weapons were being dropped on Serbia by the US military. Although prized for their “tank busting” density, these weapons were also radioactive. 

Like many children of my generation, I had nightmares about nuclear apocalypse. Chernobyl and Three-Mile Island showed that active war wasn’t the only potential path to this flavor of doom. There were also real reports about real places dealing with real nuclear waste affecting real people, not to mention real other life forms.

I am no expert, but I am reluctant to discard years of concern for the dangers of radioactive waste and nuclear power plants.

“Not a problem now!” cheer younger-than-me people, as they describe spent reactor fuel sealed in concrete and stored at the very plants that produced them. All it requires is our new and improved technology, and money, and for no one to cut corners, because no one ever cuts corners and budget cuts would somehow never touch nuclear plants. We’re in control, we can always be in control, we can do it!

When nuclear goes out of control, it is very, very bad. But maybe I’ve just been “tricked by movies and television shows” to think that. Maybe the young youtubers are right, and “we solved nuclear waste decades ago.” Heck, maybe I’m the dupe. Maybe all the 1980’s anti-nukes propaganda was funded by the fossil fuels industries, who didn’t want the competition. And I fell for it!

Or, perhaps, I remain skeptical because I have seen so much go out of control in my 54 years. Pretty much every well-laid human plan goes awry. The current naive and youthful support for nuclear seems utopian to me. 

But my own generation’s youthful hopes that humans could voluntarily reduce energy consumption was even more utopian. Global population is still growing, energy demand still increasing. Today’s optimistic and naive young people need a constant, high supply of energy to mint NFTs, share Greta Thunburg memes, and organize Extinction Rebellion protests. “Green” energy has been shown to be not so green. So hell, let ‘em have nuclear. I’m nearer the end of my natural lifespan than they are; I won’t have to live with the consequences. Humanity will get the power it deserves. 

I still feel bad for the rest of life on the planet. But humans are a force of Nature, like earthquakes and asteroids. My mistake was wishing our ability to “think” and “make decisions” meant we could conscientiously change course. We’re like the ancient cyanobacteria that excreted oxygen as waste, driving extinct most anaerobic life and converting Earth’s atmosphere to the highly flammable “air” that drove multi-cellular evolution – leading to us! Perhaps what looks like intractable human stupidity, is the foundation of a whole new radioactive ecology. 

To the Future!

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“Cycling and Gender Intersect in Meaningful Ways.”

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 consultant for language, or we can reach out to the UP Center.

 

MEMBER B:
Better yet, get rid of the “Gender” check box!

 

MEMBER C:
What is the purpose of the gender check box? 

 

NINA PALEY:
There is no reason to have a gender checkbox.
If there’s a reason to know someone’s sex, there can be a checkbox for Male, Female, and Prefer Not To Say.

 

MEMBER D:
No boxes for me, I’m out!  And, please take me off the mailing/e-mail list.

 

MEMBER E:
I agree with A and B.
I will be happy to renew my membership after BIKECLUB has spoken with Uniting Pride of Champaign County about how to be non-binary in the membership form and how to be a LGBTQ+ Affirming organization.
If you do away with the gender box, that might solve a small part.
Thank you A!!
Sincerely,
MEMBER E
(she/her) but related to people who identify in many other non-cis, non-binary

  Continue reading ““Cycling and Gender Intersect in Meaningful Ways.””

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