It has been one year since our good friend and fellow blogger Rick Nadeau passed. Rick died November 20th, 2008, after fighting cancer gallantly for two years. He had been writing for this blog since we started, and wrote for a newsmagazine/ online journal in Sacramento, where he lived with his spouse, Diana Tumminia.
Rick used to live in OB and San Diego, and while here gave those who were close to him, a view of a rare human being. He was a wonderful writer and with his loss, there’s a gigantic hole of verse that has not and cannot be filled.
Here’s some of Rick’s most recent writings:
A Plutonium Paradise? A Critique of Nuclear Power
The Historic Importance of the 2008 Presidential Elections
A Pervasive Militarism Threatens American Democracy
What Ever Happened to The Notion of A Public Good?
A Walled Fortress: The Consequences of 9/11
Botox Nation: Applying The Cosmetic Fix
America in 2008: Unequal and Less Free
The American Legitimacy Crisis
The Dolphin Manifesto
‘Never Having To Apologize’: An Imperial Mentality Rick’s last writing.
Several people, including Diana and Gregg Robinson wrote about Rick one year ago. See their post here.
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I looked at Because People Matters to see if I could find Rick’s article “A Plutonium Paradise?” but I had no luck. Does anybody have the link to that article? Please post it if you do.
The Z net archive Rick had was scuttled either by Z or other reasons. His writings are also available on his blog which is still in operation at:
http://rnadeau.blogspot.com/2008/03/plutonium-paradise-critique-of-nuclear.html
Thanks Frank,
It’s a gem from a gem.
We posted it here back in January 2008, so due to popular demand, I’ve included it in the list above.
It seems to have been a long year since Nadeau was with us. He was a good friend to a lot of us. I must miss him (or else he’s trying to get word to me) as I see him in other people and hear his voice in the voice of others. Rick, if you’re trying to reach me, it’s still f*cked up here, and in some ways, it’s getting worse. I’m glad you were able to see Obama be elected but there’s alot of your fellow Americans who rather see him in up with you.
One of our cultural rules is not to speak badly of the dead…and Rick, I don’t mean you, because you are likely only ashes by now well dispersed…. so I can only imagine what Rick would have thought to comment on this blog if he had been able to track it in the last year…so speaking badly of the dead who still remain biologically alive probably falls into another category.
It has not been clear if the relative silence of “progressive” voices, or worse voices from the “left” on this blog seems telling in the least. Anticipating a visit to friends and family in California, I paint the picture in my mind of domestic tranquility from the daily scenes of life on the streets of the Great Democracy, of clean and orderly people who disdain the idea of any interruption in this picture. We who are adept at discounting any representation of facts as they lay beneath the image of an ordered society, play democracy at the edges of a police state that “progressively” abrogates civil liberties to the garbage heap of our noble constitutional .
Who could loose sleep or inner peace over such a insignificant loss to a community of self-described Freaks, Uppity Women, and Politicos? After all, is what is on peoples words not that distant from what is on their minds? Is Ocean Beach the collective measure of these concerns; life-style, ocean, surf, beer quality and choices, a library that likely remains largely unread, the importance of lifeguard service, a merchants association with no discernible philosophical difference than any San Diego mall?
Where is there a place for comment here for the Late Rick Nadeau, or Monty, me, or anyone not concerned merely with the lifestyle issues that frame this web site that can amount to anything more than pissing the wrong way into the wind?
I am certain Rick would take me to task for these comments as this was Rick’s inclination, to be oppositional to characterization. He was fair in that measure of things and I would expect not an inch of cover from his wrath for my estimations of things as I see them. But that made him a fighter, not a swiper.
I did not see the political landscape as did Rick. We saw similar dangers but did not agree on the approach to the problems the same way. Rick was a “progressive.” I did not see the progress of this ideology and I saw the complacency culturally and the numerous contradictions implicit for good citizens to have any real alternatives to remaking the status quo. Rick was much more ideological than me. I saw selfish interests and addictions to life-style as an obstacle to real change for AMERICA and I think he did too but he had more faith in his people, but I saw his faith wavering.
What I see happening here in V. is enough to make any good “progressive” in AMERICA very nervous. There is a frontal attack on our life-style; measured salaries, indoctrinating children in communist principles, Hugo Chavez convoking a Fifth International for next year, all the things we were warned about our entire lives. Am I a socialist OB Joe? We shall see in time and it is not for me to say, and neither for you to know. All I know is that Rick was a questioning person and that may be what really was the measure of his political values and one he would likely have admitted to.