Worthy of remembrance
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under united states
Mom and I toured the Martin Luther King, Jr., memorial Monday when it opened to the public in a kind of soft launch before the official dedication this weekend. It isn’t as grand as the Lincoln, Washington or Jefferson monuments in scale, but it has its own power.
It’s a small garden along the Tidal Basin, edged by a semi-circle of granite etched with quotes from perhaps the greatest American conscience, moral lamppost and orator ever.
Near the focal point of the circle is a 30-foot bust of sorts carved into white stone of King.
Certainly a grand honor and King was certainly worthy of nothing less.
Take heed
Tags: king, martin luther king jr., monument, tourism, united states, washington d.c.
Hello giant Bag of Kale…
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under united states
Healthy never tasted so good...
…meet my good friend, Carbon Steel Wok. Also, say hi to his buddies, garlic, onions, tomatoes, canola, cayenne and black beans.
Tags: cooking, food, healthy, kale, my kitchen, organic, photography, united states, washington d.c.
Nature, giving me the what-for
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under united states
Not something man can create
I love peaches. They are, to my taste, so perfect that they demonstrate the limits of our great abilities to create and alter and remake according to our whims.
No matter how hard we try, we can’t create such perfection. I think tomorrow I shall go in search of peach pie.
मेरी आडू | मुझे चाहिये |
Tags: Braeutigam Orchards, food, fruit, love, peach, photography, st. louis, united states
Elements of happiness
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under united states
I had a good final weekend in the Midwest that centered on biking and friends and reading and peaches. As I packed up this morning to drive back to Champaign, I took the above photo of the last things to go into/on mom’s car.
And I smiled thinking how easy I am to please, with a good bike to ride and a juicy white peach to eat.
Now if only I could bring a bit of India into the mix…
Tags: bike, cycling, happiness, peach, st. louis, united states
Illinois prairie of yesteryear
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under united states
All but gone
My bike rides routinely take me to Meadowbrook Park in Urbana, home to a decent swatch of prairie restoration. It’s small lake of the tall grasses, flowers and red-wing blackbirds that once formed an ocean as far as the eye could see across this state.
Today, we have settled the land, replacing the prairie with corn and our homesteads with neatly packed towns. Our yards are short grasses that we try our damndest to keep short.
In the process we’ve compromised our ecosystems, forcing us to rely more on biotech farming and synthetic fertilizer. We’ve watched nutrients be leeched from the soil or washed into our rivers. We’ve taken too much, in our quest to feed our cattle and our cars.
I vote for more returning to native plants, for more prairie restoration, for more preserving land for all creatures; Aldo Leopold saw the problems decades ago when he wrote about riding a bus across Illinois.
And so have countless of other scientists, conservationists, nature lovers and people lucky enough to experience the beauty of Illinois prairie that is now mostly confined to parks and the occasional highway embankment.
Tags: aldo leopold, biology, conservation, farming, illinois, photography, prairie, united states
Lonely quad
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under united states
I try to spend a decent portion of each day reading, in preparation for grad school starting next month. To do so, on beautiful summer afternoons, I’ve taken to riding my bike down to the U of I central quadrangle, where I spend many days as an undergrad.
With most students gone for the summer, the Quad feels a bit forlorn. But it does bring back fond, fond memories.
Tags: champaign, college, quad, reading, u of i, united states
Back in the U.S.
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under united states
After almost 22 months of working abroad (and traveling and volunteering, too), I’ve officially moved back to the United States. For the next two months, I’ll be based in Champaign, Ill. There’s lot of catching up to be done with family and friends, and plenty of errands, studying, packing and preparation for the next stage.
I’ll move to Washington, D.C., mid-August; graduate school at American University begins at the end of that month.
The blog will go into stasis for some time while I am busy, but I’ll power up again in July with my latest ocean/biodiversity photo series, taken during three weeks of divemaster training and certification in India’s Andaman Islands earlier this year.
Catch you on the flip side.
Tags: graduate school, india, note, united states
So long, 2010; it’s been nice knowing ya…
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under ecuador, india, thailand, united kingdom, united states
Well, hello there 2011. You’ve got a hell of a lot to live up to.
As most people know, I started my whirlwind trip in late summer of 2009 and things haven’t really gone bad yet.
I started 2010 in the remote paradise of the Andaman Islands, far off India’s coast. I had just learned to dive and fell in love with the sport. Fish are friends, not food. Continue reading this entry » » »
Tags: christmas, conservation, delhi, ecuador, friends, galapagos, graduate school, india, journalism, ocean, party, scuba diving, shenanigans, sikkim, thailand, tourism, united kingdom, united states, year-in-review
A plea from the uninsured…
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under united states
Today, in Washington, D.C., on the floor of the chamber of the U.S. House, your elected officials will tilt on the topic of health care. This is being billed as a marquee showdown, an epic vote.
I’ve read through parts and summaries of reports from the Congressional Budget Office and followed the big news outlets now and then, but I can’t claim to have been very diligent. I also will note that this blog is mostly a-political. After the better part of four years as a political reporter, I find politics vital but bluster and bombast all the same.
But I will offer a personal plea now for calm, cool reason. And for compassion. And for common sense, which tells us the system is broken for more than 30 million Americans, myself included.
I will try to be brief:
Continue reading this entry » » »
Tags: cluster, congress, exercise, health, health care, india, medicine, politics, poverty, united states
