Hurricane Melissa.

Hurricane Melissa continues to intensify right up to landfall, with some of the most prolific lightning bursts you’ll see in a hurricane’s core.

I’ve tracked every single Atlantic hurricane since 2015, and Melissa is easily the most insane one yet. pic.twitter.com/B07DrGpfpq

— Colin McCarthy (@US_Stormwatch) October 28, 2025

This footage from inside the eye of Category 5 Hurricane Melissa might be the most jaw-dropping video ever captured of a hurricane’s eye, showcasing the infamous “stadium effect." pic.twitter.com/AEhj2g2Ban

— Colin McCarthy (@US_Stormwatch) October 27, 2025

"It was a rare homage to her father, a prominent economist but fleeting figure in her life who has largely been a footnote in her personal and political story."

"The first Black scholar to receive tenure in Stanford University’s economics department, Dr. Harris remains a professor emeritus there, and turned 86 the day after his daughter gave the most important speech of her life at the Democratic National Convention. He was not among the family members who accompanied Ms. Harris to the convention.... Her relationship with her father is a closely guarded part of Ms. Harris’s life about which she has spoken only sparingly.... 'There is no title or honor on earth I’ll treasure more than to say I am Shyamala Gopalan Harris’ daughter,' Ms. Harris wrote in her book. 'That is the truth I hold dearest of all.'..."

"'Run, Kamala, Run': Mention of Harris’s Father Was a Rare Homage to a Fleeting Figure/In her convention speech, Kamala Harris told of being inspired by her father, a prominent economist who was otherwise largely a footnote in her personal story" (NYT).

Ms. Harris’s father has largely declined to weigh in on his daughter’s barrier-breaking political ascent in recent years, except in 2019 when he criticized a comment she made connecting her Jamaican roots to marijuana use. Since then, he has cited his aversion to seeking publicity....

From Professor Harris's 2019 essay:

Misunderstood word of the day: Yardy.

I was reading a Guardian article titled "Can Oregon's tiny houses be part of the solution to homelessness?"

The 30 dwellings at Opportunity Village[, in Eugene, are] made of prefab donated materials, cost “around $3,300 a unit.” The savings come from the fact that they are basically detached bedrooms, with no utilities or running water....

[And] Dignity Village, two hours’ drive north, on the outskirts of Portland... began in 2001 as a “tent city”, and a protest against the city’s harassment of homeless people... From 2003, the tents were replaced with tiny homes. Since then, the village has successfully offered housing on the communalist model that Opportunity Village is patterned on.

A commenter named RoughSleeper:

They look like sheds on allotments. In which case, can we have chickens and grow our own food? Will there be some kind of community policing to stop a yardy culture growing?

Chickens and growing your own food? I assumed "yardies" were something like "foodies" and filed away the new slang to use the next time Meade fantasizes about putting a chicken tractor and greenhouse in our backyard.

But that's not what RoughSleeper was talking about. Urban Dictionary says — I'll quote the more polite definition — "Yardy is another word for a Jamaican, specifically one from a difficult socio-economic area. The term stems from the slang name given to occupants of government yards in Trenchtown, a neighborhood in West Kingston, Jamaica. Trenchtown was originally built as a housing project following devastation caused by Hurricane Charlie. Each development was built around a central courtyard with communal cooking facilities. Due to the poverty endemic in the neighborhood, crime and gang violence became rife, leading the occupants of Trenchtown to be in part stigmatized by the term 'Yardie.'"

"This one here is the original sinsemilla, Bob Marley's favorite. And this one here is the chocolate skunk. It's special for the ladies."

Pot tourism in Jamaica, modeled on those wine tours people do in northern California.

Here, in Jamaica's verdant central mountains, dreadlocked men escort curious visitors to a farm where deep-green marijuana plants grow out of the reddish soil. Similar tours are offered just outside the western resort town of Negril, where a marijuana mystique has drawn weed-smoking vacationers for decades...

"I can get stronger stuff at home, but there's something really special about smoking marijuana in Jamaica. I mean, this is the marijuana that inspired Bob Marley," said a 26-year-old tourist from Minnesota who only identified herself as Angie as she crumbled some pot into rolling paper.

I have a problem generally with traveling to foreign countries. Is this what they mean by broadening the mind? Isn't it mind-expanding enough to consume the powerful Minnesota marijuana while playing Bob Marley records and contemplating the man who no longer lives anywhere in his natural habitat? Do people from Jamaica journey to Minnesota to think about Prince? (And he's still around. You might entertain the hope of actually seeing him.)

My mind is already sufficiently expanded to contemplate Bob Marley solely by reading about him and remembering hearing his music, and it's also expanded enough to imagine how bad I would feel getting near criminal activity in a foreign country.

I picture: "He was a 20-year-old American boy, up against a system he didn't understand, spoken in a language he couldn't speak...." Can you handle your legal problems in the language of Jamaica?



Yes, of course marijuana is still illegal in Jamaica. Here's another quote from Breezy, the Jamaican pot farmer quoted in the post title:

"The government needs to free up marijuana soon, man, because it's a natural thing, a spiritual thing.... And the tourists love it."

Ah, but what sort of bland old rule-abiding travelers would clog up the place, ruining the ambiance, if it weren't a crime? What's marijuana without the transgressive edge?