Yahoo Movies On The Vine: A newsletter about frolicking
There’s a TikTok trend that’s been gaining some steam as of late (at least on my For You Page). It’s simple: A Black man running through a field, holding the phone camera out to the side so you can see him. He giggles. “Oh my God, I’m frolicking,” he says. He falls and rolls around in a field of little yellow flowers.
“Why didn’t y’all tell me we was frolicking?” The video has been stitched together with others freely just running through fields; smiling, laughing.
The original video is dated May 10. I didn’t see it until after May 14; after the mass shooting at a Buffalo grocery store, in which a self-proclaimed white supremacist shot and killed 10 Black people and injured three others.
But this isn’t about Buffalo, this isn’t about Laguna Woods, Uvalde, or any of the number of other tragedies and torturous tribulations we tirelessly tolerate day to day.
This is our 70th “On The Vine” newsletter. I revisited every one ahead of writing this one. “On The Vine” has evolved so much. This started with no real — or at least clear — direction, but with a simple promise: to engage in a dialogue.
I’d like to think that together we’ve learned, cried, pounded our fist, excised traumas and opened eyes. Through all now 70 newsletters the heart I wanted, hoped, would carry throughout “On The Vine” was that no matter what, we’d also remember to frolic. Thank you for frolicking with us for the past 70-plus weeks.
This is my last week at The Star and so also my last week writing to you from “On The Vine.” Thusly “On The Vine” is going to be changing in the coming weeks. The newsletter will take a few weeks off while it finds its new voice and direction.
But we’d love hear too from you what you’d like the future of “On The Vine” to be. There’s a Google Form for your feedback. Please, fill it out. We want to hear from you.
Around the block
‘It’s made with love’: A tour of KCK restaurants bringing a little Mexico to the Midwest
The Star’s Aarón Torres set out on a tour of Kansas City, Kansas, exploring some of the most authentic Hispanic restaurants there that not only remind him of home, but bring a little bit of Mexican culture and cuisine to the Midwest.
It’s not the smells that hit you first when you walk into GG’s Barbacoa in Kansas City, Kansas – it’s the heat. It’s, in a way, unbearable and comforting.
When I go back to Mexico City and eat at restaurants, walk into tiendas, or spend nights at my abuelitas’ house, I’m reminded how none of the places have air conditioning.
You sit in the heat, no matter how unpleasant, and it feels like home.
The day I visited GG’s with Silva it was 90 degrees. I loved it.
Gabriel Gonzalez opened GG’s Barbacoa in 2019 with his wife, Lourdes Avalos. Gonzalez, 48, greets everyone who steps through the door....
Their menu sticks to their Tabascan roots. Most of the meat is barbacoa — a slow cooked beef marinated in a sauce of guajillo and ancho peppers, tomato, onion, cumin, garlic, bay leaves and whole cloves — that Avalos makes herself.
Around lunch time it’s hard to find a place to sit. The few tables in the center of the restaurant and the plastic stools lining the perimeter are often full, no matter how hot it is.
Spanish is in the air, from the customers to the music oozing out of the speaker system. My parents always stressed the importance of never forgetting Spanish. It’s a fear I have living in an English-dominant city and country, but not here. Not at GG’s.
More from The Star...
Fleeing war and persecution, refugees sought safety in Kansas City. They found much more
‘Who’s there for the kids?’: Joplin community seeks answers after Afghan teen found dead
‘Hallowed ground’: Shawnee Tribe regains ownership of historic Johnson County cemetery
‘So represented’: Hundreds of Kansas Citians celebrate AAPI month in Columbus Park
There’s a large racial disparity in federal gun prosecutions in Missouri, data shows
Beyond the block
The deadliest U.S. school shooting in a decade shakes a rural Texas town.
Here we go again. We’ll dig into the reasons how and why this could have happened. We’ll uncover who the shooter was and what motive could have provoked such evil. We’ll remember and weep for the victims; offer thoughts and prayers and words for the survivors and mourning. We’ll yell and scream and shout: more guns, fewer guns, guns in schools, more policing, more protections, train our children; teachers. We’ll miss the point. We’ll place blame. We’ll make gripping and heartfelt pleas. We’ll grow frustrated, angry, hopeless, numb. We’ll move on?
There have been 146 days thus far in the year. There have been 212 mass shootings; 27 school shootings.
What will change?
More on Uvalde shooting...
A grisly checklist and a sickening rampage: Inside the Uvalde massacre
Uvalde school shooting suspect was a loner who bought two assault rifles for his 18th birthday
Jazmine Ulloa, J. David Goodman, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and Julie Bosman report for The New York Times:
The gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers in a rural Texas elementary school on Tuesday entered the building despite being confronted by an armed school security officer, then wounded two responding police officers and engaged in a standoff inside the school for over an hour, state police officials said.
While gaps remained in the timeline of events, details emerged on Wednesday of a protracted scene of carnage at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. What began around 11:30 a.m., with the first report of an armed man approaching the school, ended as specialized officers breached a pair of adjoining classrooms and killed the gunman barricaded inside just after 1 p.m., state police officials said...
Yet even as the details of the attack became more clear, the motivation behind the eruption of violence remained frustratingly opaque. In the absence of an explanation, there was only deep grief in a community unaccustomed to outside attention, and a raw renewal of the national debate over firearms legislation and the stupefying tally of gun violence in America.
By Wednesday, all of the victims had been identified by the officials, who had yet to release their names, but the toll of the tragedy was only beginning to take shape.
All 21 fatalities occurred in a single area of the school, the authorities said. They included Eva Mireles, a teacher who ran marathons in her free time, and Jailah Silguero, 10, the youngest of four children. “I can’t believe this happened to my daughter,” said her father, Jacob Silguero, crying during an interview. “It’s always been a fear of mine to lose a kid.”
And then there’s this...
Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy: Our Maternal Death Rates Are Only Bad If You Count Black Women
Oklahoma GOP governor signs one of nation’s strictest abortion bills into law
Biden signs executive order on policing 2 years after George Floyd’s death
It’s been real, y’all
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