Ozark- Wwhat’s Wrong with the Popular Netflix Series

 

              I’ve come late to Ozark, perhaps the name kept me away or I simply didn’t know what it was about and imagined the worse.  The worse is here.

            After viewing three episodes, I’m horrified by what I’ve seen.  On the most basic level, the show’s portrayal of rural culture is offensive.  While it’s meant to be a caricature and comical, it really goes overboard.  Does every local character have to be repulsive? 

            Anti- heroes are popular in American fiction.  All we have to do is watch a Western or a series like Breaking Bad.  There, the character Walter White had a reason for brewing meth.  He was dying with a son with cerebral palsy.  In Ozark what was the motivation for Bryd’s character to get involved with a drug cartel?  Money? Greed?  How did this accountant get in so deep and why?  There is a total  lack of logic. 

            At a time when there is so much distrust of government, why is the FBI agent shown as such a creepy figure?  To top it off, is he gay?  Another negative portrayal is here.

            Media affects us in innumerable ways.  We need to move towards educating the population as was done with soap operas in Africa during the AIDS epidemic. In the US soap operas were often the first places to deal with complex themes like contraception, gay rights, and abortion and presented them as normal.  Ozark and most series are our present day soap operas and instead of promoting violence and glorifying wealth, they could represent challenges that people actually face. 

https://theconversation.com/soap-operas-can-deliver-effective-health-education-to-young-people-new-research-175087

           

Technology and Tears

 

Technology and Tears

 

As someone who has worked online for a number of years, I don’t picture myself as the person who struggles (at least not too much) with technology. 

            Enter Europe.  Despite covid and given that I am triple vaccinated, I made the trip in December to Spain.  Omicron had not yet extended its presence and things were reasonably normal.  As a gift, my partner planned a trip to Florence.  What better time to visit when hoards of tourists weren’t making museum visits impossible without hours waiting.

            The flight from Barcelona to Florence left on a Sunday so I paid a premium price for a weekend covid test. Both of us downloaded out Italian entry documents as well as vaccination information.  No one checked anything as we walked through the airport on arrival.

            Problems began at the hotel.  My paper US vaccine document was accepted without question.  My partner’s Spanish digital vaccine code didn’t work.  After hours of stress and worry he finally got it downloaded and shown to the hotel staff.

            This meant any museum or restaurant entered needed a working wifi connection and not to much of a firewall for his code to work.  I was never so grateful for a paper document.

            We managed until the airport for our return flight to Spain.  I had downloaded the Spanish government QR code but it didn’t show up on my phone.  My partner along with a group of Spanish students didn’t even know they needed one.  The Italian staff were rude.  I was almost in tears of frustration.  After endless tries of re-entering the information and under pressure of missing the flight, we somehow managed to get the codes and show them to the airline staff. 

            QR code chaos hit me again on my return from Spain to the US.  Digital dlownloads strike again! 

            The US is far behind Europe not only in technology (which may not be a bad thing) but in public transportation, health care, and taking care of the environment. 

            I was surprised when I entered a bank in Spain.  It looked more like a café with tables, machines, and no tellers.  When I was shopping in one store, a machine automatically read my merchandise while it was still in a basket. 

            The future will be this -machines and codes so we better get used to them. 

A Lament- Why I Can’t Get a Decent Gazpacho

 

A Lament- Why I Can’t Get a Decent Gazpacho

 

Gazpacho is the simplest of soups made of very ripe tomatos, cucumber, onion, garlic, green pepper, olive oil and vinegar (preferably sherry vinegar but red wine vinegar will do).  Blend these ingredients to the consistency you like by adding water.  In the very classic cookbook, 1080 Recetas de Cocina, Simone Ortega uses too much olive oil but that’s a question of taste.Toppings called tropezones include crutons and chopped vegetables which are served with the soup.  Gazpacho is everywhere in Spain, even bus stations in Andalucia serve a tasty gazpacho and every supermarket carries brands made with natural (really) ingredients.  Every household has its own variation. 

            So what goes wrong here in the US?  Every gazpacho I’ve tried is like a liquid Mexican salsa, some so spicey as to be almost undrinkable.  Spicy is not the flavor profile of a classic gazpacho.  If that’s what you enjoy, go for it, but realize this is not the authentic gaspacho.

            Why then isn’t it possible to make my own?  For one, I’ve never had enough really ripe delicious tomatos to do so.  Even tomatos from the farmer’s market lack flavor.  Here the tastiest tomatos are cherry or grape and they have been bred for sweetness and aren’t suitable.  On a ferry from Venice,  I watched a woman pull a tomato from her shopping bag and offer it to her companion, saying “il perfumo.”  I have yet to see that happen here. 

            One of these day I may have a garden plot and I’ll fill it with tomato plants.