Chris Ferro

Late 50’s Angelino @ciclavia: “If its like this next yr I’m going to shoot somebody.” Reminding all that regardless of circumstance, sometimes people say stupid shit.

Taking risks:

There’s just too many compelling reasons to not give a fuck.

Scissors

Did you ever lose something, but not really because you know it’s in such an obvious place that you’re just overlooking it, then when you don’t need it you see it but don’t care, only to wish you did because now you lost it again? Hate when that happens.

Election Day

Hey #LA, go vote! You don’t know who’s running? No, I understand, you’re still hungover from the Presidential. Oh, you didn’t vote then either? Uhh…have a good Tuesday!

Not yet 10 minutes after thinking, “It’s a shame how white people continue to pollute paradise,” while watching #TheImpossible, I remembered it’s silly to delineate as we’re all human.

Then I ate a grilled cheese.

My love to you,
My love to the world.

This is a very stupid, and very simple question, but:

Nations routinely get past atrocities and wrongdoings done to them by other nations to move forward in peace, i.e. US with Pearl Harbor, Japan with Hiroshima/Nagasaki, Vietnam with our chemical warfare…what makes the Middle East so intrinsically unsolvable?

Yesterday I heard Jay Z/Eminem - Renegade in a hipster NYC brunch spot, and today 2 Chainz in a fancy LA taco joint, which means not only is hip hop entering an ironic level of coolness, but people in the big cities are perfectly fine with uncensored expletives while they dine. #illrhymesforilltimes

A Letter to My Republican Mother, Part 2.

Hi Mom,

It’s me again.

I’m not quite sure if we can yet call this a tradition, but something about another Presidential election makes me want to write you and clear my mind. Now I know from speaking with you that odds are you haven’t shifted your voting preferences any closer to mine in the past four years, and I once again might not expect this letter to inspire such movement in any great way. I can only speak honestly, as both a humble citizen with my own limited access to information, and an evolving mindset that has bore witness to a Presidential administration that I finally felt I had a vested interest in from the onset.

Looking back over the past four years is an interesting practice from this perspective. The campaign of 2008 is almost completely removed from my memory, and all that is left as a tentpole for my feelings at the time is the letter I wrote you, and the issues I included. Things like: Universal health care, a woman’s right to choose (the new focus group-tested way of saying pro-choice), gun control, war, alternative energy, and discretionary spending programs. Many of those problems still exist, some haven’t even been seriously considered, and there is a wide swath of additional issues I’d probably add to the mix. These include: Debt reduction, immigration, civil liberties, climate change, a total tax overhaul, and congressional reform. Hardly a lightweight bunch.

Now I must be honest, the glimmer of idealism is lost in me today. I am not swept by the same fervor of 2008, the same passionate belief in endless possibility, the same feeling that our country was turning the corner towards brighter days. But be not mistaken, I am no less optimistic. We are a nation that can overcome challenges, that can dream for a better future, and can embrace unity when it is most needed for our survival. And I am not willing to subscribe to the belief that the dysfunction our Government has exhibited in recent years is a challenge which we will not again overcome.

As through the sometimes hilarity of governance that we have seen practiced by our elected leaders, real progress has been made, and the effects are indisputable. Lines are being drawn in the sand, and our decisions on major issues are increasing in importance, becoming more likely to decide our fate as cans are kicked further and further down the road. The winner of this evening’s election will find himself in a precarious position almost immediately. Regardless of the outcome the fiscal cliff will have to be negotiated by our current President, but odds are the negotiation will go differently depending on tonight’s results. Taxes, military spending, entitlement reform, and domestic investment (a.k.a. our $1.1 trillion dollar deficit) will all be on the table, and solutions will need to be found, hopefully to great effect.

We have seen which side our current President errs on. Through what I can only describe as compassion for a fellow man, he has pushed for equal rights for all citizens, equal opportunities for all who seek it, and equal protection for those who need it. These ideas have manifested themselves in a multitude of policy choices thus far: Repealing of DADT and vocally supporting marriage equality, helping pass comprehensive financial reform and reinvesting in education, and passing the Affordable Care Act and cracking down on abuses ranging from for-profit colleges to credit card accountability and unfair sentencing.

It is the summation of a hundred little victories that help showcase what kind of a country we really want to be, and by examining the record of the past four years it is clear we are turning the corner towards the ideals of tomorrow, and not getting forever befuddled in a rose-colored imagination of the past. But whatever progress has been made thus far, there is nothing that can’t yet be knocked back down to obscurity.

There’s a good chance we will have at least one Supreme Court opening over the next four years, and that appointee could play a tremendous role in deciding a slew of cases from abortion, to gay rights, to campaign funding. Dodd-Frank was passed into law, potentially affecting much of our financial industry, but many of the regulations have yet to be written, which will ultimately decide if it has teeth or not. The healthcare law has partially gone into effect, and though repealing it completely wouldn’t be easy, changes can be made that eliminate some of the best parts of the law yet unrealized.

All these decisions are on the table in this election, because we as a people will be giving voice to specific interests by choosing who we want to be leading the charge. Now I will be the first to admit that I am not 100% satisfied with everything this President has done. I don’t drink the kool aid, it is too sweet. From my vantage point, I am disappointed that President Obama hasn’t been more effective in assuaging both members of Congress, and the American people, towards enhanced solutions to some of our biggest problems - the deficit being chief among them. He has not offered up the level of big ideas I want to see coming from his moral standpoint: How we can balance this budget in a way that keeps our country moving forward, how we can fix climate change, immigration, and our crumbling infrastructure. I am tough on him too, because I want him to be the guy that helps us succeed.

But ultimately I know that he can’t do it alone, and he isn’t going to be 10 for 10 in all my policy desires. There is a Congress, a Supreme Court, a public and an international community that he has to work within to get anything to move, and this game is a marathon, most certainly not a sprint. But beyond a shadow of a doubt, I in no way am lost as to the values that move our President every day, and the people of our country that dominate his thoughts whenever a policy decision is to be made. It is you. It is me. It is people like us, who live each day attempting to find additional security for our lives and our loved ones. People who aren’t always sure that everything is going to be alright, but regardless move forward everyday with purpose, drive, and humility. He has shown me over the past four years that maybe he isn’t the perfect fighter for all our issues, but there isn’t a day that will go by where he will lose focus on the fight that needs to be had.

That’s the type of man I want as our President. And maybe with the right support, he can help us win the battles ahead.

With all my love,

Son



(Click for a link to the original letter: http://www.facebook.com/notes/chris-ferro/a-letter-to-my-republican-mother/47221946290) 

Disinterest

For the past two weeks I have been renovating an apartment from the ground up. This being Southern California, every worker that passed through the place was of Hispanic origin, and more comfortably spoke Spanish as opposed to English.

This is fine with me; It didn’t hamper our ability to communicate with each other, nor slow our progress in any way. But even with my basic understanding of the language, combined with my definite interest in wanting to speak it more fluently, there were times when the crew was speaking to each other where it just made more sense for me to pay attention to my own necessities and tune out from the group conversation being had.

Now, as I look at this 7 year old child sitting at the dinner table before me, it surprises me not that he gets bored easily and continuously fidgets until handed some sort of gaming device. For no matter how much he wants to be a part of the conversation, all this “adult talk” must really feel no different than Spanish.

And sometimes that is worth tuning out too.

consciously walking the fine line of human frailty.