By: Susan C. Haley

    Friends gather for a dinner party. The extended family plans the annual reunion picnic. A local community group sponsors a social hour for singles. A social website geared to reaching a large audience of women is launched. The word goes out, if but subtly . . . avoid political rhetoric. It seems to be one edict that garners instant understanding. My question would have to be why? Why should folks avoid discussing the one subject that affects every citizen of the entire Planet? The answers seem to run the gauntlet from ‘set in our beliefs to the point of volatility to no opinion on the matter one way or the other’. I don’t know which is more damaging, rigidity or apathy.

     Admittedly, when meeting new people, I too, tend to shy away from the somewhat taboo subjects of politics and faith, but I’m always relieved when the barriers seem to dislodge. Titillating conversation about relevant issues revitalizes the energy in me. How else are we going to be educated, aware of other perspectives, and learn to solve the problems that determine our lives and the collective lives of future generations?

     Women, especially, should be encouraged to think and speak about the issues and current events affecting them. For generations women were not even allowed to utter an opinion or cast a ballot. We should be celebrating the fact that currently there are more registered women voters than men. What good is the voice of representation if we don’t feel free to discuss or even speak out, vehemently if necessary, concerning the issues? If one makes it a point to be well-informed, one can be vehement without being rude. Moreover, it’s our responsibility to do so. Our fore sisters fought hard to obtain us these rights.

     Existing world conditions ranging from a Planet in peril, globalization in cultures and trade, an ever-rising population on a sphere of limited resources, attaining a quality education and affordable healthcare, to putting gas in the car and food on the table in a, at best, questionable world economy demand that we take a serious look at the world outside our ‘box’. It requires that we consider all possibilities by learning and thinking about the problems facing us and then discussing them rather than being guided by the news media, the political pundits and spin masters, or the edicts of one political party on no more of a basis than “my family has always been a this or a that.” Perhaps the political and social ideals and strategies which were applicable in the twentieth century no longer suffice.

     Presently, I am reviewing a book for one of my columns which is a compilation of newspaper articles written over a span of ten years by Rich Brooks, a Sarasota newspaper editor who in 1995 was stricken with ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Now, well beyond the time he was expected to live and with the aid of a laptop computer and an infra-red switch that allows him to scan the alphabet, Mr. Brooks continues to write his award-winning column despite being confined to a wheel chair and hooked up to a ventilator, a most laborious undertaking. What an inspiration this man is, but I digress.

     On June 6, 1998, he wrote a column titled “Kids, Guns Pose Hard Questions and Decisions”. What struck me about this column editorializing a local school scare when a ‘threat’ was made is that it was written before Columbine, before Virginia Tech, and before NIU. Obviously, the questions weren’t asked and the decisions weren’t made. We, as women, really need to, and can, change that.

     I immediately noticed on my first visit to the “Fabulously 40” website there is an already established political group. I was astonished that it only had four members in this, an election year that is making history! Well, it has five members now. Can we talk?  

     Oh, by all means . . . yes, we can! Maybe, I’ll see you there.

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