Opinion United States First Amendment Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2010 WWW.KANSAN.COM Follow Opinion on Twitter. @kansanopinion PAGE 5A FREE FOR ALL --also getting married later, men averaging about 28 and women about 26. This might indicate that people take more time to find the right person and are more careful not to marry the wrong one. Not wanting to cloud the great outlook, but Americans divorce still more often than people in most European countries. To contribute to Free For All, visit Kansan.com or call (785) 864-0500. --also getting married later, men averaging about 28 and women about 26. This might indicate that people take more time to find the right person and are more careful not to marry the wrong one. Not wanting to cloud the great outlook, but Americans divorce still more often than people in most European countries. I'm feeling like Johnny Cash today. The best part of my Tuesdays and Thursdays are getting to talk to you on the bus. --also getting married later, men averaging about 28 and women about 26. This might indicate that people take more time to find the right person and are more careful not to marry the wrong one. Not wanting to cloud the great outlook, but Americans divorce still more often than people in most European countries. Reunited with my boyfriend after Thanksgiving break. He for sure read Sex on The Hill. Thanks, Jayplay! My Five Hour Energy shot sure helped me Facebook creep for five hours,but when it was time to do my paper,it began to wear off. --also getting married later, men averaging about 28 and women about 26. This might indicate that people take more time to find the right person and are more careful not to marry the wrong one. Not wanting to cloud the great outlook, but Americans divorce still more often than people in most European countries. Senioritis, you're killing me --also getting married later, men averaging about 28 and women about 26. This might indicate that people take more time to find the right person and are more careful not to marry the wrong one. Not wanting to cloud the great outlook, but Americans divorce still more often than people in most European countries. I remember when you showed up to my house in a bikini ... and it was snowing. Disney's Hercules is totally mythologically inaccurate. Why, Disney? WHY!? --also getting married later, men averaging about 28 and women about 26. This might indicate that people take more time to find the right person and are more careful not to marry the wrong one. Not wanting to cloud the great outlook, but Americans divorce still more often than people in most European countries. I'm fiscally responsible but sexually out of control. That's odd, because I'm sexually responsible and fiscally out of control. --also getting married later, men averaging about 28 and women about 26. This might indicate that people take more time to find the right person and are more careful not to marry the wrong one. Not wanting to cloud the great outlook, but Americans divorce still more often than people in most European countries. --also getting married later, men averaging about 28 and women about 26. This might indicate that people take more time to find the right person and are more careful not to marry the wrong one. Not wanting to cloud the great outlook, but Americans divorce still more often than people in most European countries. If LeBron were to do a remake of Space Jam he would probably switch over to the monsters halfway through the movie. Why does it always have to be about Christmas? There are other winter holidays too you know! --also getting married later, men averaging about 28 and women about 26. This might indicate that people take more time to find the right person and are more careful not to marry the wrong one. Not wanting to cloud the great outlook, but Americans divorce still more often than people in most European countries. Taylor Swift should totally come to the KU vs. K-State basketball game. And sing the national anthem, just --also getting married later, men averaging about 28 and women about 26. This might indicate that people take more time to find the right person and are more careful not to marry the wrong one. Not wanting to cloud the great outlook, but Americans divorce still more often than people in most European countries. Surely you can't be serious? I am serious, and don't call me Shirley. --also getting married later, men averaging about 28 and women about 26. This might indicate that people take more time to find the right person and are more careful not to marry the wrong one. Not wanting to cloud the great outlook, but Americans divorce still more often than people in most European countries. Thanksgiving Break = gateway to complete unmotivation for every college student. --also getting married later, men averaging about 28 and women about 26. This might indicate that people take more time to find the right person and are more careful not to marry the wrong one. Not wanting to cloud the great outlook, but Americans divorce still more often than people in most European countries. I should probably do my homework instead of sitting around thinking about how hot my boyfriend is. Did I mention he's pretty hot? --also getting married later, men averaging about 28 and women about 26. This might indicate that people take more time to find the right person and are more careful not to marry the wrong one. Not wanting to cloud the great outlook, but Americans divorce still more often than people in most European countries. I am totally convinced my roomates are the laziest and worst roomates ever. --also getting married later, men averaging about 28 and women about 26. This might indicate that people take more time to find the right person and are more careful not to marry the wrong one. Not wanting to cloud the great outlook, but Americans divorce still more often than people in most European countries. SOCIETY ASSOCIATED PRESS Britain's Prince William and Kate Middleton recently announced their engagement. The wedding is scheduled for April. Despite decline, marriage still popular among couples In yet another provocative cover story headline, TIME Magazine asked in last week's issue: "Who needs marriage?" Amid debates about who's cheating now, who's finally divorcing or who's finally marrying (William and Kate, save the date), the magazine chose a good moment to take a breath and recap what marriage actually means to us today. The poll, conducted by TIME and the Pew Research Center, asked Americans about their attitudes towards marriage and relationships. Despite a steep decline of married people from about 70 percent in the 1960s to about 50 percent today, marriage is still favored by most instead of a long-term relationship without the label, especially by college graduates. The poll shows that 64 percent of college graduates are married, compared to 48 percent of those without higher education. But why do we still want to get married anyway? It's not like we need it anymore. More women than men are graduating from college today and women's career chances have gone uphill for decades, so we can eliminate the financial reason. Let's Talk About Sex BY CAROLINE BLEDOWSKI chledowksi@kansan.com Our society today also doesn't look down on unmarried couples living together or having sex as it did earlier in the last century. So where's the draw? Children. According to the poll, 77 percent of Americans think it's easier to raise children when married. Somehow it may be easier, but long-term relationships are no different from marriages, except the label. Both are living together and see themselves as a couple. They don't intend to break up anytime soon, or ever. They're just happy together. We should accept that there are different types of relationships now. There are parents without the ring, gay relationships and second marriages. As society changes, our perspective changes. At least the numbers show that we're smarter about marriage today. The divorce rate has steadily fallen since the 1960s, but so has the marriage rate. We're As for me, I definitely want to get married someday. I'm not a hypocrite here, but I have my own interpretation of marriage. For me, marriage brings a couple even closer together. They wear the same ring every day as a symbol for their unity. They vow to each other in front of their family and friends that they love and will always care for each other. And divorce is a lot more complicated than a break-up, so each partner is more willing to work on the relationship before finally ending it. But that's just my opinion. If someone's happy without ever marrying, I'm happy for him or her. Let's just hope my future husband shares my opinion. Bledowski is a graduate student from Cracow, Poland, in journalism. GUEST COLUMN People, not products, make holidays special occasion If there one thing I've learned from my time working in retail, it's this: Santa Claus is the anti-Christ. While many students were at home spending Thanksgiving with their families, I was still in Lincoln, 400 miles from home. I do have some family here, so I wasn't alone, but it's kind of like dancing with someone else's wife; it works OK, but it's just not the same. In three and a half years at college, it's the first time I've experienced even a hint of homesickness. And why was I here? Because I had to be to work at 6:45 Friday morning so people could save a few bucks on crap that isn't worth buying anyway. One of my co-workers summed it up pretty well when he greeted me on Friday by saying, "Happy screwed-up American priorities day." It's enough to make我 want to punt a baby penguin. And these were the sane ones. I was fortunate enough to work at a place that didn't open until 7. I feel sorry for the people who work at places like Wal-Mart or Target and had to be to work ridiculously early. Have people lost their minds? But it's not like this is anything new. Christmas has been completely stripped of its meaning for years in favor of rampant consumerism. The real significance of the holiday is pushed aside and, for the most part, just gets lip service. People may put up a nativity set in their homes, but then they become preoccupied with what they need to buy. I don't fault the stores. They're just trying to make money to get into the black for the year. Major sales are simply a way to reach that goal. It's the consumers who I fail to see how spending money faster than the Obama administration honors a humble carpenter who was born in a stable and never in his life cared about wealth or material possessions. A fat man in a red suit can hardly measure up to the gifts given to us by a child lying in a manger. Christmas isn't about packages wrapped in paper; it's about a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes. are the problem. Do these people really think they have nothing better to do than stand in line the night of Thanksgiving so they can buy a new TV? Personally, I consider sleep to be much more important. I guess I'm just weird. Don't get me wrong, I'm not necessarily saying people should just stop buying stuff for Christmas. The economy would be in even bigger trouble if people completely stopped spending money at the time of year that often makes or breaks retail businesses. But that should be a secondary concern. Spending time with the people you love is far more important. If you don't get someone the perfect gift, it isn't the end of the world. Their feelings about you shouldn't be swayed by that. My best friend is taking me to an Avalanche/Red Wings game two days after Christmas. It's a great gift and will be my first NHL game, but I'm not looking forward to it because I want to go to a hockey game. I'm looking forward to it because I'll be spending that time with her. That's a far greater gift than anything someone could buy for me. Stop worrying so much about buying presents, and worry more about the only thing people can give each other that actually matters: love. Family, friends, spouses, significant others. These are the things that matter, not that 40-inch plasma TV you trampled three people and punched an old lady to get for half price. Those are the things I'll be thinking about while I'm at work for a pointless extra hour when there won't be any customers anyway. From UWIRE. Andrew Lacy for The Daily Nebraskan at The University of Nebraska. HUMOR Sandwich-growing trees how do those work? Sunday evening, I tried to make some popcorn my roommate brought back from Wichita (like your sexual ity, you shouldn't label your food!). I pushed the popcorn button on the microwave, and stood there and waited like the pissed off popcorn bag told me to in ALL CAPS and bold. It was a smaller bag of popcorn that told我 vaguely that it would take sometime between one and two minutes to cook – kind of like a teenager when asked what time their party is gonna end by some friend's parent ("I dunno. Like, when your kid leaves?"). I waited by the microwave, as instructed, and listened to the pops. And like the fat guy I am, I waited until the last second to pull that bitch out. It was burnt. "What's your point, Chance?" you may be asking like so many of my friends have asked me in the middle of a story before. Well, my point is: Dammit, genetically modified and engineered food companies. Seriously, if you're gonna waltz around and break my liberal art by destroying nature and making glow-in-the-dark rave-hamsters, make me some popcorn that doesn't burn. Because I deserve it. As a human being in the 21st century. I mean, recently you guys made those apples that don't turn brown after you cut them and leave them out in the air for a bit. Can you imagine a world in which you can cut an apple that stays eerily white days after you cut it into slices AND you can microwave popcorn for 3 hours, if you so please, and eat that crud like it was in there the perfect time? I mean, either go big or go home, GM foods. If you're going to destroy nature, do it in style. I have fashioned BY CHANCE CARMICHAEL ccarmichael@kansan.com a list of other GM food ideas for you. Yeah, that's right. It's a list column. Deal with it, baby boomers. Eat it up, millennials. 1. Splice together some of those giant centipedes, Goliath bird-eating tarantulas, that stung ray thing that killed Steve Irwin (and the scientist inside all of us, let's be honest), and those owls that sound like a woman screaming bloody murder. You know, for the metalheads. You can breed them and sell them as pets. There's nothing more exciting than only being a small glass tank away from being hunted, poisoned, and devoured! 2. Make me a plant that grows sandwiches. This is pretty self-explanatory. It sounds like a Futurama joke or something, but admit it, a tree in your backyard that grew ham and cheese sandwiches would be beautiful and delicious. 3. I want hollow pumpkins. Who wants to pull all of that goop out of the pumpkin? No one. Goofpights are a thing of the past, beige goo-hating prudes of the world. Then again, if you're a beige goo-hating prude you're probably reading a Jane Austen novel or something and not carving pumpkins. Those are some fantastic ideas, GM foods! Get with it already, because nature isn't going to destroy itself. Carmichael is a junior from Mulvane in film and media studies and journalism. Responses to the news of the week on Kansan.com Chatterbox "I was at part of the meeting where he proposed this. There wasn't any real point to the changes, and MWS refused to elaborate on why they had to be implemented his way, other than it's how he wanted to do it. I think he's probably afraid that it wouldn't pass the normal process (where people have a two-week cycle to examine, debate, and if need be, alter legislation before making the ultimate decision to pass or fail it)." - "BCohen" in response to "Changes to senate executive board may be delayed" on Nov. 30. "I know this. But expecting to KU fans to come to an 11 a.m. game on Thanksgiving weekend with a team as mediocre as KU? No thanks. All of that combined is why fans didn't come. You must not have read my comment fully. Besides, KU v Mizzou is not a good rivalry anymore. Mizzou will continue winning in football, and KU in basketball. Calling it a rivalry is like calling USC v UCLA a rivalry. And I agree, KU will be one of the first booted from the Big 12, and one of the last picked up by a smaller conference. Basketball alone is not going to get the Jayhaws to a bigger conference." —"BCOhen" in response to "Fans no-show for Saturday's border showdown" on Nov. 29. "I love it when people say that those who tout facts are racists. If they are skewed to perpetuate a hateful belief, the facts are being abused. If they are cited as a logical explanation for how values interact with people to create societies, the facts are being used. There is a major difference." —"metacognition" in response to "Europeans are more comfortable with their sexuality" on Nov. 21. HOW TO SUBMIT A LETTER TO THE EDITOR LETTER GUIDELINES Send letters to kansanpdesk@mail. com. Write LETTER TO THE EDITOR in the e-mail subject line. Length: 300 words Alex Garrison, editor 864-4810 or aqarrison@kansan.com The submission should include the author's name, grade and hometown. Find our full letter to the editor policy online at kansan.com/letters. 864-4810 or agarison@kansan.com Nick Gerik, managing edito 864-4810 or ngeni@kansan.com Erin Brown, managing editor 864-4810 or ebrown@kansan.com CONTACT US David Cawthon, kansan.com managing editor 864-4810 or dcwthon@kansan.com Emily McCoy, Kansan TV assignment editor 864-4810 or emccoy@kansan.com Jonathan Shorman, opinion editor 864-4924 or ionmanhorman.com Shauna Blackmon, associate opinion editor 864-4924 or sbblackmon@kansan.com Joe Garrey, business manager 864-4538 or jgarrey@kansan.com Amy O'Brien, sales manager 864-4477 or aibsen@kansan.com Malcolm Gibson, general manager and news adviser 864-7667 or mgibson@kansan.com Jon Schilt, sales and marketing adviser 864-7668 or ischilt@kansan.com THE EDITORIAL BOARD Members of the Kansas Editorial Board are Alex Garson, Niki Gerik, Erin Brown, David Cawton, Jonathan Shorman and Shauna Blackmon.