COLBY, Kan. - Kansas Free Press is a little more active than its mother media site, Everyday Citizen. The publisher's original intention, I believe, was to allow Kansans to put more local concerns and opinions up for discussion on this site.

I've been around a lot of years, all in Kansas, and I have been made aware of issues and events that I was not aware of, until I read it here. The comment section is certainly not limited to Kansans.

The comments, quite often, are much more detailed and revealing than the original articles. That is good. Most of us regular writers are hoping to get a dialogue going to help people become more involved in society's everyday happenings. Some visitors might think we, the writers, are all cheerleaders praising ourselves. But as you'll discover, we sometimes get into some pretty heated debates amongst ourselves.

COLBY, Kan. - 'Tis the season! What's the season? It's the season that motivates all the arguments about proper salutations. It's the season that merchants hope to make up for the slow economy of the past seasons and years. It's the season that some hope to reclaim their dominance in setting agendas and controlling the content of programs to celebrate the season. It's the season that mental and social professionals tell us more people suffer depression than at any other time in the year. (How sad that is!) All the bitter battles over whether it's 'Merry Christmas' or 'Happy Holiday', a 'Christmas Tree' or a 'Holiday Tree,' whether any particular group has absolute ownership of a particular day, whether we'll sing my choice of songs or your choice of songs, or all the other battles that rage on don't benefit any of us.

MCDOWELL CREEK, Kan. - Much of artist Betsy Roe's work centers on the contact zone between humans and other animals. Now Betsy is creating an outdoor installation at Bird Runner Wildlife Refuge, and this time that zone is a bloody one -- the place where animals meet our vehicles on the road.

Betsy! Why are you making us think about this? Roadkill? Yuck! Sad -- but what can we do about it? People aren't going to stop driving and animals aren't going to stop trying to cross the road. So why dwell on it? What's the point?

Betsy's art makes us think of one answer after another.

COLBY, Kan. - For the most part, we are a group of liberal leaning free thinkers and progressive minded individuals who enjoy sharing our opinions and experiences with one another and visitors to our site. I don't believe any of us think we have all the answers to society's problems.

We, the citizen journalists who write at Kansas Free Press, welcome comments from all, friend or foe, as long as they are not laced with foul language or abusive criticism. One visitor referred to our content as "common with older Everyday Citizen blogs." I'm not sure what 'old' for Internet media is, but Everyday Citizen (EC) and Kansas Free Press (KFP) have not been around very many years.