RUST COMMENTARY: TAMMS PRISON TAKES THE BAD APPLES OUT OF OTHER ILLINOIS PRISONS

Prisoners are now being placed in the 520 cell TAMMS SUPER-MAXIMUM prison. It's a real-world application recognizing that one bad apple can spoil a barrel of apples.

I heard remarks once from the former state warden of the then 2,000-inmate Jefferson City prison while I was touring the facility. He said that if he could remove the 75 to 100 really bad apples from the prison ... in case of a fire he could march the remaining prisoners down Main Street to another building without incident.

These real troublemaker types in Illinois are now being moved to Tamms, Ill. The prison warden, GEORGE WELBORN, remarked about the first six prisoners: "The prisoners are not here because of those original charges. They're here because they have been real troublemakers since they entered the prison system. The six have committed a combined total of 86 staff assaults while in prison including a couple of hostage situations."

Bad apples set bad examples and too often influence others in work, school or social atmospheres.

Weldon said Tamms will not be a nice place to do time. Prisoners will be kept in their 67-square-foot cells 23 hours a day and will be there for at least one year minimum until they earn their way by good behavior to a transfer.

They are to be fed and counseled in the cells and will be permitted to spend an hour a day alone in an exercise yard. There will be no prison jobs, no college classes, no weights.

Tamms isn't about rehabilitation. "It's about punishment," said the warden.

I hope they give every prisoner a Bible where they can read about crime and punishment, repentance and forgiveness. The Bible has a lot to say about punishment and suffering for sins and crimes. ... Forgiveness does not replace accountability for one's actions but does give hope for another chance.

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"Never convict anyone on the testimony of one witness. There must be at least two, and three is even better. If anyone gives false witness, claiming he has seen someone do wrong when he hasn't, both men shall be brought before the priests and judges on duty before the Lord at the time. They must be closely questioned, and if the witness is lying, his penalty shall be the punishment he thought the other man would get. In this way you will purge out evil from among you. Then those who hear about it will be afraid to tell lies on the witness stand. You shall not show pity to a false witness. Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot; this is your rule in such cases." -- Deuteronomy 19:15-21

Commentary:

This attitude toward punishment may seem primitive, but it was actually a breakthrough for justice and fairness in these ancient times when most nations used arbitrary methods to punish criminals. This guideline reflects a concern for evenhandedness and justice, ensuring that those who violated the law were not punished more severely than their particular crime deserved. In the same way, a false witness was to receive the same punishment the accused person would have suffered. The principle of making the punishment fit the crime should still be observed today. -- Life Applications, Living Bible

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Just 44 percent of college students graduate, and that number is going down, says the College Board in New York. It takes the typical student 5 1/2 academic years to graduate, and that's going up, says the U.S. Department of Education. About 60 percent of students change colleges at least once before they graduate. Twenty-five percent of today's freshmen take remedial math, reading or writing before they can even begin work on their degrees.

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A word or two about failure (it does have its uses).

A. I never see failure as failure ... but only as a LEARNING EXPERIENCE.

2. I never see failure as failure ... but only as NEGATIVE FEEDBACK. (It's a chance to change my course of action. Losers say, "See, I told you I couldn't do it.")

3. I never see failure as failure ... but only as an OPPORTUNITY TO DEVELOP MY SENSE OF HUMOR.

4. I never see failure as failure ... but only as a GAME I PLAY TO WIN (however, nobody wins them all).

5. I never see failure as failure ... but only as an OPPORTUNITY TO PRACTICE MY TECHNIQUES AND PERFECT MY PERFORMANCE.

Speaking of overcoming failure ... remember what the kid said to his coach:

"I didn't lose the game ... I just ran out of time!"

"You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it." -- Margaret Thatcher

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Good man gone: A couple of weeks ago an unheralded hero of the extraordinary economic boom we've been enjoying since 1982 died suddenly, at age 65. Julian Simon -- entrepreneur, economist, professor -- brilliantly undermined the we're-running-out-of-resources hysteria that severely hobbled the American economy from the 1960s through the 1970s.

Chicken Littles in those days argued that the earth was becoming overpopulated, that we were running out of food, oil and other natural resources, that we were becoming more polluted. Those dire predictions were used to justify more regulations, more taxes, more control over people's lives.

Simon's fact-filled books and essays convincingly ridiculed these heirs of the Rev. Thomas Malthus, an 18th century economist who wrote a widely read tract predicting pestilence and famine as population growth outstripped the capacity to grow food. Two hundred years later, we have nearly 10 times the mouths to feed, but never has the general population of mankind been better off or the future brighter.

Simon recognized a fundamental truth: Human inventiveness is the true capital of an economy. Take the natural resource oil. In and of itself, the stuff is simply glop. You can't eat it or drink it. In early 19th century Pennsylvania, this goo was considered a depressor of property values because oil made it hard to grow crops and made farm animals sick. Human inventiveness turned this dark, sticky stuff into what the Arabs call black gold.

To Julian Simon, the key to avoiding catastrophe and improving living standards was freeing people from the shackles of excessive government and from anti-individualistic cultures. In an environment of freedom, more people mean more knowledge and, thus, more breakthroughs and inventions. In no small part due to Simon's work, the Chicken Littles were routed. But Malthusians never stay down. They are at work today propagating a new menace to frighten us-global warming. Those who have faith in people's ability to invent and advance have lost a powerful ally. -- Steve Forbes, Forbes

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Forget the stats: Light up a stogie: One would think that the health scolds would be rather pleased at news that lots of young Americans are smoking cigars, considering that alternatives include cigarettes and worse.

But no, these people are fanatically opposed to anyone's enjoying tobacco in any form, and they present a statistic intended to frighten: "Cigar smokers are four to 10 times more likely to die from cancer of the mouth, larynx and esophagus than non-smokers.

Could be, although one suspects that these are cigar smokers on a Churchillian scale. But in any case, according to the 1997 Statistical Abstract, deaths from malignancies of the lip, oral cavity and larynx were so few in 1995 that more than five times as many people committed suicide, nearly five times as many were victims of homicide, and 7.5 times as many died in auto accidents. -- M. Lester O'Shea. letter to the editor, The Wall Street Journal

~Gary Rust is president of Rust Communications, which owns the Southeast Missourian and other newspapers.