When Being Good Does Not Equal Happiness

Won't it be wonderful if there were a single formula for happiness? There is no such thing, and anyone who claims to have invented or found such a formula or equation is simply kidding, pretending, or trying to fool the rest of us. But it would be near-to-impossible to disprove the person's claim to gladness, because you'd have to live in the same house with that "happy person" for 30 days before you'd find out the fact that he or she only claimed to be happy all the time but was really just like the rest of us: unhappy in an unhappy world

Perhaps the closest any human being can come to cracking the happiness code is in being a good person, someone who is committed to doing what is morally right, as defined and understood by the dominant culture where that person lives. Religious people are said to be among the rare souls who have uncovered the mystery to happiness. They tend to link happiness or joy to being or doing what is good, godly and righteous.

The only trouble is that it is not that clear cut, or most humans would have followed the religious formula, and the world's billions of people would be mostly happy, glad, joyful. The reality is that being good and doing good may not result in happiness, at least not all the time. The only way godliness would produce permanent happiness in this life would be if only good things were to happen to good people, and only bad things were to happen to bad people. In a world where bad things happen to good people and vice versa, it is absurd to think or believe that lifelong happiness can become anyone's reality this side of the grave. The reality of a crippled world renders flawed every formula of happiness.

Concerning the morally good life, one writer penned these words on what he called "the straight life":

The straight life for a homemaker is washing dishes three hours a day; it is cleaning sinks and scouring toilets and waxing floors; it is chasing toddlers and mediating fights between preschool siblings. (One mother said she had raised three "tricycle motors," and they had worn her out.) The straight life is driving your station wagon to school and back twenty-three times per week; it is grocery shopping and baking cupcakes for the class Halloween party. The straight life eventually means becoming the parent of an ungrateful teenager, which I assure you is no job for sissies. (It's difficult to let your adolescent find himself – especially when you know he isn't even looking!) Certainly, the straight life for the homemaker can be an exhausting experience, at times.

The straight life for a working man is not much simpler. It is pulling your tired frame out of bed, five days a week, fifty weeks out of the year. It is earning a two-week vacation in August, and choosing a trip that will please the kids. The straight life is spending your money wisely when you'd rather indulge in a new whatever; it is taking your son bike riding on Saturday when you want so badly to watch the baseball game; it is cleaning out the garage on your day off after working sixty hours the prior week. The straight life is coping with head colds and engine tune-ups and crab grass and income-tax forms; it is taking your family to church on Sunday when you've heard every idea the minister has to offer; it is giving a portion of your income to God's work when you already wonder how ends will meet. The straight life for the ordinary, garden-variety husband and father is everything I have listed and more . . . much more.

Should we then forget about being good people as our society or religion stipulates, forget about doing good deeds, because goodness will only wear us out rather than bring us the bliss of happiness we desire? Certainly not! Why not? Because being bad and doing bad things will remove us even farther away from the gates of joy. Though happiness via goodness is illusive, it is far better to spend life at the gates of happiness, where we may see or smell the desire of every heart, even if we barely enter into those confines of joy. That is much better than to live our existence atop the pit of gloom, on the threshold of a hellhole, where we may never even know what the greenery of happiness looks like.

We should choose character with charity, because, when all is said and done, it is better to be and do good than to be and do evil. But let us be good and do good for goodness own sake, not for any reward of happiness we expect in return in this lifetime. That misguided soul who intends to trade goodness for happiness will find that such a bargain is never the fair trade we wish it to be in this uneven, fallen world we call home.

The Pursuit of Happiness: Choose Your Chase

Now that you have it down that America guarantees only the pursuit of happiness, not happiness itself, you need to decide what it is or how many things you want to pursue in the spirit of America. What do you want to pursue in American fashion? Is it pleasure? How about wealth, more money, a bigger house, a bigger car, many houses, many cars? Why not add a motorcycle, a boat, a yacht, an ATV, an RV, a private airplane?

Pursue knowledge, philosophy, education. Go beyond high school to college. Reach the heights of graduate school and add a title or two before your name, perhaps Dr. or PhD, or some other fancier, more impressive tag. Be a lifelong student; no learning is for nothing, so they say.

Pursue the career of your dreams. Pursue toys, little ones or big ones, cheap toys or expensive toys. Pursue sex, all the sex you can have, with whomever you want to have it, whenever you like it, wherever you and your sex partner choose.

Pursue the best foods at the best restaurants. Pursue travel and spend your nights at the world's luxurious hotels and motels, and watch pay-per-view movies or premium channels while you are there. See the world by car, train, ship or airplane. Add tourism to travel as icing on the cake of adventure.

Pursue friends, and multiply them by the dozens, if you want. Pursue sports. Pursue the perfect body, watching what you eat; work out like a well-oiled machine. Pursue your pet project, the hobby of your fancy. Become a decorator, a writer, a singer, a designer, an engineer, a builder, and build whatever your heart desires. Pursue plants and gardens, and seek fulfillment in nature and horticulture.

Pursue fame, and get your own shiny spot in the sun of celebrity and popularity. Pursue position with some star power of your own. Seek political office for whatever reason you can come up with, and have the whole world chanting your name or slogan, while you convince them that it's all about them, not about you. Get them to believe that together you and they have been called to change the world.

Pursue technology. Own the latest computer and other communication gadgets of the time: laptop, cell phone, ipod, iphone, GPS, HDTV, DVR, TiVo. Get all you can, and can all you get.

Better yet, pursue religion, charity, philanthropy, doing the right thing. Volunteer your time and give your hard-earned money to help those in need. Find your cause in life and sacrifice all you can for that worthy cause, whatever it is. It will even make you feel good, that with your life you have made someone else's life better.

Pursue and marry the love of your life. Settle down and raise a family. It is far better than running around, shacking up, sleeping here and there, or is it really better? Raise responsible children and donate them as your ultimate contribution to human civilization. You may be proud of that, or you may regret the whole thing after all, in your sunset days.

You can pursue all of the above. You can grab hold of some or most of them. But sooner or later, you will realize that happiness still lurks in the foggy distance of your future, yet waiting to be pursued.

If there is anything in life close to a semblance of happiness, it only lies in the pursuit itself. "The pursuit of happiness". Not the possession of happiness. You are happier pursuing than finding and keeping whatever it is you are chasing.

Whether sifting through the desolations of the underdeveloped world in Africa, Asia and South America, or soaring heights of affluent North America and Europe, it does not matter what continent or country, there is no deposit or reservoir of happiness to be found anywhere on this planet. Humans have searched for and found deposits of petroleum, the dark wealth over which humans and nations continue to fight wars to control its flow and supply. Deposits of gold, diamond, iron and other minerals abound, and greed for these precious metals never cease to spoil much of our luck at happiness. But there has yet to be that one lucky son of man who decoded the secret or unearthed the stuff of happiness, that true wealth that all other riches combined cannot even begin to afford. Happiness is as priceless as it is scarce.

And whatever is valuable, humans will search for. Thus the chase goes on. The pursuit continues, the pursuit of happiness. Though something inside each of us tells us, we'll never find on this side of the grave the permanent state of happiness we are chasing, we somehow know it's better to be in pursuit of the dream than to give up the chase, sit back and kick back for a cop out in the name of frustration.

Be true to yourself and admit it: You are not happy, and you have never met a truly happy person. Many of your acquaintances pretend to be happy, but if you ever get to really know them, you'll find they're just like you and your family and friends: unhappy, always in pursuit, but never laying hold of the prize, not finally and permanently.

Now, for any soul who has ever been so blessed as to experience pure happiness, it has always been just for a fleeting moment every time. You see, real happiness is the orgasm of life. Like orgasm, happiness is the peak to which every human effort and endeavor builds. Like orgasm, happiness is a climax that sends into one's innermost being the sweetest of feelings. Sad thing is, the high never lasts. It is not meant to. Happiness is meant to like the brief splash of a victory lap accompanied by cheers, the awarding of medals and singing of a national anthem after an athlete wins an Olympic event. Happiness never lasts beyond the moment. Because of its fleeting nature, we humans can spend our lives in pursuit of happiness. Without the thrill of the chase, life would be quite boring, hardly worth your breath. What is life, after all, without something worth chasing, especially if the object of the chase is happiness, even if for a dot of time.

I'm still in hot pursuit of happiness. In the not-too-distant past, I managed to grab it a time or two, but lost it again each time. How about you? Let me know if you've found happiness that lasts. Or have you given up the pursuit, as millions of souls have done?

Happiness: The Chase Goes On

Some people claim to know what happiness is. No one seems to know where or how to find happiness.

Born and raised in Liberia, we spend part of our childhood dreaming about leaving Liberia, crossing the vast Atlantic Ocean, landing on the heaven-on-earth terrain known as America. My junior high friend, Robert Saydee and I would lay on the bunk beds of our dorm room in a boarding school and verbally dream of the day when both of us would migrate to the great, rich United States, the land of the missionary, peace corps, CIA agent, tourist, Hollywood star, cars, planes, and black American athletes. So we dreamed until Saydee and I were separated by the need to continue our educational journeys in different locations. Our American dream lingered.

Well, it was not exactly the journey to America we would have scripted, but my lifelong friend and I are in the United States now. It was the brutal Liberian civil war that uprooted us and catapulted us to this sweet land of liberty, which has proved to be so much more than our boyish minds had imagined. Give or take a few surprises.

Liberians who still live in what is perhaps now the world's poorest country will not believe me when I say it, but it is true: there is no happiness in America, just as there is no happiness in Liberia. Life in America means a lot of things, but permanent happiness is not one of them.

What does it really mean to live in America? Find it in those words in nation's Declaration of Independence: it is the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". In the United States, what you are given is the right to live, to be free, and to pursue happiness. You are not granted, guaranteed or given happiness. No, it's not happiness but the pursuit of it. That's what America offers.

The "pursuit" is the key to life in America. As for the happiness part, give it up, you will never catch it here. Unless you have figured out the mental trick of finding happiness in the pursuit itself, you will be a wind chaser all the days of your life in America. Can you catch the wind and hold it in your hand? Neither can you grab happiness, hold it, and take it with you into your American home.

Happiness has little to do with geography. It is not about location, or relocation. Moving from here to there will not make you happy any more than changing from flip flops or slippers to shoes. Happiness is not some place or some thing.

Happiness is a pursuit, not a catch. So, let the pursuit begin, or let it continue. Remember, they call it "the American dream". It's a "dream", not a reality.

Dr. James Dobson, Steven Curtis Chapman, and The Theology of Denial

It's Monday, our 16^th wedding anniversary. Not that this has anyting to do with the subject of this article. Okay, I'm driving our 14-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son to school. And as I normally do on school days, the radio is set to a Christian station with Focus On The Family as the program. This morning Dr. James Dobson, the psychologist, best-selling author, and traditional evangelical leader was interviewing Christian music artist Steven Curtis Chapman, the repeated Dove Award winner who has sold more than 10 million records.

For the program of the morning, Steven Curtis Chapman was discussing with Dr. Dobson the recent loss of Steven's adopted daughter Maria Sue. Mr. Chapman described how faith in God has helped his family cope with the tragedy. On May 21, 2008, the little Maria Sue died when her 17-year-old brother Will Franklin ran over her in the family's driveway with an SUV. Maria had just turned 5 on May 13^th.

Steven Curtis narrated how he prayed, seeking to change the forecast of dark cloud that was descending over the Chapman family. He said, “I heard myself praying over and over again all the way to Vanderbilt Hospital, 'In the name of Jesus, breathe life.'” That was the shortened version of the prayer Steven began praying in the driveway as the medical team was working on Maria. Dad kept believing that God was going to breathe life back into his precious girl.

As that awful day unfolded, Steven Curtis prayed some more, “In the holy name, in the worthy name, breathe life. God, I know You can do this. You've breathed life into dead bodies before. I know You can do this... Jesus, breathe life into Maria... God, I'm gonna trust You, I'm gonna bless You even in this.”

Dad had a sense that he was breathing for Maria.

“In my mind, I was preparing myself to go in and pray for Maria to be raised from the dead”, Mr. Chapman said as he neared the hospital. “I'm gonna go and bolt the door, and they can come in and call me crazy and say whatever they want to, but I'm gonna pray and just trust that God can raise her back up...”

At that point, Dr. Dobson, perhaps feeling helpless and uncomfortable about the level of pain in his radio guest's voice, gently interrupted Chapman to set the singer straight. You know how Christian musicians some times have a twisted theology, based on a poor knowledge of the Scriptures? Except that in this case, it was not the singer but the doctor who needed a theological fix.

Dr. Dobson told Steven Curtis and the radio audience, “In fact He (God) did, He did, because we know where she is”. Not surprisingly, Steven Curtis abandoned his line of what really happened and agreed with Dr. Dobson that “in fact” God did raise Maria from the dead, since the little girl is now at home with the Lord.

“And my son Caleb said it at the memorial service,” Steven Curtis continued. “He said, 'God did heal Maria. He answered our prayers for Maria. He healed her, but He didn't heal her in the way that we like very much right now...”

So, according to these two Christian men along with Steven's son Caleb, God “in fact” did two things for Maria Sue:

1. God raised Maria from the dead.

2. God healed Maria of the coma.

Denial theology! That's exactly what that sounds like. That's what it is. Denial theology confirms the charge that so many non-Christians levy against religious people: that we use faith to hide from reality. This is the kind of faith that cannot be defended with reason. Thus it portrays our faith as illogical. This kind of religious jargon attracts the label of “blind faith”, and it should.

The fact, the truth, the reality is that in May of 2008, a 5-year-old girl named Maria Sue Chapman died. God did not raise her from the dead. If Jesus had breathed life back into her, Maria would physically be a part of the Chapman family today. The truth is that God did not heal Maria Sue of the coma from which she never returned. The reality is that God did not answer the prayers of the Chapmans and the thousands of believers who prayed with them, asking the Lord to preserve little Maria's young life.

We play ostrich to stare such a devastating reality in the face and stick our theological necks in the sand and come away spewing such piety as, “God did raise her to life. God did heal her.” We can believe Maria is in Heaven, but that is not the same as her being resurrected or resuscitated. Not recovering from the trauma of coma is not the same as being healed of coma.

Denial theology does not serve the Christian faith well, or any other faith for that matter. It mocks true faith, which keeps on believing and trusting God, even though Maria died, even though Maria was not healed.

Words have meaning, and the words of theology are no exception to the rules of diction. Resurrection means rising from the dead; dying and staying dead cannot mean the same thing as being raised back to life. Healing has a meaning, and it does not mean the same as death. Why do we even have to point that out?

As Christians, our theology of pain and suffering should remain rooted in the Scriptures, and the Bible is no book of denial. It features real people, real events, real experiences.

Beginning with the teaching of Jesus Christ, death is spoken of in the New Testament as “sleep”. When a believer died, the first-century Christian community would say the person had “fallen asleep”. But that “sleep” was a euphemism for death.

Also, the language of sleep underscored the belief that for the Christian death has lost its painful sting; death has become as calm as falling asleep. Furthermore, the sleep imagery summed up the early Christians' hope of resurrection, that the Christian would literally rise from the dead at the end of this age, when Jesus Christ returns to planet earth. Never did the early Christians or the New Testament ever portray the experience of dying and death as healing or as rising from the dead!

The early believers would reject the denial theology that has become so rampant, coming even from the lips of famous Christian leaders. There are many Scriptures we can use to comfort people without resorting to the crude denial of death and disease.

A clergyman recalls how he was tempted to use denial theology as a cheap, watered-down way to comfort a young lady whose baby had died before delivery. He had considered cheap comfort, because he really didn't know how to help this young lady. It would have been far better for the minister to keep silent than give the girl some of the cliches that denial theology is famous for.

The grieving mom asked the minister to do a funeral for her stillborn baby. It was the preacher's first time conducting such a funeral, and he has never done one like it ever since. Frankly, the man of God really did not know how exactly to comfort that young woman and somehow ease the pain of her acute grief. Finally, he shared the story of King David and Queen Bathsheba whose baby had died, regardless of the fact that David had prayed and fasted, asking God to spare the life of the innocent infant. Using that biblical account, the minister told the mother and the sympathizers present something like this:

“None of knows why God allowed your innocent baby to die before birth. Our faith in the God of the Bible tells us that there are some things we will not be able to understand or explain in this lifetime. All we Bible believers know for sure is that the human race lives in a fallen world, an imperfect world, and in such a world bad things do happen to innocent people, even to innocent babies like your little one. To continue to believe and trust God in spite of our inability to comprehend such a reality is the essence of true faith. You can still trust God, even though He did not answer your prayer for your baby's life, even though you do not know or understand why your child did not live.”

Does Dr. James Dobson not know this? Of course, he does. After all, Dr. Dobson wrote the book, When God Doesn't Make Sense, wrestling with the subject of theodicy (the issue of evil in lieu of God's existence). So what are we to make of Dr. Dobson's preference for denial theology in his interview with Steven Curtis Chapman? One can only guess that the lapse was due to the psychology major's well-meaning effort to sympathize with Mr. Chapman and relieve the still fresh memory of the intense grief that Marie Sue's death must have brought upon the Chapman family.

But even at that, Dr. Dobson still came across as a typical denial theologian, who seems to trivialize the mentally demanding question of 'why bad things happen to good people'. Denial theologians tend to throw trite answers at the deep questions of theodicy, the presence of undeserved evil in a world governed by the hands of a sovereign God, a deity whom believers know to be omnipotent (all-powerful and beneficent (good, kind, loving).

There is much hope that denial theology shall not continue to rule the thinking of the faith community. How can we be so sure? Because left to sort out their own experiences in light of their faith, ordinary religious people will express views that resemble realty theology. That was exactly the way Steven Curtis Chapman was narrating his story, until Dr. James Dobson stepped in to save the day. The good doctor should have left Mr. Chapman alone, so he could continue to sort out his very own theology of pain and suffering, rather than stuff him with a loaf of cookie-cutter denial theology.

What? Another Barack Obama Re-Introduction?

Last night (August 20, 2008), I turned on cable television, and there on CNN Presents was the latest biography on Mr. Barack Obama, the presumed Democratic Party nominee for president of the United States. Perhaps CNN produced this show to counteract that slanderous book Obama Nation.

Frankly, I learned not much new about Mr. Obama. There is very little left to be learned about the man. Barack (Barry) was born to a black (Kenyan) father and white mother. His father abandoned him; his dad, born 1936, died 1982 in Kenya. Barack married Michelle Robinson in October 1992. His mom died in 1995.

Can we move on now, please? How many times will Barack Obama have to introduce himself or have CNN or any other entity introduce the man to America? Was he a naturalized citizen or something? Really, why does the man need to be introduced and re-introduced to his own country over and over? Barack has been on the national stage for months now. By now anyone interested in learning more about him should have checked Wikipedia or some other independent source on the candidate.

All this pretend curiosity about getting to know the real Barack Obama is getting kind of old. And it is getting some of us to ask, “If this guy were a white presidential candidate, named William Baron, would we still be wanting to know 'The Real William Baron', or would we rather be more concerned about William Baron's ideas?”

This is insane, and I'm about to lose more of my already vanishing hair strings. Look, people, the only important questions to ask of any presidential candidate of these united states should be those contained in the Constitution of our country. Perhaps a little civics review will do the trick:

1. First important question: Does the candidate satisfy the age and citizenship requirements as stated in Article II, Section 1 of the US Constitution? The founding document reads, “No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States.”

2. Second important question: Does the candidate meet what may be called the no-dynasty, no-ruling family requirement? The term limit amendment ratified February 27, 1951, reads, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.”

The person does not have to be a certain height. Does not need to have been in Washington for decades; two to three years in the legislature plus numerous appearances on the national stage is plenty of time to know someone who wants to be president. Besides, the media, especially in the Internet Age, littered with blogs, will definitely leave no stone unturned in the effort to reveal, uncover or expose any politician aiming for Pennsylvania Avenue.

No, the candidate does not have to be a certain gender. Does not have to be married. Does not have to have children. Does not have to graduate from a certain school. Does not have to be a Jew, Christian, or Muslim. Does not have to be Evangelical, Catholic, Mormon, Jehovah's Witness, Seventh Day Adventist, or Charismatic. Does not have to be a governor, representative or senator. And no, the candidate for the oval office does not have to own a dog or cat, or have his last name be Kennedy, Bush or Clinton. His/her name does not even have to be or sound American.

I thought the United Sates were the great, big cultural melting pot of the world. Has that changed all of a sudden, because a guy's name is or sounds Eastern? What am I missing here?

Yes, the presidential candidate must have character or integrity, as defined and accepted by American society. But if the person lacks moral integrity, the electorate will filter him/her out with their votes.

On August 25^th the convention for the Democratic Party kicks off, to be followed on September by the Republican Party convention on . May America be treated as an adult, not expecting or waiting for an encore introduction of Obama or McCain. May we see and hear a serious presentation of the big issues this election should be about from now until November 4^th.

“What are those issues?” one may ask. Those issues are not McCain's war record or prisoner of war accolade. Not Barack's last name or middle name; not his pastor or any other associates of decades past. Personality will not win or lose this election. What we want to hear are the candidates' ideas and plans concerning national security, energy, health care, taxes, judges, abortion, and the international scene.

How will either man deal with each of the following? The recessive economy; America's bankrupt social security scheme; the costly war in Iraq, costing the American taxpayer $10 billion per month; angry Russia, now occupying the sovereign nation of Georgia; ambitious Iran, with its unpredictable ruler; illusive Afghanistan, where the Taliban resurges; the explosive dilemma that is the Israeli and Palestinian question; the rising super power that is China; nuclear Pakistan, with increasingly bold and blatant suicide bombers; Darfur, the humanitarian disaster of Sudan; the AIDS epidemic.

Leadership Void: We Need Leaders But All We Get Are Politicians

Just look at the multitude and magnitude of the problems America and the world face.

On the international front: The volatile existence between Israelis and Palestinians continues. The war in Iraq seems to have no end in sight, and it costs America $10 billion every single month, probably more than any budgetary item of the federal government. The Taliban resurges in Afghanistan, taking back territory once under allied forces. Russia entrenches its forces in the sovereign democratic country of Georgia; the world watches, and world leaders in America and Europe bark like old dogs without teeth; meanwhile Russia lies to the world that it is withdrawing its troops when there is little proof of a Russian withdrawal. Islamic extremists step up the heat in Pakistan less than a week after that country's president resigned; the news media just reported that two suicide bombers just blew up themselves along with 50 innocent people.

On the domestic front here in the United States: Social security is still broke. Medicare is bankrupt as well. Health care cost spirals out of control. The rising cost of energy continues to inflate the cost of food and other essential goods. The banking sector has lost the trust of investors. The housing market slumbers in the basement.

In the face of this litany of demanding issues and problems, the political system offers America two men, Barack Obama and John McCain, whose resumes qualify them as politicians not leaders. But do we even know the difference between a leader and a politician anymore? In recent years, we have been so used to hearing and seeing politicians we are beginning to settle for typical politicians rather than demand true leaders.

Let's contrast a leader with a politician.

Politician: make the right move, and leave every difficult decision for the next guy. Problem is, "the next guy" will do exactly the same. Leader: make the tough decision, which is also the right decision for the country.

Politician: say the right thing, what's politically correct. Leader: do the right thing, what's morally correct.

Politician: compromise your principles; go along with others. Leader: stand on your principles; persuade others to come along.

Politician: identify many problems and make many promises to solve them. Leader: identify few real problems and solve them one problem at a time.

If you were to ask, "Of all the qualities that defines a leader, which is most important?", my answer, without a blink, would be "problem solving". The wisdom and courage to solve real, tough problems is the essence of what a true leader is.

On the contrary, the public officials of our time are known for creating problems, standing in the way of solutions, taking credit for doing nothing, pointing fingers and passing blames. There is not one leader among them. No, not one. How do we know? Everyone of our biggest problems is yet to be solved.

Class of Offenders: Exploring Alternatives for Non-Violent Offenders

The Bureau of Justice Statistics breaks down crimes into four major offenses: violent offense, property offense, drug offense, and public-order offense. The 2004 figures show the following:

1. Violent offenders: 52 percent
2. Property offenders: 21 percent
3. Drug offenders: 20 percent
4. Public-order offenders: 7 percent

From this breakdown of the numbers, you see that the dangerous criminals make up 52 percent of the prison population. That means, the other 48 percent of inmates could be out of jail and not pose any serious threat to public safety, because those are non-violent offenders.

Should America not step up the effort by providing the needed funding to explore and utilize real alternatives to incarceration for these non-violent offenders? Surely, a nation as wealthy and able as America can do just that, if not more.

Here are some alternative sentencing measures that can reduce the prison population, cut the cost of incarceration, benefit society, and help to rehabilitate hundreds of thousands of the prisoners in our backyards, all at the same time:

• Property Offenders: sentence them to labor equal to the value of the property stolen or damaged.
• Drug Offenders: sentence them to drug treatment centers, shelters or programs. If the person does not improve, combine this treatment with some hard, sweaty labor. The Divert Court program in Texas provides a working model.
• Public-Order Offenders: sentence those who violate public order to labor or community service. They could actually be given low-wage jobs to pay fines commensurate with their offenses.

Let us not forget that among America's prison population are many mentally ill people. Now, what class of offender do these fit in? Who knows what crime it is to lose one's mind? Just think about that: the world's most civilized nation hauls its mentally ill citizens to jails! Not that I want to fault my country, but can't we find a better solution than incarcerating crazy people? Yes, I know, they are often included with the druggies, because drug abuse may have resulted in their mental condition. But can't we find a better way than locking up the mentally ill like criminals?

Keep the brainstorming going; America might just one day shed its record as the world's lead jailer.

Inmates America: What It Costs to Run America's Prisons

America's prison population continues to explode, and so does the cost of keeping so many Americans locked up.

According to Pew Center on the States, America now has one adult inmate for every 99.1 American adults. Of a total of 230 million American adults, our prison population stands at 2,319,258. Only America holds this distasteful record. We incarcerate more of our citizens than totalitarian Russia (864,590 prisoners), more than even communist China, with its 1.3 billion people (1.5 million inmates).

So, while we rightly spew human rights lectures at China, the Chinese government only needs to throw it back at us that we have 1 percent of our adult population behind bars.

People, that's a whole lot of our precious human resources wasting away in jails, prisons, and half-way houses all across this land of the free. And it costs billions of dollars to keep those Americans locked up. The 50 states of the USA spend a total of $49 billion a year on incarceration. Twenty years ago, the cost was less than $11 billion.

In a recent town hall meeting, Governor Steve Beshear said it costs the state of Kentucky $20,000 a year to incarcerate just one person. In 2007, Kentucky led the nation in the increase of inmate population. Governor Beshear points out that though Kentucky's crime rate has increased by only 3 percent in the past 30 years, the state's inmate population has soared a whopping 600%.

Actually, the actual number is higher than the Governor's estimate of $20,000 per inmate. Kentucky, which had 3,000 inmates in 1973, now has 22,000 inmates as of 2008, and the state has been spending $500 million each year to house those inmates. If you do the math, it's costing Kentucky taxpayers about $22,727 to incarcerate one inmate for one year.

Should America Be Ashamed of Our Prison Population Explosion?

Imprisonment embarrassment. That's what it should be called.

Researchers of America's prison population have found that the number of women inmates continues to swell. The female prison population increased 2.5 percent from 2006 to mid 2007, for a total of 115,308 ladies in America's jails and prisons. Our mothers, our sisters, and our daughters have been packing the jails just like the guys.

One female prison, the Ohio Women Reformatory, houses 2,300 women, many of them mothers. Don't you like that name, “Reformatory”? The truth is very little reformation is going on behind the walls of American jails. The recidivism rate seems to still be stuck at around 85 percent; that means for every 100 persons who are released from jail, 85 percent of them will be re-incarcerated. Those giant revolving doors across the prison industry just keep swinging back and forth.

To their credit, the overcrowded Ohio Women Reformatory, in order to meet the demand of more female offenders, is building a 1,000-bed facility. They say 1,000 beds, but we know that “beds” really mean “women”. So this jail expects another 1,000 women to come knocking to enter Prison Institute.

Our choice of euphemism for the prison industry reveals there is something that really disturbs us about having so many of our fellow citizens locked up. The ballooning jail population shows something of our nakedness as a society, and we find ways to blush away this embarrassment by resorting to figurative language: reformatory, department of corrections, correctional facility, detention center, etc.

Are we embarrassed to call them what they are? Why do we hesitate to say them jails, prisons? What's this “corrections” stuff, like the incarcerated are students getting their tests graded (corrected) by their instructors? We somehow prefer to lessen the impact on our collective social psyche by minimizing the punishment aspect of our prison business. But no matter how tender the language we employ for crime and punishment system, we will do nothing significantly meaningful to reverse the trend towards more and more of our fellow citizens headed into prison cells.

It's high time started calling America's jail houses what they really are – hell holes of the world's greatest country. With the correct semantics, we may start seeing the seriousness of the problem that an ever increasing numbers of prisoners present to this civilized society. Let us call prisons by the punitive names they deserve. Perhaps by doing so, we may just prick our social consciousness into taking the necessary steps to reduce the population explosion of those dark halls of squandered human resources.