alifornia, like several other states, is putting too many people behind bars and for much too long. We don't have the money to build appropriate accommodations for those found guilty. The state of California has 33 prisons that were constructed to house 84,000 inmates; they now hold over 150,000. The state's limited prison space should be utilized for those who truly need to be there. The story is repeated in many states nationwide, with a prison population of 2.3 million behind bars. Many are there for nonviolent crimes. California is violating the Eighth Amendment rights - which prohibit cruel and unusual punishment- by frequently putting too many people behind bars. There are insufficient medical facilities or sufficient personnel to ensure that prisoners get the mental health and medical treatment they deserve and need. Thousands are incarcerated for technical violations of parole. Others are incarcerated for minor, nonviolent crimes. Incarcerating people who do not need to be there is not only inhumane and possibly illegal, it is certainly bad crime fighting. For uncounted numbers of young people many prisoners, in for minor offenses, the time behind bars becomes their training ground for a life of crime, It surely is not a deterrent.

If only we spent more energy and money educating prisoners and preparing them for life in society. The Sentencing Project, a nonprofit organization for criminal justice reform, reports that many states have begun to enact more enlightened prison policies - in large part because it makes economic sense. We need to be a lot smarter about who is incarcerated in the first place.

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few stats and figures, courtesy of This Week, the magazine.

In 1980 there were 4,954 emergency room visits in this country resulting from gymnast accidents. Go back to the end of 2007 and that figure had escalated to 26,7086. Why the rapid increase? Maybe because the girls and boys are starting in the sport earlier in life and, more likely, because the routines are getting ever tougher and physically demanding

This past year 70% of black children in this country were born to single mothers. What will it take to improve that ratio? Children need 2 parents.

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t was on the front page of the New York Times, the fact that with our current, worldwide recession, becoming the longest since World War two, another milestone may be at hand here in the United States: women are on the brink of surpassing men on the nation's payrolls. It would be the first time in the history of this nation, but it surely has less to do with gender equality, than where the ax is falling, A full 82% of the job losses have befallen men. In the past economists have predicted that women would one day dominate the labor force.

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n these serious times the fun line of the week came from President Obama who found himself in complete accord with his former Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, who said there was no more graphic demonstration of how good ideas have got out of control and cost taxpayers an enormous amount of money". He was referring to the project to build 28 new helicopters for the White House. The projected price has now reached $11.2 billion! Mr. Obama agreed that it was enormous, saying, "The helicopter I have now seems perfectly adequate to me. Of course, I've never had a helicopter before, you know? Maybe I've been deprived and I didn't know it." The Democrat and the Republican agreed that this was an example of the procurement process "gone amok. And we're going to have to fix it."

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an you see it in your crystal ball? One day soon will the marquee read "First Nationalized Bank of America"?
More tomorrow,