Apple Computer’s wildly successful ad campaign in the late 1990s challenged people to “Think Different.”

The campaign’s challenge was one that goes to the core of our psyche. We’re not programmed to think differently, not even close.

We get sort of set in our ways and cruise along in life like so many of the long strings of lash barges that travel back and forth on the Mississippi River.

A skilled towboat pilot may be able to turn a barge in the middle of the river, but it’s not an easy task, as the barges’ inertia make them want to continue on the same trajectory.

Government is usually a lot like those barges, slow moving and nearly impossible to turn, even slightly.

But give Adams County Supervisors a little credit for at thinking a little differently lately.

Given the looming problem of needing to replace or seriously revamp and upgrade the county jail, supervisors are considering doing away with the county jail entirely.

Their plan, if they can get permission to do so and if the economics works out, is to consider contracting out the responsibility to house inmates to a private company that already operates a prison in the rural part of Adams County.

It’s an interesting concept and one worth the time to explore. We’re glad supervisors aren’t just allowing inertia to drive things, but are looking for new and different ways to get the same old jobs done.

Such never-leave-a-potential-tax-stone unturned approach is all we can ask of government leaders.