My name is Will Reynolds and I'm one of those community organizers Glenn Beck warned you about.

Activism is my hobby. It's a little excessive. Organizations I currently volunteer for include:
Sierra Club Illinois Chapter - Elected member and Vice-Chair of Executive Committee. Political Committee member. Clean Cars campaign chair.
Sierra Club Sangamon Valley Group - Chair
Illinois Stewardship Alliance - Executive board member
Liberty Brew & View - A monthly movie series on political or social issues, usually combined with speakers and opportunities to take action. In 2009 the Central Illinois ACLU honored me with the Larry Golden Award, primarily for establishing this independent forum for the exploration of civil liberties and other issues.

Disclaimer
All opinions written on this blog, ridiculous or otherwise, are mine and are not written on behalf of any organization unless specifically stated.

Watchu talkin 'bout Willis?
I usually write about the environment and Illinois politics with a focus on Springfield, clean energy, the coal industry and whatever project or event I'm working on at the time.

Some jobs I enjoyed to varying degree
Community Volunteer Center for central Illinois, Director
National Parks Conservation Association, field organizer.
Dennis Kucinich '04 Presidential Campaign, Deputy National Field Director.
Project Vote - Arkansas voter registration drive director.
Political campaign and online organizing consultant.
SEIU organizer in Southern Illinois.
Steak n' Shake bus boy.
And several others

Places I lived, in order:
Springfield, IL
Carbondale, IL
Knoxville, TN
Cleveland, OH
Manchester, NH
Little Rock, AR
Chicago, IL
Springfield, IL

Family History Anecdotes
Thanks to my genealogist parents, I can trace by family roots in rural Central Illinois back to the 1840's. They were mostly working class farmers, coal miners, Democrats (they supported Douglas over Lincoln), and occasional troublemakers. I have great-grandfathers and great-great-grandfathers on both sides of my family who mined coal in Illinois and Indiana. Other ancestors were part of Colonel US Grant's first unit of command in Illinois and some followed him all the way to Georgia. One of my earliest ancestors to reach the Americas was an Englishman kidnapped from church by pirates. After congregation members raised the ransom, he instead chose to join the pirates, terrorizing the Caribbean, before he eventually settled down to become a colonial Governor.

A little more about myself
I've seen blogs with quirky, entertaining "get to know you" questions but I couldn't find any good ones. Instead, my search turned up "100 questions to ask your boyfriend before you get married." Although, it could be called "100 ways to annoy your boyfriend and get him to change the subject to something more appealing, such as slime molds." Here are my answers to a few of them.

If I had an accident and be left with terrible scars for life, would you still love me?
Oh no, these questions must have been written by a 15 year old girl.

What is it of me that you like the most?
That you're reading my blog.

At what age do you plan to get married?
Five years older than I am at any given time.

What are your plans (goals) for the future?
I'd like to see if I can haul a truckload of cheap bootleg beer from west of the Mississippi to Georgia while evading smokey and picking up a runway bride along the way.

Would you leave me for a celebrity that really really liked you?
If she's on my "list of five" then yes, absolutely.

How would you react if the doctor told me that I have a deadly disease? Would you still love me?
Deadly disease, accidents, scars... someone has issues to deal with.

How do you visualize the perfect woman? What are her attributes?
A mix between Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Drew Barrymore.

What would be your best reason to break up with me?
You don't wanna get mixed up with a guy like me. I'm a loner. A rebel. So long.

What is your mayor goal in life?
I have no goal of running for mayor.

What are your mayor flaws?
I'm not very good at sucking up to the Chamber of Commerce.

What has been the most important decisions in your life?
Deciding to take jobs I'll enjoy that have meaning to me, even if they don't always pay the most. Going to school and learning basic grammar skills.

Who is your hero?
My former professor, Paul Simon. Many others.

Quinn was smart to leave people with only two things to talk about. Now a small tax increase for education is the topic of the day.

Government is the top employer in Illinois. Government does create jobs, especially in downstate. A recession period when the private sector isn't creating jobs is the most sensible time to increase government spending to stimulate the economy. Cutting more jobs in the state's top sector, government, is economic suicide.

Springfield discovered that reality when we suffered a local recession after Blagojevich cut or moved thousands of government jobs. Sangamon is far from the only county where state government is the top employer. The economies of Champaign, McLean, Jackson, Macon and many more counties are on the line.

We have to stop living in George Bush fantasy land where tax cuts solve all problems and there's always some unspecified government waste that can mystically balance the budget. The General Assembly needs to grow a pair and finally stand up to the anti-tax fundamentalists.

But more than that, the industry is quick to reduce the size of their workforce by mechanizing operations. The amount of coal mined in the United States steadily increased over the past twenty years, even while the number of coal mining jobs dropped dramatically.

This story reveals the next step.

Rio Tinto is connecting its Australian mines to satellite links so workers more than 800 miles away can remotely drive drilling rigs, load cargo and even use robots to place explosives to blast away rock and earth.

The company's Perth operations center, which relies on banks of high-tech equipment to manage one of the oldest and dirtiest jobs around, is a harbinger of new techniques that are allowing miners to go to more remote places, dig deeper and get ore to the market more quickly. It also aims to save Rio Tinto money by using fewer workers and keeping them out of harm's way.

Imagine that? Illinois could keep spending millions of dollars subsidizing the coal industry and there's no guarantee that one day most mining jobs won't be inside Peabody headquarters in St. Louis. Or, Murray Co could do it from Ohio. There are already less than 4,000 people employed in Illinois coal mining and even new mines won't hire many workers.

The change is being driven by the same forces behind mountaintop removal, longwall mining, "enhanced oil recover" and the Canada tar sands. Resources are running out so the coal and oil industries are scraping the bottom of the barrel in old mines and hard to reach places.

(Modern coal miners at work)

The innovation is born from necessity. Easy and accessible mineral reserves have been largely tapped, pushing miners to search more remote locations for iron ore, copper, coal and other metals and minerals. The shift could help Rio and other miners recruit employees who don't want to work in remote locations that might be more politically and environmentally hostile.

"The mining industry has been very innovative," said Andrew Keen, mining analyst for HSBC Global Research, "using technology to take costs out of its business, to compensate for the decline in quality of reserves."

There are politicians like John Shimkus and Brandon Phelps who still foolishly believe that coal can provide enough jobs to revive the regional economy. It's time to stop living in the past. They're only keeping Southern Illinois poor.

I wasn't worried about someone like Dillard or another Topinka who would probably play the same patronage and pay-to-play game as Blagojevich but for the other party. That's not what independent voters are looking for.

But I underestimated how little Brady is known in Chicago and the collar counties. He's about to get the Glenn Poshard treatment.

Poshard finished third in Cook county when he won the Democratic nomination for Governor in 1998. He was barely known in the region, so his first introduction to Chicago voters was through a series of negative TV ads unfairly painting him as too conservative for Illinois.

Poshard pledged not to take PAC money and didn't have the funds to respond. By the time he fought back with his own ads, it was too late. The one impression most of my Chicago friends still have of Poshard is that he's a very conservative downstater. He never had the chance to define himself or fight the race on his issues.

The same thing is starting to happen to Brady. Giving the conservative label to Poshard was a stretch but the shoe is a much better fit on Brady. Quinn is surprisingly disciplined about calling Brady a conservative extremist and pointing out positions that most voters disagree with.

But I don't think giving quotes to reporters is enough. If Quinn repeats George Ryan's tactic of running early TV ads he'll be the one who introduces Bill Brady to Chicagoland voters. The race could be over by the end of Spring if Quinn acts before Brady has the chance to raise money.

This is Pat Quinn's race to lose. The first big mistake he could make is alienating downstate swing voters by picking a Lt. Governor candidate from Cook or the collar counties. Finding a progressive downstater with a meaningful base of regional support should be a no-brainer. I can only think of half a dozen names who fit that criteria and three of them have expressed interest.

As long as he picks a good running mate, it won't be easy for Quinn to mess up his victory.

Biggers spoke about his family, including his coal miner grandfather who he remembers having coal permanently in his face from an explosion. He said his grandfather died from black lung disease. He said it is the coal miners who have paid with their health, land and lives for the coal industry to prosper.

"It's coal miners in Southern Illinois who have paid the price for the rest of Americans," Biggers said.

He said the job issue is a myth because coal mining is a "boom and bust" industry and that it reached its peak in 1918. Biggers said instead of more coal mines, there could be jobs in other forms of energy such as wind. He said even if the wind turbines do not go up in Southern Illinois, they can be made here.

One new thing I learned is how much Illinois and Iowa are responsible for the Gulf Coast Dead Zone. Chemicals find their way down the Mississippi and form a 5,000 square mile area in the Gulf of Mexico that can't support tasty ocean creatures like shrimp and crab.

The after-movie discussion was a highlight too. One retired farmer in the audience spoke about how the industry has changed over the years and said that five farmers in his family have had cancer.

Also that same week, the Illinois General Assembly held a hearing on atrazine, a farm chemical linked to cancer and other health issues. Even the Illinois Farm Bureau is fighting to let chemical companies give more farmers cancer.

Of course, you won't read anything about the Sierra Club meeting or the atrazine hearing in our daily newspaper. With the exception of the non-controversial stone soup hike, I don't believe the State Journal-Register has covered a Sierra Club event in the past two years. That must be the liberal media bias I keep hearing about.

The film features the actual words (in letters, songs, poems, speeches, and manifestoes) of rebels, dissenters, and visionaries from our past--and present--including Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Bob Dylan, Langston Hughes, Chief Joseph, Muhammad Ali, and unknown veterans, union workers, abolitionists, and many others never featured in high school textbooks. These dramatic moments from our history are brought to life by a group of remarkable musicians and actors.

We're starting a little early at 6:40 to make time for performances before AND after the movie. This is a unique event for Springfield so I hope you'll decide to come early or stay late. It happens...

Tuesday, March 16, 6:40
City Nights Theater at Capital City Bar & Grill
3149 S. Dirksen Pkwy, Springfield

Six minutes into the video he talks with Champaign-area Senator Mike Frerichs about his PACE Bonds bill (Soooooo much better than STAR Bonds, BTW). I'll let the video and website explain how it supports clean energy, efficiency projects, and green jobs.

There’s big buzz around the new concept called PACE financing, which stands for property assessed clean energy. Basically, PACE is a way to finance solar systems or energy efficiency retrofits, where a city gives you a loan, and you pay it back through property tax bills over twenty years.

So why is PACE good for you?
* For starters, the program doesn’t require shelling out any cash upfront or reducing equity in your home.
* Secondly, property tax financing solves the problem of “what happens when I sell my home?” The simple answer is that the solar power system and whatever tax liability you have both go to the new owner of your home.
* Third, it’s backed by the city, so people know they won’t get scammed, and the financing is obviously secure since…well…it’s the IRS!

High Fructose Cornholio: A state of hyperactivity triggered by consumption of high-fructose corn syrup. It replaces the term "sugar high" as high-fructose corn syrup has become an omnipresent substitute found in most processed foods.

What bothers me is how over the top the criticism of high speed rail became as people advocated for 10th street consolidation. For example, one consolidation advocate wrote: "Our two main industries for future growth are tourism and health care, and both would be decimated by the current proposal."

This is ridiculous. High speed passenger rail will bring more tourist traffic to Springfield. In fact, the 3rd street corridor is closer to most downtown tourist destinations and retail businesses that will benefit from additional foot traffic. It's a much more pedestrian friendly location than the proposed 10th street multimodal facility, next to the rehab centers and homeless shelters. There are problems with the overpasses proposed by Union Pacific but Springfield has the right to present its own mitigation plan at any time.

It's still possible that the 3rd street corridor will be Springfield's only option if we want high speed passenger trains. What I've tried to do with my blog is bring some perspective to the debate and point out that there are benefits to high speed rail, no matter which corridor it's located on. The local press is starting to do a better job of bringing more balance to the issue, at least in small ways.

The State Journal-Register published an article about more Springfield area residents using buses and trains over the last several years. That's pretty impressive considering how limited our public transit options are.

The only disappointing part is the somewhat dismissive tone the regional planning director takes toward the trend, which is happening all over the nation. People with cars will use good public transportation if they're given the option and that trend is only going to increase over the next decade. Local leaders need to adjust to the reality that people no longer want cities designed exclusively for auto traffic.

A Chicago Sun-Times story covers a report that shows living near good public transportation reduces the chance of home foreclosure. This should be of special interest to Springfield's Enos Park neighborhood, which is closer to the 3rd street corridor, and is going through a revitalization effort.

Researchers looked at mortgage defaults in three cities and found something curious -- the chance of foreclosure is higher in neighborhoods more dependent on cars, according to a report by the Natural Resources Defense Council, which included data from Chicago's Center for Neighborhood Technology. The report examined 40,000 mortgages in Chicago, Jacksonville and San Francisco.

Imagine living in Springfield, working a wage job, and having your car break down. Of course, you don't have the money for repairs right away. Maybe the bus routes don't go to your job, or they don't stop there for the night shift. Maybe you miss the bus once or twice and your ride doesn't show. Then you get fired for being late and missing shifts. Then you can't find a new job in walking or biking distance. Then you start falling behind on mortgage payments.

That's the real world for a lot of people. Good public transportation makes a big difference.

The coal industry loves to talk about China building new coal plants, but you don't often hear that they're ahead of us on high speed rail. A story I spotted today claims that China plans to have 42 high-speed rail routes online by 2012. Two new lines have had massive ridership since opening and are reducing congestion on roads. One new line, has had 2.32 million people ride since it opened two months ago on Dec. 26, 2009.

Finally, I'll copy a recent letter to the editor. Sorry for not linking to it but it's difficult when the SJ-R forces me to also link to their out-of-control comment section.

High-speed rail could jump-start local economy

I disagree with the idea that the high-speed rail plan won’t help Illinois, as a letter writer wrote recently. Thousands of people will go to work on engineering, upgrading existing track and building new infrastructure along the line.

I think more tourists would come to Springfield if taking high-speed rail was an option. That’s great news for the Abraham Lincoln Museum, historic sites and the state fair. Plus, the more people there are who take the train, the fewer people there are causing congestion on our highways.

The writer argues that people in Washington aren’t in touch with what we need at the local level. That may be the case on some issues, but not on this one.

What we need is jobs to jump-start our economy, plain and simple. High-speed rail promises to create plenty of jobs right here in Springfield very quickly. That strikes me as cause to celebrate, not reason to complain.

Allan Lauher
President
Central Illinois Building
and Construction Trades Council

At a meeting in Springfield, Illinois last week, I stood and watched farmers weep, recounting the loss of their beloved lands and farms--and their health--to strip-mining and longwall mining, and the unregulated dumping of coal slurry and waste in their aquifers.

This was the message I received from this crowd of Americans on the frontlines of the coalfields:

"We don't need no stinkin' coal mining jobs. We want our fair share of the clean energy investment funds and green jobs. We want a just transition for the small ranks of coal miners and our boarded-up coal mining communities, who continue to live in some of the poorest areas in the nation, despite the billions of dollars of wealth that has been mined and hauled away. And after 200 years of shouldering the burden of our country's boom-bust coal cycles, we'd like to develop a sustainable economy."

As some Midwestern Democrats turn their backs on the reality of climate destabilization and petitioning the EPA to lower greenhouse gases limits, their coalfield districts are literally burning--or sinking or getting stripped into despair.

Every time the local Sierra Club holds a meeting on coal mining or agriculture it attracts at least a few farmers or coal miners. I'm always encouraged to see people who don't fit the tree-hugger stereotype. It's pretty obvious that talk-radio conservatives play up cultural stereotypes about environmentalists just to keep people with common interests from working together. How sad that people feel like they have to say they aren't environmentalists just because they don't want anyone to think they're moving to California to live in a tree.

Mountaintop removal mining is justifiably getting a lot of attention. It's an irreversible disaster that will shame the energy industry for generations. But, sometimes it's frustrating how little attention is focused on problems with modern mining in Illinois.

That's what makes Reckoning at Eagle Creek so refreshing and essential. It tells the ugly side of the Illinois coal industry's past and present that's talked about quietly now and then, but rarely breaks through the industry's dominance of politicians and press. It's exciting for people like me whose ancestors mined Illinois coalfields.

Besides being an entertaining writer, Biggers' is an exciting storyteller. He retold a story in his book about company executives taking young state Senator Barack Obama golfing in Southern Illinois to sell the myth of clean coal. He admits that mine employment peaked in the 1920's and only employs about 3,000 Illinois miners today. He doesn't hide the fact that mining rights are owned by Chicago investors who keep Southern Illinois as a poor vassal to Chicago's energy needs.

Biggers has been working on Appalachian coal issues for years. He told me after the reading that he's going to put more focus on his home state of Illinois. That's good news when even the owners of media outlets are joining the FutureGen alliance. We need more courageous truth-tellers.

If you missed him this time I'm sure you'll get another chance to hear Jeff Biggers in Springfield. He does a Peoria reading on February 21, and Carbondale on March 6. Check here for details. You can also follow his articles on Huffington Post.

They're all worth watching but I liked that this video pointed out that mining has been going on in the region for many years. It's the new mining methods that threaten to destroy the landscape and the future of the region like never before. This isn't your grandfather's coal mine.

The coal industry is doing their best to convince us that proposed gasification and carbon capture plants will be clean. But their new mining methods do more damage and employ fewer workers than ever.

Kentucky is facing the same issues as Illinois. The promoters of area coal gasification plants brag that they'll use Illinois coal. But they don't mention the expansion of destructive longwall mining. What will rural central Illinois do when the coal companies leave town and they've destroyed the farmland that sustained the regional economy for over 100 years?

Springfield doesn't get many chances to hear straight talk about the coal industry, but that's what you'll get from author Jeff Biggers this Thursday, 2/18, 7:00pm, City Nights Theater at Capital City Bar & Grill, 3149 S. Dirksen Pkwy, Springfield. It's part of a tour to promote his new book, "Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland."

The Daily Iowan published a review today.

Investigative journalist Jeff Biggers is not a big fan of coal. Having his family’s ancestral home of Eagle Creek, Ill., razed to make way for coal production, Biggers found no other way to illustrate his frustration than to do what he does best — tell the story.

Biggers has written three critically acclaimed books, and his latest memoir, Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Midwest, reveals not only the dirty past of coal mining but also the story of his family...

A mix of part-memoir, part-investigative history, Reckoning at Eagle Creek takes a look back at 200 years of exploitation, slavery, and economic devastation. Biggers concludes that the myth of clean coal as a renewable energy is just that, a myth.

“Essentially from the cradle to the grave, coal is dirty,” he said.

During my run, I realized that most people have no idea what the county board is up to. That's how the board likes it. With the exception of a few select issues they bring to public attention, they generally operate quietly under the radar. The local press doesn't watchdog county government with the same aggressiveness they have for city politics. That's a recipe for bad government, no matter who's in charge.

The example I raised in my race was the selection of the Populex voting machines, which failed to meet requirements for state certification. A committee of political insiders met for months with no news coverage and no input from the general public until after their decision was made. Republican leaders repeatedly showed condescending contempt for anyone who questioned their decisions. After wasting millions on Populex machines, and then spending more on leasing replacement machines we eventually had to buy, the county finally gave up on the Populex disaster.

Oddly enough, the owner of the Populex company and the head of the voting system selection committee were both political appointees in the Edgar administration. If we had more balance and oversight on the county board, then maybe you wouldn't have to read my blog to find out more about major scandals like this one. It's time to get more Democrats on the county board.

The fundraiser for Democratic County Board candidates is this Tuesday, February 16, at the Plumbers & Steamfitters Hall on 2880 East Cook Street from 5:30p - 7:00p. Any donation level will be accepted. You can make all checks payable to the West Side Democrat Club and bring them with you to the fundraiser. Or if you can't attend you can mail donations to the West Side Democratic Club @ 72 Archer Ave, Springfield, IL 62704.

The future of good reporting will come from outlets who remember that readers will follow quality content, not companies who see reporters as an expense to cut. Progress Illinois, CapitolFax, and Illinois Issues are how I stay informed about state politics. I'll add FOCUS/Midwest to the list, but hopefully Ryan can talk them into spicing up their homepage.