Yesterday evening as I was watching the Jim Lehrer News Hour, the phone rang. I didn't recognize the number. It wasn't the usual junk phone call numbers that we regularly get telling us that our car warranty (which we don't have) is about to run out, or telling us we can get out of debt (which we aren't in) easily.

So I picked up the phone. It was a robo-call, but it caught my attention, because it said that U.S. Rep. John Shimkus, my rep, was having a "town hall conference call" and that if I wanted to participate, all I had to do was stay on the line and I'd be joined. My political voyeurism kicked in, and I put the phone down and turned on the speaker so I could listen and not be tied to the phone.

Low and behold, in a couple seconds, there I was on a call with Shimkus, some of his aides, and who knows how many others. Shimkus introduced the moderator, and she said if you have a question for Shimkus, press "*3." I couldn't resist. I pressed.

In the meantime, Shimkus called on these folks, and for about the first part of the call, he identified where they were from and a first name. After calling on 100% of folks from the Olney/Flora/Effingham/Fairfield area, he finally quit saying where they were from. He didn't identify one call from deep southern Illinois.

In a couple of minutes, a guy came on who identified himself as a Shimkus aide and asked me my name and zip code. I told him. Then he asked me what the question was. I had decided to play it straight, and I said that my question was "why is the Forest Service spending a lot of its money burning the national forest when campgrounds are being closed and not maintained, trails are in disrepair, and there's inadequate law enforcement." The guy said "we'll get to your question in a few minutes."

About 50 minutes later the call ended, and of course, my question wasn't taken. But a whole bunch were. It was the typical republican pablum. The highlight of the night was when Shimkus was talking about stem cell research and said, "I wish I could be honest." Kristi and I about fell off our chairs. I quickly scribbled the quote down and said to Kristi, "I'm going to post this on Rural Thoughts.

We all wish you would be honest, Mr. Shimkus. If you were honest with the people and with yourself, you would resign and let someone who has a modern view of the world take over representing us.

One interesting tidbit that came out was about the FutureGen facility. He said that with Obama and Durbin being so powerful, that it still was alive. He did say, though, which I can't remember hearing before, that the facility will be an "experimental" facility that will try burning all kinds of different coal under different conditions to see what might provide the best results.

Too much time was spent talking about coal. While it's easy for politicians to rally the troops in a former coal mining community by saying that we are going to bring back the good ol' days, the easy answers aren't going to work in the long run. Of course, Shimkus, with his ZERO rating by the League of Conservation Voters, is one of the most brain dead politicians on the environment in Congress.