I was in North Riverside this morning

On my way back from a demonstration/press conference at Morton West, I passed two things of note in North Riverside.

The VFW held its Veteran's Day ceremony. Most of these ceremonies are boiler plate. The person speaking on behalf of Village President Richard N. Scheck gave a whole speech about veterans sacrificing in the past tense. He didn't give even the slightest hint of acknowledgment that GIs are fighting and sacrificing at this moment.

To keep attendance from being pathetically low the North Riverside Police Department and Fire Department attended.

Members of the VFW and American Legion love to kvetch about how younger veterans don't join their clubs.

Here are the top two reasons:

1. If you give speeches like people don't exist, they probably aren't going to join your club.
2. Military personnel who get a charge out of marching and saluting are at best dorks, and more likely tools. People who get jazzed by parading the colors and standing and saluting at the right times are not fun to hang out with.

Also, the North Riverside Public Library has a big sign in front "closed until further notice".

I thought that was an odd way of saying closed for Veteran's Day, so I went up to the door. The sign taped in the window says the library is replacing shelves and doing other maintenance or housekeeping.

I'm somewhat skeptical of closing a library for upkeep short of major construction. If you show your residents can do without for blocks of time, it becomes easier to argue to cut the library budget.

But let's assume the work was a big enough project that the library did need to be closed. Shouldn't there be a target date for completion of the project?