Hard Times

To some degree living in this Far Place means I have been shielded from the grimmer aspects of economic decline. The bad news is, of course, that this may only prove to be a very limited degree. Mind you that's a selfish way of looking at bad news - for some that news has already arrived.

The good news is that hard times have been and gone in the past. The bad news is that they're really hard. I was put in mind of this the other day listening to Springsteen's rendition of Hard Times (Come Again No More), originally composed in the nineteenth century, by a man who knew more than his fair share of them.