The Times They Are A Changin'

Wow, so much has happened in recent weeks. Our economy--and that of my home state, California--is in freefall, yet many of us carry on like nothing has happened. However, more and more of my friends are being affected. Hopefully we can carry on as a group, helping one another. Strength in numbers and all that. Perhaps we will devolve (or perhaps evolve?) to a subsistence society. I was recently reading some of my father's World War II letters and his memoirs of a visit to a remote French village. He talked of the villagers raising everything they needed. They were not dependent on the outside world at all, not even for infrastructure like electricity, getting all they needed from small hydro-electric systems. They even had a town crier. The war barely affected them.

Other letters talk about an Italian family that had lived in the same stone house for generations, again raising everything they needed. Decentralization might be a good thing, but perhaps not, as it would lead to political/religious factions. I don't pretend to have answers.

About the only thing I do know is that we are living in historic, life-changing times.