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The U.S. and its Western allies have not been able to win the nuclear concessions they have sought from Iran. But they have been able to inflict considerable economic pain through sanctions.

But now, Iran's call for a nuclear agreement and an end to sanctions has raised hopes among Iranians that better economic times may be ahead. The Iranian currency has stabilized somewhat since the election of President Hassan Rouhani, although inflation and unemployment remain high.

But Rouhani's economic team is already warning that ending sanctions on the banking and oil sectors, a difficult task in itself, won't end the country's economic woes.

"To think that sanctions will be lifted in the near future and all problems will be solved is a false alarm," says Economy Minister Ali Tayyebnia, according to Iranian media. He added that the Islamic Republic still needs to deal with "inappropriate economic policies and ineffective economic models."

Rouhani's early tenure has been marked by a new candor in assessing Iran's economy, including analysis of mismanagement and institutional flaws that have nothing to do with the sanctions.

Criticism Of Past Policies

A revealing example was a half-hour documentary aired by English-language Press TV shortly before Rouhani's inauguration. It gave outgoing president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ample time to defend his policies, but his critics were also given free rein to make unusually blunt observations.

In response to one of the good-news announcements Ahmadinejad made near the end of his term, the clearing of a $30 billion debt owed to Iran's Central Bank, lawmaker Alireza Mahjoub was contemptuous.

He pointed out that the so-called "payment" was canceled by Parliament because it would have used the central bank's own profits from currency trading.

"The administration has made an artificial loan, as well as an artificial debt, and paid it with a fake income," snapped Mahjoub, "while this $30 billion was a real debt."

Admittedly, Ahmadinejad's relations with the parliament were frosty at best, but economists are equally withering.

Economist Mohammad Khoshchehreh ridiculed the government's efforts to combat Iran's double-digit unemployment.

"Officials have always showed their interest in job creating, but methods used to create jobs have never been compatible with the objectives," Khoshchehreh said. "Our officials adopted simple-minded approaches to solve the problem."

Another Iranian economist interviewed for the documentary, Vahid Shaghaghi, said the government failed to weed out non-productive sectors of the economy and its well-intended effort to reduce the country's expensive regime of subsidies was implemented badly.

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When Cory Monteith died in July, the fact that it put Glee in a terrible position was certainly the least of the rotten outcomes.

But it did, in fact, put the show in a terrible position.

He was a core member of the cast, and hadn't been gradually fading from view like some of the original kids, so there was nothing to do but deal with it — and Thursday night, after starting the season with two Beatles tribute episodes, they did.

Called "The Quarterback," the episode picked up three weeks after Finn's funeral, so the cast was spared playing the news of his death. And Lea Michele, who was dating Monteith at the time he died, appeared only in the last act. The episode didn't explain how Finn died, and through Kurt, it explicitly disclaimed any interest in talking about it: "Who cares?" Kurt said to us.

As an episode of Glee, "The Quarterback" was sort of all over the place. Little plots involving Finn's jacket and a tree planted in his memory worked unevenly, and there were moments — which I think it would be profoundly uncharitable to identify — when performers seemed to be simply overmatched by the experience and seemed uncomfortable in character.

But it was, oddly enough, in the moments when the performers seemed to be peeking through that the episode did work. It was when the illusion that this was entirely a depiction of fictional characters mourning a fictional person receded that it did contain a graceful and very real sense of grief and tribute.

The show was somewhat transparent about all this; that's why the "Seasons Of Love" opener began with the newer cast members and then revealed those who'd been there since the beginning. And those older cast members looked, as you might expect, palpably more wrecked throughout. It felt real and yet not, as if they were both working behind the artifice of character and acknowledging it. It wasn't a secret that this was a remembrance for actors as well as characters — we knew, and they knew we knew, and we knew they knew we knew.

But this sense that you were watching two things at once was never more acute, of course, than when Michele appeared at the very end to sing Bob Dylan's "To Make You Feel My Love." It's probably smart, and merciful, that she sang a love song and not a song about death and grief. Despite all the things that have pulled Glee off course at times, she remains a really talented singer, and it's a really lovely rendition. And you do know that you're watching both the character and the actress, and it is a little distracting, and that's okay, I think.

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Last weekend, a quiet block on the northwest side of Chicago appeared to be taken over by villagers from the mountains of southern Poland. That's because a Polish Highlander wedding was getting underway. But even before the couple arrived, there was a lot of pomp, circumstance — and moving of cars.

Any time now the bridal party will be arriving and Andy Zieba — father of the bride — is ringing doorbells, asking neighbors if they can please move their cars.

"Excuse me, ma'am? You don't know who's the Honda belong to?" he asks.

The anxious father needs to make room because five wooden carriages and 12 horses are headed to this block of modest frame bungalows. And one of the carriages is bringing the band.

Andy Zieba and his wife, Stella, are Grale — Highlanders who grew up in the southern, mountainous region of Poland. Some aspects of this wedding celebration will be traditional Polish, other aspects will be specific to Highlanders.

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