Tan Le

It is okay to be an outsider, a recent arrival, new on the scene - and not just okay, but something to be thankful for... Because being an insider can so easily mean collapsing the horizons, can so easily mean accepting the presumptions of your province.

You don't just wake up one day with dementia or Alzheimer's; these conditions are developmental. Even when a problem triggers the need to collect data, it's reviewed by a specialist and filed away. There's no central repository allowing information to be shared across a multitude of researchers worldwide.

You have to take away some of tax breaks for the wealthy, and you have to cut back on some entitlements. Because, unless we do all of these things, it just doesn't work. And what's good theater and what's good politics isn't necessarily good economic policy.