The Bottom Line

It’s time for military leaders, and yes, even members of the intelligence community, to come out from behind the curtain. They not only need to share with the public what networks and radios and tanks and guns mean to a warfighter’s safety but also what they mean to global security.

Political interference led Pope Gregory X to seclude cardinals while they chose a new pope, and while separation of church and state remains one of the foundational principals of the United States, it’s time to give this seclusion idea a shot with Congress.

The cancellation of several military and government conferences is among the latest collateral damage of financial belt-tightening and looming additional defense budget cuts. But the real question is, “So what?” Read that question carefully. It does not mean, “What does it matter?” but rather “What do global security professionals do now to develop effective networks with the business sector?”

And, those are only two of the important questions raised by the reduction in the number of conferences during a time when cutting costs is crucial. Among the others are:

Half of the first month of 2013 is over, but it’s never too late to make resolutions to improve life. A recent experiment conducted by Dateline on NBC called “Digital Detox” challenged four roommates to give up their gadgets for two weeks. It was challenging and not very pleasant, but it demonstrated to them—and many viewers—that technology may have moved from enhancing life to taking it over.

The History Channel dubbed Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Morgan, Carnegie and Ford as the men who built America, but sometimes it’s the small—and not so small—inventions that have become indispensable in our lives today.