Bruce Shutan

By Bruce Shutan

I love to work at home. There’s no one to report to. Fuzzy slippers can be worn. Underwear is optional. And in a city like Los Angeles, where traffic congestion is a form of corporal punishment, there’s no better place I can think of to have a 20-second carpet commute. I’m one of the lucky ones.

After writing about work-life balance in the workplace for 25 years, I realize how invaluable it is to have this freedom knowing all too well how many poor souls must punch the clock with a short-sighted or irascible supervisor watching their every move. But having become a father last year for the very first time has given me a greater appreciation of this critically important issue and deepened the meaning of Father’s Day.

The numbers tell an even more compelling story.

For instance, Brigham Young University researchers who analyzed data from 24,436 IBM employees in 75 countries found that telecommuters can work up to 19 more hours than their office-bound colleagues before feeling that work interferes with their personal life. Not surprisingly, they attributed the higher productivity to better work-life balance, which makes for healthier and happier people.

One aspect of this issue that tends to get lost in all the white noise is where working dads fit into the work-life balance equation. A Wall Street Journal blog noted that American men who take extended leaves of absence from work “often find themselves treated as shirkers or oddballs.” Well, no wonder – given the nation’s puritanical work ethic, which I think has run amuck in an age when smartphones, laptops and GPS devices have erased once-coveted boundaries separating one’s career and personal life. The upshot is that too many U.S. employees never fully recharge their batteries while taking vacation or toiling away during the daily grind.

But there’s no such worry in other parts of the civilized world, namely Europe, where great pains are taken to promote so-called gender equality. According to The New York Times, 85% of Swedish fathers take parental leave, while “laws reserving at least two months of the generously paid, 13-month parental leave exclusively for fathers – a quota that could well double after the September election – have set off profound social change.”

That same account went on to suggest that “when Sweden became the first country to replace maternity leave with parental leave [in 1974], the few men who took it were nicknamed ‘velvet dads.’” While that may be a compliment among Viking men, I can’t imagine it being used as anything but a pejorative reference in most corporate cultures in this country.

Now don’t get me wrong: I’m not suggesting that the U.S. mandate paid leaves of absence (employers have enough trouble managing unpaid absences under the landmark Family and Medical Leave Act). But what I am suggesting is that there’s no reason why Corporate America can’t adopt a more egalitarian and enlightened approach to work-life balance based on common sense as opposed to dollars and cents. Offering working fathers greater flexibility through a combination of telecommuting, flextime, compressed work schedules and job-sharing programs is not only a prudent investment in human capital, it also will pay tremendous dividends for society as a whole at a time when so many fathers are absent from their children’s lives, the divorce rate is far too high and the family unit is in serious trouble. But that will require a cultural change initiated by brave leaders that could take years to bear fruit.

Another lesson to keep in mind is that family should come before work. There was a cute movie in 2009 called “Imagine That” starring Eddie Murphy that really hit a homerun on this point. I watched it with my 10-year-old step-daughter, who periodically reminds me of that theme when she sees that I’m working too hard.

Not being tethered to a desk or factory line frees up working dads to play a more active role in their children’s lives, which includes anything from attending a school play or recital to being present at a graduation ceremony – something I was able to do the other day when our daughter finished 5^th grade.

A friend recently asked: “Can you ever imagine what life was like before your son was born?” At first I hesitated and had to give it some thought before shaking my head no. My mother also inquired shortly after his birth: “Did you ever think you could love something so much?” That question was a no-brainer. I count my blessings that I’m able to juggle diaper duty and lunch breaks with our little boy between writing deadlines and cement a bond in the early months of his life that will stay with both of us forever. Dads who desire, and/or are able, to take a more active role in raising their children are heroes  in this tattered society and should be treated as such by our captains of industry.

By Bruce Shutan

From an early age, I learned that the definition of success was linear.

Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines success as “the attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence.” It’s the first part of this description – wealth, being the operative word – that caught my attention back in the 1960s, which is ironic considering that it was a time of mounting rebellion against money and material possessions. But while the times, no doubt, were a changing, as Bob Dylan noted, they were far simpler and average working Americans were much more innocent.

I grew up in provincial south-central Connecticut where my daily life with a mother, father and two older sisters was largely shielded from the counterculture movement, though the family’s first-born child provided a sense of what was happening beyond our unlocked front doors. Also, living in the suburbs meant that we were just as isolated from affluence and extreme poverty, which actually gifted us with a pretty even-handed view.

My parents taught us to embrace old-fashioned virtues and values above everything else in life. And while our successful businessman father instilled in his three kids the importance of having enough money, his point was that it’s a means to an end and it’s important to pursue a career for which you have talent and passion. We had one of the nicest homes in a nondescript, middle-class neighborhood, and my dad liked to drive nice cars, but we never worshipped the almighty dollar. That’s an important distinction that needs to be made.

As a child, I thought that people who earned a lot of money were the ones in life who made it to the top. But my view thankfully evolved as I gained knowledge and saw first hand how money could corrupt people.

I remember a friend from overnight camp around the age of 10 whose family had a boatload of money and lovely home in a tony part of my home state, but every time I visited him there was chaos in the air marked by many heated arguments. I suppose this was my introduction to the notion of family dysfunction. Those disturbing memories stayed with me for years and helped shape my thoughts about money – a powerful cautionary tale that I’m trying to teach my own kids.

Little did I realize that many years later, the topic of workplace compensation would be an area of focus for me as a journalist – an issue addressed at great length in a previous blog entry of mine. I never begrudge people for making lots of money, nor do I frown upon free markets. But I do have a serious problem with extreme wealth that fosters bourgeois tendencies at the expense of love, compassion and all the other things in life that truly matter.

One of my newest heroes in recent years is Bill Gates – not because he helped revolutionize our lives and ushered in the Information Age (truth be told: his product is subpar compared with the one his rival Steve Jobs eventually licensed). What makes America’s most famous computer geek so worthy of our respect is that after becoming filthy rich he decided to give away most of his money through a foundation whose chief cause holds unbelievable promise in helping make the world a better place.

To me, this is the ultimate model of success: an entrepreneurial spirit blended with philanthropy. The problem, of course, is that we can’t force rich people to open their hearts and wallets, nor should we even think about doing this other than mandating the occasional tax increase to help lift ourselves out of desperate times. But we certainly can attempt to instill in future generations the same sort of values I grew up with and shame the most fortunate souls into striking a better balance between selfishness and selflessness.

So what is success?

Annual income is only part of the equation. I think there are multiple layers of meaning that get lost in all the white noise of modern society.

One pillar or foundation involves human relationships. Anyone who’s seriously estranged from immediate family members or friends, or has a difficult time getting along with others or made his or her share of enemies through the years, has some major soul searching to do. As a corollary, it’s hard to muster any respect or sympathy for people who repeatedly play the victim card and cannot take responsibility for their own actions. I marvel at people who verbalize their love on a daily basis when it’s so easy to get caught up in the day’s events and lose sight of our connection to one another.

Another point to consider is volunteerism. I think it’s so important to give back to the community – something that all parents should teach their children so that they can transcend the inherent narcissism of youth and develop early on a sense that there’s so much more to life than worldly possessions.

Other areas include being honest and doing our best at work. The sum of all these moving parts to modern life certainly spells success with a capital S.

By Bruce Shutan

Legend has it that Yogi Berra was fond of describing some situations as “déjà vu all over again.” The same can be said about efforts to reform the U.S. health care system – an issue that dates back much further than Bill Clinton’s failed effort in 1993. 

President Barack Obama recently observed that “since Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform nearly a century ago, we have talked and we have tinkered. We have tried and fallen short, we’ve stalled for time, and again we have failed to act because of Washington politics or industry lobbying.”

Another Teddy (as in Kennedy, the late senator from Massachusetts), was said to have regretted not cutting a deal on universal health care with President Richard Nixon shortly after his re-election more than any other issue as a lifelong legislator. The Watergate scandal swiftly put the kibosh on national health care, which the Liberal Lion would later call the cause of his life.

Fast forward to 2009 when the nation’s first African-American president kicks the dust off this seemingly noble goal and tells lawmakers he wants a bill on his desk by the end of this year. What transpired over the summer during scores of town-hall-style meetings in congressional districts across the nation was nothing short of breathtaking. This is what makes democracy so awe-inspiring, regardless of one’s political affiliation.

But there’s a dark side to the so-called debate, which degenerated into a disrespectful shout down at several meetings from zealots armed with robotic talking points and lots of assumptions about what might happen – a shameful display of decorum that came full circle when U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) called his rude interruption of Obama’s speech on the subject a town-hall moment.

It all happened to coincide with rapper Kanye West grabbing the mic from Taylor Swift at the MTV Music Video Awards to praise one of her competitors and tennis sensation Serena Williams’ profanity-laced tirade at the U.S. Open, but of course I digress about the kind of hard-bitten society we’ve become. Still, whatever happened to Old Man Bush’s vision of a “kinder, gentler America?!” Guess we’re not there yet.

Now back to the point at hand: Failing to take action, even in the face of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, will result in much more personal misery and suffering, deplete critical national resources and undermine the U.S. standing on the world stage.

We’re paying far too much for health care services – a major investment that’s not producing meaningful outcomes relative to other nations or, put another way, dividends in the form of healthier and happier citizens.

The fact is that we need to do something about a national obesity epidemic that’s spiking the number of chronic illnesses such as heart disease, hypertension, diabetes and associated conditions in children, which is very alarming. We’re living longer, but our quality of life is declining. And our fast-food-nation culture promotes a pill for every ailment under the sun.

Let’s not be pennywise but dollar foolish about this issue, which I’ve been covering this year with great passion for a monthly business trade magazine. Nearly everyone has a health care horror story to tell, whether it’s a botched medical procedure, inability to afford rising out-of-pocket costs or lacking insurance, altogether.

Republicans are right when they complain that doctors are forced to practice defensive medicine and there’s a shortage of primary care physicians because they’re being paid based on volume and not quality of care measures. A factory mentality has taken hold across doctor offices and emergency rooms. It’s downright Dickensonian. Medical providers have every reason to feel frustrated. But Democrats say malpractice claims make up a mere fraction of the nation’s health care tab, which accounts for about 16% of Gross Domestic Product.

This tit-for-tat game is being played out on virtually every detail associated with health care reform. And it’s becoming mind-numbingly annoying to informed people like me who expect more for their tax dollars. We need for our elected leaders to transcend partisan bickering and do something about a looming crisis.

In spite of what ends up happening (if anything at all), we all have a moral responsibility to take much better care of ourselves. Government alone cannot solve whatever is ailing society. The key to success is a partnership between citizens and those in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. It’s such a simple formula.

Why aren’t we accomplishing anything? It’s like we’re all sick in the head. Which brings me to another issue: mental health. Stress is said to cause about 85% of all physical ailments. So we need to be sure that any reform efforts address the need for parity on this issue as part of a holistic approach.

Far-Eastern medicine is gaining credence in Western culture, and it’s high time we step beyond our borders for lasting solutions to our health and well-being. There’s already a trend afoot called “medical tourism” in which cash-strapped Americans are seeking lower-cost surgeries and better outcomes abroad. I also realize that Canadians, British and other citizens of socialized medicine wait in frustratingly long lines and gripe that the quality of their care is not up to par.

I have already professed in a previous blog that the health care reform issue is highly complex. There’s no magic bullet, and I can’t say with certainty which approach is best. But let’s use our collective common sense, listen more carefully to one another and be willing to take some chances to reverse our downward spiral.

By Bruce Shutan

Every so often there’s a superstar in our midst who’s so deeply paradoxical and polarizing that they generate nearly equal parts of admiration and disgust.

Such was the case with Michael Jackson, the self-proclaimed King of Pop who died unexpectedly at the age of 50.

He was larger than life – a pop-culture icon and brilliant entertainer on par with Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean and countless others who never had a chance to grow old in the public eye. His body of work speaks for itself. There’s no question he was a genius in music and dance. Sadly, he only felt comfortable on the stage performing in front of thousands of crazed fans or in the company of children, which is where his life took a disturbing and bizarre turn down a dark tunnel from which he never escaped.

There were stories of abuse he allegedly suffered as a child under an iron-fisted rule by his father, Joe, followed by a series of cosmetic surgeries that transformed a once dashing African-American boy into a disfigured man-child with Caucasian features whose child-molestation accusations, short-lived marriages, financial ruin and legal problems left him frail and reclusive. This dark side made Michael the object of both public curiosity and ridicule.

I was transfixed by the Jackson Five’s songs as a youth and felt a kinship to Michael because we were nearly the same age. It was shocking to see such a little boy with a big voice singing and performing with passion and maturity that were well beyond his years. His music played a prominent part on the soundtrack of my life. “I’ll be There” is one of my all-time favorite songs – one I love so much that I went out and bought a spectacular cover of that tune by Mariah Carey from her MTV Unplugged performance, even though I wasn’t much into her music at the time.

But I’ll never forget when he moonwalked his way into our hearts on March 25, 1983 during a rendition of  “Billie Jean” for a TV special celebrating Motown’s first 25 years, which some have said unofficially marked his transition from child star to an adult sensation. His performance was jaw-dropping. I never saw anything like it and thought he was gliding across the stage with the help of a hidden prop – not the power of his feet.

Just five days before his death, “Don’t Stop ‘til You Get Enough” immediately lured me onto the dance floor at a friend’s birthday party. I thought to myself afterward, ‘wow… what an amazing piece of music. In spite of all his troubles, this guy really knew how to write, sing and perform some unbelievable songs.’

Say what you will about Michael Jackson now that he’s gone. He was never convicted of child molestation, though he settled out of court the first time such charges became public and was acquitted following a legal circus on a second try to put him behind bars. The circumstantial evidence was damning, and for all I know, he could very well have been the monster that was portrayed by the prosecution in his trial. But at the end of the day, I wasn’t 100% sure what happened. It seemed there was enough reasonable doubt between his impassioned plea of innocence and childlike qualities that made many of us wonder whether he was simply guilty of naivete, poor judgment, asexuality or all of the above,

Love him or despise him, apparently, there’s no shortage of others who were as deeply moved by Michael Jackson’s talent as me.

What happened online around the time rumors were rampant across the Internet appears to have been unprecedented. Soon after TMZ broke the scoop, several “outages” were reported on the gossip Web site – a pattern that also occurred with Perez Hilton’s blog, Twitter and the Los Angeles Times, which was the first mainstream media outlet to confirm his death.

And there’s much more to report. Nearly 500 edits were made to Jackson’s Wikipedia profile in less than 24 hours, while CNN reported a fivefold rise in traffic involving an astounding 20 million page views within an hour of the news pulsing across cyberspace. AOL’s instant messenger service, which was down for about 40 minutes, issued a provocative statement which read: “Today was a seminal moment in Internet history. We’ve never seen anything like it in terms of scope or depth.”

The King of Pop was planning a comeback and rehearsed the night before his death for 50 London concerts that were to kick off July 13. It’s a shame we’ll never get to see and hear what he had up his infamous white-gloved sleeve, but at least we’re left with a lasting legacy of pure musical genius that will continue to brighten our lives.

This fiasco begs many larger questions about our comfortable, albeit often misguided, way of life.

The sub-headline in a BusinessWeek article by Jack Welch, who used to run General Electric, and his wife, Suzy, summed up what defenders of capitalism usually have to say about this issue: “The free market may at times overcompensate. But there’s not a better system.” They acknowledged that “underperforming CEOs sometimes end up getting huge sums of money just to go home.”

Then the couple went on to explain that some folks like Carly Fiorina, HP’s former head honcho, have generous severance deals (also known as “golden parachutes”) built into their employment contract as an incentive to sign on, while Chuck Prince and Stan O’Neal left Citigroup and Merrill Lynch, respectively, with stock grants and compensation earned during happier times. “Such endings look wrong and quite understandably give critics a platform,” they wrote before launching their defense, lamenting the rising tide of political correctness on this issue and decrying the mere thought of government involvement.

Give me a break!

The business imperative associated with executive compensation means there’s a certain price to pay for attracting and retaining a superstar in the corner office. Fair enough. I don’t have a problem with CEOs being paid well for exemplary performance, though God forbid they should be allowed to fly away in a golden parachute after not meeting earnings targets or burnishing shareholder value. It’s the American way and cornerstone of a free-market economy, which, in theory, is a smart and noble way to work, but when put into practice, it can be a messy proposition.

To me, there’s clearly a moral imperative that trumps this thinking, especially during the nation’s worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The question is, how much pay is enough to live on comfortably without arrogance and disregard for one’s underlings? Is it $3 million? Is it $50 million? Is it $1.5 billion? I have a close friend in Portland, Oregon, who can stretch a greenback like nobody’s business and manages to live fully and happily on just dollars a day.

So-called variable pay packages that reward performance and encourage employee ownership once held great promise but were overshadowed by questionable executive comp packages and golden parachutes. Other factors have included stock-option backdating scandals, as well as so-called underwater pricing following the dot-com bubble burst and lopsided 401(k) plans that were overloaded with company stock (Enron and WorldCom produced two of the most frightening cautionary tales).

The trouble is that there’s a huge gulf between the highest and lowest-paid Americans when so many of our fellow citizens are struggling to make ends meet. Consider, for instance, the sixfold increase in CEO pay among the Fortune 500 since 1980, and depending on the source, chief executives are said to have earned anywhere from 179 to 369 times the pay of an average worker.

Even if the most conservative estimate were accepted as the gospel on this issue, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who could argue that this disturbing phenomenon stands for anything more than greed and an embarrassing concentration of wealth.

One economist suggested that the earnings gap between the elite and middle class in the U.S. is twice as much as in the U.K. and three times France, which is a whole other argument. It’s no wonder so many of us have to live down the “ugly” American stereotype abroad.

As a result of this hot-button issue, Uncle Sam and corporate-governance proponents have kept a much more watchful eye on incentive pay packages to help keep executives in line and save employees from themselves. Although well-intentioned, the danger is that too much oversight can serve to choke off business innovation. So we have to be careful about the delicate balancing act between preserving capitalism and creeping too far afield toward socialism, as conservative commentators fear.

I’d like to see a return to the days when hope was in the air about employees being able to share in the spoils in an increasingly competitive global economy. I’d also like to see more corporate chieftains willing to make sacrifices for the good of team and lead by example. Some of the more notable cases in recent years include: 

* Robert Shillman, who stopped taking a salary at Cognex in April 2001 and bonus in 2004.

* Robert Miller, who cut his annual salary at  Delphi Corp. to just $1 after asking for cuts of up to 40% from hourly workers.

* Doug Parker, who declined a $770,000 bonus at US Airways in deference to employees who endured their share of painful cutbacks.

* Susan Lyne, who asked the  Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia board to salt away $200,000 of a $625,500 cash bonus as seed money for an employee bonus pool.

* John Mackey, who despite his recent troubles, has long presided over a culture at Whole Foods that sought to cap the executive pay ratio at 14 times the average worker’s pay.

I’m not suggesting a Marxist-inspired redistribution of wealth nor begrudging CEOs for banking well-earned dollars – just a rethinking of Capitalist zeal to ease the system’s extremes, correct any perceived imbalances and aspire to true pay-for-performance packages. There’s just no escaping this moral imperative and the time to act is now.

By Bruce Shutan

As I wrote in the lead paragraph of a forthcoming trade-magazine article, “it’s still hard to fathom the enormity of last year’s seismic shift on Wall Street that triggered serious cracks in nest eggs whose fragile shells were still hardening across America’s rural, suburban and urban landscapes.”

Many working Americans dreaded the arrival of quarterly investment statements in their mailboxes last year, and I’m no exception. We collectively sustained some major damage to our savings plans. After all, this has been described as the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

The nation’s 78 million Baby Boomers are just a knee-replacement away from retirement, but most of their anguish won’t be physical. My sense is that after writing about retirement-planning efforts in the workplace for more than 20 years, a sizeable segment of society will be in for a major rude awakening. No doubt, they will dream about a comfortable retirement. The trick will be saving enough money from Social Security, corporate pensions and personal savings such as 401(k) plans and individual retirement accounts (a formula called the “three-legged stool” in the industry I cover).

A perfect storm threatens to gut portfolios for several generations of working Americans as the economic climate worsens, coupled with a frighteningly volatile stock market performance, negative national savings rate, shift in financial investment risk onto consumers and inability of politicians to show the necessary political will to reform Social Security. I can’t help but notice that employers not only have been “freezing” or abandoning the traditional pensions that emerged after World War II en masse, they’ve also been ending retiree medical benefits dating back to an arcane regulatory change in the early 1990s that forced them to expense those obligations on their balance sheets.

In the meantime, participation in 401(k) plans and IRAs, as well as the way average people invest in those vehicles, continues to fall short of expectations. Fewer than 10% of investors are thought to save the maximum amount allowed in a 401(k) plan and their decisions are often uninformed or arbitrary, if not downright careless.

For example, about one-quarter of workers recently polled who say they’re 10 years away from retirement invested more than 90% of their 401(k) in stocks (the amount was for roughly half the survey respondents). And since the fourth quarter of 2007, pensions have reportedly fallen by $4 trillion worldwide. Another disturbing statistic I recently ran across suggests that 70% of people have assets totaling less than $10,000. That scares me more than being forced to ride a rollercoaster against my will.

Most experts on the retirement-planning topic suggest that workers will need to salt away more than $1 million in order to live comfortably after they quite working, which these days could last as long as 30 years considering advances in medical science that have extended the average lifespan. About 25% of those dollars will be spent on health care bills, which have been rising faster than the rate of inflation for many years.

The strange thing is that despite living longer, our quality of life has eroded. A national obesity epidemic has taken its toll, causing a host of so-called co-morbidity factors that include elevated levels of cholesterol, triglycerides and glucose that lead to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and hypertension, not to mention asthma and other chronic diseases. I recently watched the documentary “Supersize Me” and was astounded by the outcome.

In an earlier blog entry, I surmised that the time has come to view basic health care as a human right – not a privilege. The free-market and entrepreneurial spirit inside me cannot arrive at the same conclusion about retirement, which I do think is a privilege and not a right. But on the other side of the coin, I think putting too much weight in tax credits or privatizing Social Security isn’t the answer, which  probably lies somewhere square down the middle of a conservative and liberal mindset. Clear heads must prevail in both policymaking and the general populace, and honoring either extreme isn’t in our best interest.

Left to their own devices, people in a culture of conspicuous consumption will simply live beyond their means and be a burden to the rest of us – sort of like a distant cousin who has overstayed his welcome. Let’s be careful not to penalize people who don’t have a clue about how to hold onto a buck and leverage their savings. Even seemingly sophisticated investors stumble. Look how many poor rich souls were taken in by Bernie Madoff’s alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme. 

The time has come for us to adopt a more efficient national savings system so that people aren’t struggling to make ends meet and have the security of knowing they won’t become impoverished or destitute and a burden to loved ones or friends in their old age. That will require a more meaningful partnership approach between government and its citizenry.

How do we achieve this lofty goal? I’ll leave that up to the experts. I’m just a working journalist who’s charged with knowing a little bit about a lot of things. But as my knowledge about the intricacies of this complex issue expands, it would be nice to actually be a part of the story instead of covering it as a detached observer. Maybe by then I’ll have a much different job title. 

By Bruce Shutan

When the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign began about two years ago, scores of politicians from the two major political parties began throwing their respective hats into the ring and hitting the trail. Perhaps no other campaign in history has felt so ponderous and emotionally exhausting, with more lead changes than a stock-car race.

But my biggest pet peeve isn’t how methodical or mechanical these races have become. It’s much more about how the cult of personality surrounding the presidency and many of the candidates (Barack Obama and Sarah Palin commanded the most attention this year for obvious reasons). The mainstream media, and I count myself as a usually proud card-carrying member of this oft-maligned elitist organization, always misses the boat. And here’s why: there’s far too much emphasis on the job description of president when the position is merely a cog in the wheel of Democracy, albeit a pretty important one.

Not nearly enough substantive attention is devoted to how the congressional and judiciary branches of the federal government must work in concert with the executive branch. After all, there are 100 senators, 435 congressmen, nine U.S. Supreme Court justices, 15 members of the presidential cabinet and half-dozen cabinet-level administrators, including the vice president.

As in any democratic society, there always will be a fair number of crooks and kooks among the people in power. But the vast majority of these players are highly educated and talented people who probably have worked hard to get where they are in life. Some of them, dare I say, are even sincere and inspiring.

The good news is that regardless of who becomes commander in chief – even if at some point down the line it’s Palin, whose mere presence on the GOP ticket has outraged many folks on the left and some moderate Republicans – there are still quite a few power brokers in Washington, D.C., who play a meaningful role in establishing foreign, domestic, fiscal, monetary, social and economic policies that affect the daily lives of all Americans.

They can all respectfully agree to disagree if they wish, though respect seems to be in short supply at a time of vicious partisan politics – as does the presence of a viable third party to challenge Democrats and Republicans, both of which are far-too-easily bought by special interests. But in the end, we’re all winners when we eventually pull the lever on Election Day and cast our votes.

Now that’s what I call Democracy at work.

By Bruce Shutan

Okay, I’ll admit to considering lining up with the hoi polloi on July 11th to gaze with admiring eyes upon Apple’s first official iPhone upgrade before plunking down hard-earned dollars for a gee-whiz product the company now markets as “Twice the memory. Half the price,” with an asterisk connoting that sales start at $199.

The excitement had been building as early as December when, on my birthday, dear-old Dad and Mom kicked in a chunk of change toward this eventual purchase. I was ready to go out and buy an iPhone the next morning until a few friends imparted some sage advice: Hold tight until they work out the kinks with a next-generation release.

So I waited patiently for another seven months before that day finally arrived. What then transpired was an eye-opening enough experience that it compelled me to write this blog entry, and I still haven’t yet made a purchase.

Known as the 3G, with its triple-play killer application of cell phone, iPod and Internet access, this sleek product featuring touch-screen technology once again has everyone talking – and buying. One million 3Gs sold that opening weekend, whereas Apple CEO Steve Jobs pointed out in news reports that “it took 74 days to sell the first one million original iPhones,” prompting one critic to snarl about an unfair comparison given that the new version now sells in 21 countries instead of just one.

But be that as it may, an industry analyst recently noted that sales are expected to exceed everyone’s forecasts before promptly lowering his financial rating and earnings estimate on competitor Research In Motion, maker of the Blackberry, aka “Crackberry,” to reflect a greater threat from Apple than anticipated. He added that any attempt to duplicate the 3G model would “have no hope of matching the secret sauce of the iPhone: The tight integration of hardware and software that creates a unique user experience.”

That could be the case, even despite a few widely reported connection glitches for new products sold exclusively in Apple and AT&T Stores (the former Ma Bell serving as the sole cell phone partner). This is probably the most exciting gadget to hit the market in years, perhaps decades.

Still, I was left scratching my head after learning there’d be a four hour wait at the Apple Store in the Glendale Galleria in suburban Los Angeles, the closest store to my home. It was shocking to see a line stretching through the mall and knowing people are willing to cue up for that length of time when they could just as well return any other day to buy the 3G. It reminded me of stories about people in the former Soviet Union cueing up for anything from food to blue jeans with nary a complaint.

Why the hurry? To be the first on one’s block to boast having one of these gizmos? Has our keeping-up-with-the-Joneses culture of conspicuous consumption become so crass that people can’t figure out a better use of their time? What I witnessed speaks volumes about how perverse I believe our society has become.

As for me, I bolted to my car upon hearing news of the wait and plan on returning when I’m not too busy to care how soon I own one of these products. Dare I say to those who waited out the crowds on July 11th: Get a life!

By Bruce Shutan

For the second time in my life, I’m deeply inspired by a visit to the place they call the Land of the Rising Sun. About 24 hours from now, I will fly home to L.A. from Tokyo where memories of my month-long trek across Japan in 1981 are still top of mind. Today’s lesson is the same as it was 27 years ago: Americans sure do have a lot to learn from the Japanese.

But first a bit of the back story. As a college student, I cemented a lasting friendship with a resident of Nagoya, the nation’s fourth most populated city. If not for a falling out with my first-semester, second-year roommate that forced me to move down the hall of my dormitory at Boston University right before the Christmas-New Year’s break, I might never have met Hiroshi Kondo, an unusually tall presence among scores of short people whose even bigger personality and generous heart have served him well as a politician and entrepreneur. We barely knew one another before he extended to me and two other American college chums an invitation to stay at his home when school let out that May.

My first trip to Japan was full of revelations. As an angst-ridden sophomore out to save the world, I observed in a journal entry on June 14, 1981 that Japanese are “more courteous, generous, polite and honest than many Americans.”

Ten days earlier, I was confounded by “an immense respect conveyed by the youth of Japan” toward visitors with American faces, especially after visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum where I remember having an intensely visceral reaction to gruesome details about the August 6, 1945 atomic bomb blast that eviscerated a once-thriving city of roughly 420,000 residents.

Another observation I made: “It’s obvious that everyone here is eager to forget about the past and concentrate on a productive and prosperous future.”

These thoughts square with what I just witnessed during an eight-day vacation, five of which were spent with my parents who have long had a soft spot in their hearts for my Japanese pal and his family. Kindness and generosity are so ingrained in Japanese culture that nearly every conversation begins and ends with the kind of diction Americans just aren’t accustomed to hearing anymore, with “yes,” “please,” “thank-you,” “I’m sorry” and “you’re welcome” strung together in about five seconds flat. People are also always bowing to one another, regardless of whether you’re a friend or stranger – the ultimate sign of respect.

Speech and gestures are just part of the equation. Gift giving has been elevated to an art form. If you ever visit someone over here, never come empty handed and bring another carry-on bag or piece of luggage to accommodate the pile of gifts you can expect to receive. Hiroshi’s family loaded us up with tokens of appreciation and their kindness was over the top. They even held a five-hour welcoming party in our honor.

On another subject, cleanliness actually might be a notch above Godliness in a nation whose residents take great pride not only in keeping their homes and streets free of debris but also handing out hot or cool towels before meals or travel. Spa treatments featuring quality time spent in a sauna, wet steam or whirlpool also are highly valued, as are a nice warm bath. I was fortunate to have been pampered at the elegant Resort Trust XIV in Kyoto, which is just two years old and one of 16 such facilities under that corporate umbrella spread throughout Japan.

One also can’t help but notice that our Japanese friends are very much into physical fitness, nutrition (as well as a very artful presentation of food), meditation and mind-body balance, though much of this health-conscious nation still seems to be as addicted to cigarettes as I remember back in 1981.

But at least they respect the environment, which I was reminded of after walking into an Earth Day rally in Nagoya on April 22 and then a few days later driving past the building where the Kyoto Protocol was formulated in hopes of reducing greenhouse gas emissions blamed for causing a significant change in the planet’s climate. And they practice what they preach by driving small cars, as well as conserving energy and water.

As the rising sun now sets on the second of what I hope will be many more trips to Japan, I imagine how great it would be to bottle this unique spirit and genuine affection for people and places, and pour it everywhere. The world would be a much better place with a touch of Japanese culture and courtesy, which is contagious once you’ve been able to experience it first hand.

By Bruce Shutan

I loathe labels.

They unfairly categorize and pigeonhole entire groups of people. They also cast suspicion on our differences rather than celebrate them. And they breed intolerance and contempt, which, in turn, feed the ugly beast of bigotry, spark wars and ultimately threaten to destroy civilization.

I’m still trying to figure out why the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds hate each another so much in Iraq. But then I’m reminded of countless other regional conflicts around the globe.

Think of the nearly limitless possibilities from the past and present: Arab Janjaweed militias spearheading atrocities against Dinka, Nuba, and Neur populations in Darfur – the latest genocide on record. Serbs, Croates, Albanians and Muslims slaughtering each other in the Balkans. Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda. Hindu Tamils and Sinhalese Buddhists in Sri Lanka. Palestinians and Jews in Israel. Fatah and Hamas factions in the Palestinian territories. Pashtun and Hazara groups in Afghanistan. Blacks, whites, Hispanics and Asians in the U.S. Crips and Bloods on L.A.’s mean streets.

I could go on and on, and if you ask me, it’s beyond shocking just how little humanity is left in this dangerous world of ours.

At this time of year, we hear a lot about the elusive quest for goodwill and peace on earth – timeless messages that underpin the spirit of Christmas, despite always seeming to get lost in the culture’s crass commercialism. These themes should be atop everyone’s personal list of New Year’s resolutions each and every year, regardless of how devout or cynical one might be.

But the trouble is that people generally get too wrapped up in themselves to really care about the dire consequences of continuing to fuel our suspicion of one another based on differences involving race, religion, creed or color. Call it the Age of Narcissism or the Age of Conspicuous Consumption. Maybe even the Age of Denial or the Age of Ignorance, which could apply in both developed and third-world nations.

We’re all God’s children, with far more in common than we might think. Any differences are increasingly meaningless in the Information Age, which takes the Age of Enlightenment a bold step further than anyone born a few hundred, much less thousand, years ago would have ever imagined. Thanks to the Internet, people from far-flung places are just a click of the mouse away from understanding, respecting and even embracing one another’s culture, philosophy and way of life.

The prospect for world peace has never been greater – or more at risk. These are challenging and heady times, but if we’re able to collectively turn our guns toward a war on intolerance (our worst enemy) rather than one another, then we might just be able to enter the Messianic Age.

Now I realize that’s a slippery slope. We’re all terribly familiar with how religious fundamentalists envision their respective versions of Judgment Day when only “true” believers will be rewarded for surviving the cesspool here on earth. It’s bollocks of the highest order.

Eradicating intolerance, war, crime, pollution, disease, hunger, unfair trade practices, unemployment, inflation and any other scourge afflicting the planet and causing untold human suffering is in everyone’s best interest. So for God’s sake, let’s harping on our differences, start recognizing common goals and find solutions for our own damn good. Let’s rock this world and make it a better place for all of us.

I’d like to wish everyone everywhere around the world a very happy and healthy New Year.