Jason Becker and the power of love

Then 19-year-old guitar phenomenon Jason Becker performs in Japan with his band Cacophony in April 1989. /YouTube 

Most people accept the emotional power of love. There is less acceptance of the physical power of love.

One of the benefits of working second shift is listening to Canadian Broadcasting Corporation programming on New Hampshire Public Radio during my drive home. When or where else in America would I have been able to listen to an extraordinary archive-edition CBC interview with musician Jason Becker?

In 1989, Becker was 19 and destined for music stardom. The guitar virtuoso had already made an international tour with his band, Cacophony, and had signed a contract to be David Lee Roth's new guitarist.

After the teen suffered cramps in one of his legs for a couple months, his parents convinced him to see a doctor. When the cramping worsened, he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

Becker lost his stunning guitar skills to ALS within months. Within a year, he could barely move. Doctors said he had two to five years to live.

Becker is not only still alive but also still making music, communicating and composing with an eye-movement alphabet created by his father, Gary.

There were two particularly insightful exchanges about love in the CBC interview:

CBC: You have a lot of love around you, a lot of people that are quite exceptional including ... your dad, Gary. How important was that for being able to not just survive this long, because they obviously have taken good care of your health, but also ... to play music?

Becker: It is everything. Love is so important for living and caring about life.

CBC: You say you feel lucky. Can you explain why it is that you feel that way?

Becker: Not moving sucks, but being able to have all of the love of my friends and family and to be able to continue doing what I love; it really is the purpose of life.

Musician Jason Becker has been living with ALS since 1989. /Image via jasonbeckerguitar.com

Pope Francis revealing core values in 140 characters

Pope Francis tweets daily but rests on Sunday @Pontifex. /Image via npr.org

Whether it is for the sake of the message or avoiding embarrassment, most tweets are intentional acts.

There is considerable debate over whether Pope Francis is sincerely a populist pontiff. Francis has been tweeting daily @Pontifex, the papal account started in December 2012 by his predecessor, Benedict.

Assuming that tweeting is an intentional act, it is hard to misread Francis' intent in these tweets:

To live charitably means not looking out for our own interests, but carrying the burdens of the weakest and poorest among us. Nov. 25, 2013

If money and material things become the center of our lives, they seize us and make us slaves. Oct. 29, 2013

The "throw-away" culture produces many bitter fruits, from wasting food to isolating many elderly people. Oct. 25, 2013

Let us ask the Lord to give us the gentleness to look upon the poor with understanding and love, devoid of human calculation and fear. Sept. 24, 2013

True charity requires courage: let us overcome the fear of getting our hands dirty so as to help those in need. Sept. 21, 2013

There are many people in need in today's world. Am I self-absorbed in my own concerns or am I aware of those who need help? Sept. 17, 2013

The measure of the greatness of a society is found in the way it treats those most in need, those who have nothing apart from their poverty. July 25, 2013

South Sudan lurching toward genocidal conflict

The "White Army" is reportedly marching on the town of Bor in South Sudan. The Nuer tribe-based militia was dubbed for the white ash fighters rub on their skin to ward off insects. /Image via guardianlv.com

The world's youngest nation is on the brink of a fraternal bloodbath.

With widespread reports that the "White Army," an ethnic militia drawn from former Vice President Riek Machar's Nuer tribe, is on the march, time is running out to stop a genocidal civil war.

Anti-government forces appear determined to gain control of Bor, a strategic town in the oil-rich central region of South Sudan. Government troops loyal to President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, and rebels aligned with Machar have been fighting over Bor for nearly two weeks.

Reports that the youth-heavy, poorly disciplined White Army is bearing down on Bor are ominous.

The Nuer militia, armed with weapons ranging from automatic rifles to machetes and long knives, has been linked to a 1991 massacre in Bor that claimed about 2,000 lives. Most of the dead were members of the Dinka tribe.

Kiir claims Machar was among the leaders of an attempted coup on Dec. 15. It is far from clear who is controlling the militias and armed groups that have been fighting in South Sudan since the alleged coup attempt. But it is clear the country is spinning out of control.

Refugees crowd a U.N. compound in South Sudan in December 2013. /U.N. image

Phil Robertson fault lines sign of fractured union

Phil Robertson's suspension and the frenzied reaction that has followed is a taste of a great American schism in the making.

Set aside Robertson's suspension, the Duck Dynasty patriarch and A&E have deep pockets and their attorneys can clean up their mess. More concerning is the partisan screaming across the country's political divide.

For a country that prides itself on being "United We Stand" and "Boston Strong," the gap between the left and right of the American political spectrum could be as wide as it has ever been:

• 50-50 elections over the past four presidential voting cycles
• A deeply divided and gridlocked Congress
• Radicalization on the left (Occupy Wall Street, etc.) and the right (Tea Party, etc.)
• Stubborn divisions on several issues, including abortion, guns, immigration and sexuality
• With income inequality and campaign spending at record highs, less than 2 or 3 percent of the population has both economic dominance and powerful political influence

The first casualty in war is truth

Americans should know the price of civil war. We have fought many wars but none was more bloody than the battle to preserve the union and abolish slavery.

Before we go down that road again, American history provides guidance to guard against disaster and disinformation:

• President Lincoln: "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
• Second sentence of the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
• Articles 1, 2 and 3 of the Constitution, establishing separation of power between the Congress, the president and the judiciary, respectively. (Firewall against dictatorship.)
• The Bill of Rights, Amendment 1: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
• The Bill of Rights, Amendment 2: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. (Basis for gun ownership and gun regulation.)
• The Bill of Rights, Amendment 4: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. (Basis of due process.)

Massachusetts health care outlook for 2014

The health care marketplace has been consolidating in Massachusetts for decades, with few standalone community hospitals remaining and a handful of players vying for dominant roles in Greater Boston.

In a rush of intense hour-long phone interviews, I recently produced four stories for MD News that included the 2014 prognostications of top executives at Greater Boston health care organizations. With the notable exception of a hospice and serious-illness care CEO who is grappling with falling Medicare reimbursement rates, the outlook these business leaders have for the year ahead is bright. All of them are keenly aware of the rapid and far-reaching change sweeping through U.S. health care.

The parade of presidents, founders and CEOs was a perfect introspective and prospective finish to a year of producing freelance stories for the Greater Boston edition of MD News. Here are some observations from the CEO series that will publish in early 2014 and the dozen other projects I produced for MD News this past year:

• The Greater Boston health care marketplace is a bubbling cauldron of innovation that is ahead of the reform curve. Romneycare is a mirror image of Obamacare, giving the health care establishment in Massachusetts about a five-year head start on the rest of the country.
• A major driver of consolidation in Massachusetts health care has been gaining efficiency to provide convenient services to patients while containing costs. The consolidated players are able to provide a wide spectrum of "integrated care" including urgent care, primary care, specialty care, surgical procedures, chronic disease management and rehabilitation services. A couple of recurring buzzwords among CEOs and health care providers are "seamless care" and "good hand-offs."
• The Greater Boston health care marketplace is fortunate to have a deep pool of intellectual talent. With several academic medical centers and dozens of other world-class medical facilities, the state is fortunate to have a relatively large number of highly trained health care providers. The region also has excellent medical administration leadership. The men and women running Greater Boston's health care organizations appear well-equipped to tackle the changing landscape ahead.
• In Massachusetts, health care reform is working. The marketplace is competitive, which is fueling innovation. Nearly all children and about 90 percent of the adult population have health insurance. With increased insurance rolls, access to care is as challenging as ever, but the increase in patients has created opportunities such as the explosive growth in primary care practices and urgent care facilities.
• On a compassionate note, the growth in patients coupled with a heightened emphasis on wellness programs has created opportunities to improve the health level of the entire state.
• Providing access to high-quality health care at an affordable cost is a challenge that can be met in a state such as Massachusetts, which has an enviable talent pool and medical infrastructure. Making health care reform work in every state in America is going to be a daunting challenge.

Newtown: Open letter to those touched by shooting

Two-year-old Addison Strychalsky of Newtown, Conn., pets Libby, a Lutheran Church Charities comfort dog, days after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. /AP photo by David Goldman

I grew up in Connecticut. My heart will forever grieve for the shattered families of Newtown.

On top of a torment that will never go away, you face a terrible choice: silence or martyrdom.

Avoiding the spotlight is surely the safest way to guard your families against the pain associated with the loss of your children. In terms of human suffering, you have endured enough. You have no obligation to risk more.

As today's release of the local police 911 tapes has shown, if the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings become the icon of unbearable gun violence, then a reliving of the event will be part of the bargain. Your story could be a catalyst for change, creating something positive out of a hideously negative event. But the story would be told again and again.

Some of you want silence. Others want some gain to come out of a horrendous loss.

So much was taken out of your control. And more shocks will surely come: the Connecticut State Police tapes, the five-year anniversary, the 10-year anniversary, the stray revelations.

It would not be easy, but there is a conscious step you could take. Your 20 families share an unwanted bond. You can bear that bond in clans of silence or martyrdom. Or you can come together and choose a shared path.

As the situation stands now, periodic media frenzies are inevitable.

You are public figures who wish nothing more than a return to the private lives you had before Dec. 14, 2012. It is a terrible burden no one should have to bear.

Newtown: Meaningless death of 20 young children?

Snow blankets teddy bears last December in Newtown, Conn., at a sidewalk memorial to the first-graders and educators shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary School. /AP photo

Nothing.

The first anniversary of the mass shooting that claimed the lives of 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School will soon pass. Nothing has been done to stop the spread of military-style assault firearms. Nothing has been done to stop criminals and those suffering from severe mental illness from gaining access to these weapons.

A century ago, it took the death of 146 people in New York's Triangle Shirtwaist Factory inferno to curb sweat shops in America. Most of the dead were young women.

When it comes to entrenched U.S. political forces such as the gun industry, it apparently can require the wholesale slaughter of innocents to dislodge them.

How many people will have to die in a school or some other public place before constitutional limits on military-style firearms are established? Will the death of 20 first-graders be meaningless or the beginning of the kind of changes that have saved countless worker lives since the Triangle Fire?

On March 25, 1911, A New York City police officer stands guard over Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire victims as he watches the sweatshop blaze rage more than 100 feet above. /Image via thehistoryblog.com