Here’s a moral and religous dilemma which I pray no one would ever face, but which will happen to a fair number of us in the light of advances in life-sustaining technology.

When does death occur ? More to the point, when is it morally proper to pull the plug ?

Motl Brody of Brooklyn, N.Y., was pronounced dead last November 4 after a half-year fight against a brain tumor, and doctors at Children’s National Medical Center in Wahington D.C. say the seventh-grader’s brain had ceased functioning entirely. He was brain dead. His orthodox Jewish parents went to court to maintain the boy on life-support, essentially to compel the hospital to keep him alive indefinitely through mechanical means by keeping his heart and lungs functioning. Under some interpretations of Jewish religious law, including the one accepted by the family’s Hasidic sect, death occurs only when the heart and lungs stop functioning. The hospital argued that its “scarce resources” were being used “for the preservation of a deceased body.” Read the rest of this entry »

Andrew Sullivan in theatlantic.com writes a lucid and thought-provoking article on why he blogs, and the reasons he sets forth hold true for all of us. Aside from the need for self-expression, the standard explanation, there’s the adrenaline rush of thinking on your feet, and trying to put your musings and ideas into words with the immediacy inherent in the medium. It is “the spontaneous expression of instant thought“. As such, blogging can be addictive. Read the rest of this entry »

Manny works out at the Wild Card gym.

The Golden Boy is predicting that he can knock out Manny Pacquiao in five rounds or less in their blockbuster fight on December 6 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

Reacting to Pacquiao trainer Freddy Roach’s comments that Manny will put De La Hoya away by knockout in nine rounds, Oscar said:

We’ll catch him in five so we don’t go that far. I think whoever catches who first is going down.

De La Hoya was interviewed in his isolated training camp in in Big Bear, California where the high altitude is helping him build up his wind, critical in a drawn-out fight with a younger, aggressive fighter. In contrast, Pacquiao is at Roach’s Wild Card Boxing Gym, right in the heart of Hollywood. Not good, as Pacquiao is notoriously prone to distractions. With barely three weeks to go before fight day, he has to sustain his focus.

And while I’m rooting for Pacquiao, De La Hoya has a clear advantage over the smaller man, despite the age differential. Read the rest of this entry »