Eating: Some Commense Rules

Eating, previously one of life's simplest and most pleasurable activities, has become increasingly complicated. I have always adopted a simple philosophy towards eating which has served me well thus far: "eat first, worry about it later". When pressed, I would joke that the stress of worrying about what you eat will probably kill you faster than anything present in the food.

Joking aside, we have been given an incredible amount of dissenting advice regarding our diets. Previously, we were told about the dangers of fat and cholesterol only to find that the 'trans-fats' that replaced them in our diet (in products such as margarine), were even more deadly. Now we are told that carbohydrates are the bogeymen, the overconsumption of which is cause for much of the obesity that plagues Western society (Atkins diet anyone?). We should eat more fish because they contain Omega-3s which is the new holy grail for everything from reduced cancer risk to better brain cells. But fish may also contain harmful substances like mercury.

Michael Pollan, in his book In Defence of Food, nicely deflates the prevailing trend towards 'nutritionism' where food is not seen as food but as an item made up of calories and nutrients. He brutally de-bunks nutritionism, showing how it is unreliable at best, and bad science with links to the food and medical industries at its worst. Nutritionism, to a degree, has become a blanket excuse to create processed foods, with studies commissioned by the food industry showing nutritional benefits of whatever food they are asked to assess. Pollan states rather cynically that a qualified FDA health claim for any product amounts to a euphemism for "all but meaningless". By the end of the book, you are rather inclined to agree, especially when you read about a chair in "Chocolate Science" being endowed by the Mars Corporation at the University of California Davis.

One of the worst failings that Pollan documents involves the so-called 'lipid hypothesis' linking the rise in heart disease (and other illnesses) to consumption of fats and cholesterol. That led to a drastic change in diets - not necessarily for the better as it turns out. Pollan rightly points out the manichean nature of dietary advice - previously protein was bad and carbs were good, now carbs are bad and protiens are good. The only thing that is universally acclaimed to be generally pretty harmless and actually quite beneficial is leaves and fruit and that goes to the heart of Pollan's advice for what we should eat.

Pollan also rightly points out that the reductionist nature of nutritionism just doesn't work. Scientists enjoy isolating an individual vitamin, mineral or nutrient within a particular foodstuff and praising or blaming it for having beneficial or deleterious effects on your health, but ultimately foods themselves are highly complex agglomerations that defy analysis. So is it really the Omega 3 fatty acids alone that makes fish such a nutritional food? Or is it the Omega 3s working in conjunction with other individual proteins in fish that has some effect during the digestion process? The most basic but crucial thing that Pollan does is to emphasize that we have to once again think about food, as well food.

Ultimately, I have distilled from Pollan's book a small number of simple maxims with the aim of eating more healthily but also being able to enjoy food a lot more. He presents about two dozen or so simple and sensible general rules which you will be well advised to check out. After finishing the book I have resolved to:

• Set aside specific time for eating as a sole activity and spend more time eating - no eating in front of the TV, or computer, or at a desk while finishing work.
• Have more meals with other people - good company and excellent conversation makes a meal that much more enjoyable, and actually reduces the amount you eat.
• No snacking - eat three square meals and avoid having little snacks in between. So no nuts, crisps, chicken wings etc.
  
• Stop eating junk food or fast food - there are far far better ways to spend $7 than on a upsized Big Mac Meal; there are also much better ways to spend $4 than on a pack of Lays potato chips.
• Eat more green, leafy vegetables - try having 2 servings of vegetables and 1 serving of meat for dinner instead of the other way round.
• Eat fruit more regularly - try to have freshly squeezed fruit juice at hawker centers/foodcourts. One serving of fruit after dinner.
• Cut down on the amount of meat you eat - fish and seafood might be better options. Perhaps choose a day where you can forgo meat entirely (a la Catholics on friday).
• Avoid any kind of food that looks like it is processed. If it didn't once look alive, don't buy it.
• Cut down on alcohol consumption - you don't have to go teetotal but binge drinking is generally a very bad idea. Also if you are going to drink, try a glass of red wine every evening rather than beer or spirits.
• Learn to cook - what better way of really understanding what on earth you are eating? Plus it will make you appreciate and enjoy food all the more.

Other things that I should explore:

• Taking supplements - the jury is still out whether supplements are really all that effective. However, it is also true that modern factory farming has resulted in foods that give much higher yields but lower nutrient values. It may be worth taking a multivitamin.
  
• Portions - Is it better to have five small meals a day rather than the traditional three solid meals? It is worth finding out the evidence on either side. Will it be too much of a hassle to change?
  

All Roads Lead to Rome

It was the final that every neutral football fan wished for. Arguably the two top teams in the world going head to head for the right to be crowned European Champions. More than that, two teams who play open attacking football, with two of the best and most exciting players in the world in Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi competing to settle the issue of who is better once and for all in a personal duel on the pitch. The names of those on show dripped off the tongue: Henry, Eto'o, Messi, Iniesta, Ronaldo, Giggs, Rooney.

On paper, a truly Olympian struggle was promised at the Olympic stadium in Rome. What ensued was a compelling match, but unfortunately not one for the ages. It is not often that Sir Alex Ferguson can be accused of being tactically outmaneuvered, especially in a major final, but after Pep Guardiola's side took the lead, very much against the run of play, they played masterful possession football and strangled the life out of an erratic and disappointing Man United side that were almost thoroughly outplayed.

The pundits had given the advantage to United, particularly given the frailties of a Barcelona defence deprived of its two starting full backs and defensive rock Marquez. Sir Alex's side has shown they could contain Barcelona in the previous year's semi-finals, when a nil-nil stalemate was followed by a Paul Scholes stunner that put United through. It was expected that Barcelona would have more possession, but United's defensive solidity and ability to counter attack at pace would enable them to pierce the makeshift Barca defence.

United started the match with the confidence that comes from being the current champions of Europe, dominating possession in the opening exchanges, and wasting a few half chances, especially from Cristiano Ronaldo. As amazing as it sounds, the Barcelona front three barely had a touch on the ball between them for the first 10 minutes. United were then hit with the proverbial sucker punch. Iniesta was allowed to run through a gap in midfield far too easily, and played a weighted ball through to Eto'o who turned Vidic and squeezed a shot past Van Der Sar's near post. It was Barcelona's first meaningful attack of the match. It was disappointing defending by United and by Vidic in particular.

The goal clearly lifted Barcelona, who began to dominate possession, settling into their usual mercurial passing game that left the United players chasing shadows for a large part of the remainder of the half. The confidence only grew during the second half, as United was forced to throw caution to the wind. Tevez was brought on for an ineffectual Anderson in the hope that his attacking qualities might manufacture a breakthrough, but more importantly that his terrier like hounding and running might actually unsettle a Barcelona midfield that was stroking the ball about with supreme confidence.

Iniesta was particularly peerless in this regard, playing lovely little passes and neat one-twos that left his markers flummoxed. He was involved once again in the build up to an excellent Barca chance at the start of the second half, Man Utd's old tormentor Thierry Henry bursting through only for Van Der Sar to save smartly with his feet. At one point, his pinpoint passing, and general awareness led the commentator to ask rhetorically if he was even capable of misplaying a pass. The answer was yes, but not often.

Lionel Messi was also living up to his billing as a world class player, terrorizing the United with his direct slalom like running. Often the only way United could stop him was resorting to cutting him down. One such challenge led to a free kick at the edge of the area, and Xavi curled a lovely shot round the wall, only to see it carom off the upright. It was no surprise that it was Messi that supplied the coup de grace, from a pinpoint Xavi cross after United had given away possession cheaply and Evra only half cleared the ball. It was a superb ball into the box, but Messi still had to lean backwards while hanging in the air to guide the ball past a flailing Van Der Sar into the bottom corner of the net.

Credit must be given to Barcelona for their superb passing, and for the incessant pressure they put on United. Their makeshift backline was never much of a factor given their ability to close United down from up the field, and to starve them of space and possession. Gerard Pique, who only re-signed for Barca after failing to secure a first team place at United, had an excellent night, blocking a Park attempt on 2 minutes, and denying Ronaldo a clear shot that would have given United hope moments after Barca had taken a two goal lead. Beyond that, Vidic and Berbatov had headers off target, but United never really threatened the Barcelona goal in the closing stages.

Ultimately though, it was a surprisingly toothless performance from a United side that was lacking leadership, self-belief, and real quality on the day. What they would have given for a midfield enforcer in the Roy Keane mold, who could stamp his authority in the middle of the park, and harry Iniesta and Xavi. For all their other talents, Carrick can't tackle and man-marking are not the best attributes that Giggs or Anderson possess. The closest United have to that kind of a player in their current side is Darren Fletcher, who was suspended for the final and was sorely missed.

The entire United midfield was disappointing on the day, Carrick spraying passes all over the place, Anderson running aimlessly. Rooney was deployed first on the left, briefly led the line and ended the game on the right flank and cut a frustrated figure throughout. Ryan Giggs looked his age for probably the first time this season, looking tired and ragged by the early stages of the second half, as the Barcelona team continued to run circles around him. Paul Scholes should certainly have been brought on earlier - his intelligent runs and long range passing were sorely needed on a day when the United midfield was largely misfiring.

Tactically, United chopped and changed frequently, to little effect. Players often looking strangely clueless on the field. They started ostensibly with a 4-3-2-1 formation similar to Barca's that occasionally evolved into a 4-4-2 with Giggs tucking just behind Ronaldo up front. The 4-4-2 was singularly ineffectual, with the Barca midfield dominating United, so Ferguson brought Tevez on in a straight 4-4-2 with Giggs taking the place of Anderson in central midfield, Ronaldo moving to the flank and Rooney and Tevez pressing the Barca backline. That proved even worse, as Barca threatened to tear United to ribbons with their intelligent link up play, exploiting the gaps that United left as they pushed forward. Barca never tinkered with their tried and tested formation, looking comfortable playing their usual attacking and pressing game.

By the end of the game, Ferguson had his entire fab four of Rooney, Tevez, Berbatov, and Ronaldo on the field in what was effectively a 4-2-4 formation. It didn't make one jot of difference. United were a team lacking real leadership (Paul Scholes as the captain for the last twenty minutes?), any self-belief or even any fluency. There was to be no repeat of 1999 when United stole the trophy from under Bayern's nose due to a dogged refusal to give in. In 2009, it wasn't an exaggeration to say that they capitulated.

It was certainly not third time lucky for Ferguson, who despite his vast experience and supreme talent, has arguably been outplayed in all three Champions League finals he has been involved in. He was undoubtedly lucky in Barcelona in 1999 (brilliant substitutions aside) when Bayern bossed the game only to be hit by a double whammy in the last 3 minutes. Last year, Chelsea probably edged the game overall, despite United's domination of the first half - Drogba will be cursing the crossbar, and Terry will probably never be able to forget the nightmare of seeing what would be the winning penalty smack off the upright. Fergie ran out of luck this time round, flummoxed and well beaten by a truly marvelous Barcelona side.

Telegraph 100 Essential Novels

It is in the vogue for newspapers to come up with lists of novels that everyone should read now, and the latest list I have found is on the Telegraph website. I probably only discovered it so late because I don't read the Telegraph as a general rule but was directed there when a friend sent me a link about a new Jane Austen biography, claiming, you guessed it, to have found that mysterious man that broke her heart and eventually led her becoming the ultimate literary chick lit novelist.

The Telegraph's selections are:

100 The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein
99 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
98 The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore
97 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
96 One Thousand and One Nights by Anonymous
95 The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
94 Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
93 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré
92 Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
91 The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki
90 Under the Net by Iris Murdoch
89 The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
88 Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin
87 On the Road by Jack Kerouac
86 Old Goriot by Honoré de Balzac
85 The Red and the Black by Stendhal
84 The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
83 Germinal by Emile Zola
82 The Stranger by Albert Camus
81The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
80 Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey
79 Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
78 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
77 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
76 The Trial by Franz Kafka
75 Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee
74 Waiting for the Mahatma by RK Narayan
73 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Remarque
72 Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler
71 The Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin
70 The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
69 If On a Winter’s Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino
68 Crash by JG Ballard
67 A Bend in the River by VS Naipaul
66 Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
65 Dr Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
64 The Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz
63 The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
62 Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
61 My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk
60 One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
59 London Fields by Martin Amis
58 The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño
57 The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse
56 The Tin Drum by Günter Grass
55 Austerlitz by WG Sebald
54 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
53 The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
52 The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
51 Underworld by Don DeLillo
50 Beloved by Toni Morrison
49 The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
48 Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin
47The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
46 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
45 The Voyeur by Alain Robbe-Grillet
44 Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre
43 The Rabbit books by John Updike
42 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
41 The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
40 The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
39 Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
38 The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
37 The Warden by Anthony Trollope
36 Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
35 Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
34 The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
33 Clarissa by Samuel Richardson
32 A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
31 Suite Francaise by Irène Némirovsky
30 Atonement by Ian McEwan
29 Life: a User’s Manual by Georges Perec
28 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
27 Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
26 Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
25 The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
24 Ulysses by James Joyce
23 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
22 A Passage to India by EM Forster
21 1984 by George Orwell
20 Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne
19 The War of the Worlds by HG Wells
18 Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
17 Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
16 Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
15 The Code of the Woosters by PG Wodehouse
14 Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
13 David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
12 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
11 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
10 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
9 Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
8 Disgrace by JM Coetzee
7 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
6 In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
5 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
4 The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
3 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
2 Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
1 Middlemarch by George Eliot

I've personally managed almost a quarter of them. 24 out of 100. Mostly classic choices on the list but some odd ones - Waiting for the Mahatma by R.K Narayan? The Savage Detective by Robert Bolano? Strangely, it is those odd ones that I want to seek out first, if only to slake my curiousity as to why they were included!

Much Ado About Nothing

There is something that makes outdoor performances of Shakespeare highly agreeable. It is of course worth bearing in mind that the Globe Theater itself was open to the elements. The thought of spending an evening amidst the greenery of Fort Canning sipping wine was a highly enticing one, so I jumped at the chance of catching the Singapore Repertory Theater's outdoor performance of Much Ado About Nothing with Karin.

Of course, I had first fallen in love with outdoor Shakespeare performances while at Oxford, where summer lawn productions - especially of Shakespeare - were a common feature of Trinity term. There is something quite magical about watching a play in the small intimate surroundings of an Oxford garden, in the time just between dusk and twilight that I will never forget. Of course, this production was on a much bigger scale, with lighting and sound equipment to match, so I had to struggle not to compare the two.

Probably the most hilarious moment I have ever come across in an open air production of Shakespeare was when I watched a amateur production of Romeo and Juliet whilst visiting my aptly named friend Juliet in Devon. It was a beautiful setting near Devon Castle and all would have been well if not for a steady drizzle which began towards the end of Act II and began getting heavier as Act III wore on. It was thus with a significantly ironic glance up to the already opened up heavens that the actor playing Lord Capulet uttered the lines near the end of Act III:

When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew; But for the sunset of my brother's son It rains downright.

with an appropriately heavy emphasis, given the circumstances, on 'rains downright'. The play was moved indoors shortly afterwards.

But I digress. Singapore doesn't quite face the problem of persistent rain that the UK does, but an unseasonably hot May evening did temper my enjoyment of the play somewhat. It was downright muggy and left everyone sweating through the entirety of the play, futile efforts at fanning oneself with the program being largely ineffectual. One could only pity the cast members, especially the male characters, who were dressed up in stifling long sleeved navy whites.

The staging and costuming was rather interestingly and elegantly done. A 1920s Singapore colonial era setting and feel was chosen for the play and fitted quite well, on the whole. The set was rather beautiful and was designed in the form of the exterior of colonial style bungalow complete with large slatted swinging doors leading to the 'inside' of the house, a small swimming pool which is put to good use in the play itself, and the natural greenery of Fort Canning surrounding the stage being the garden of the bungalow itself.

The costumes were similarly sumptuous, with the men in navy dress white uniforms, complete with peak caps and epaulettes, and the ladies in lovely full length cocktail dresses. The highlight for me must surely be a 1920s style uber-retro full body swimming costume that Benedick is made to wear in Act III.

Overall, one minor gripe was the whole attempt at the colonial period thing was overdone at times, especially attempts to include chinese/nonya elements into the mix. Having traditional erhu music played during the funeral scenes in a misguided attempt to enhance the mood led to a sense of melodrama, as was having everyone wear traditional chinese/nonya garb at the wedding, complete with fancy headress for Hero. You would not expect a uppity British colonial to dress in any such way, so it was not keeping in character with the setting, and led to a bit of a unnecessary hodge podge feel.

It is no surprise that when an operatic adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing was made, it was titled Beatrice and Benedick. For better or for worse although not the main love story of the play, they stand as the main comic pillars. Claudio and Hero's love story might be the main narrative centerpiece, but their somewhat soppy wooing of each other followed by the enormously melodramatic renunciation (followed by Hero's faked death) hardly make them compelling characters.

Adrian Pang again shows wonderful stage presence as an ever playful Benedick. His experience in performing Shakespeare clearly comes through in his wonderfully witty deliveries, particularly his observance of the pauses and comic timing that is essential to Shakespearean humour. He was also helped by begin given some of the funniest comic set pieces in the play, notably one where he sneaks around the swimming pool and tries to hide behind a plant to overhear his friends conversing about Beatrice and another when he has to grab whatever headgear is at hand in order to cover up his crown jewels after a strategically placed towel is whipped away (Adrian Pang was wearing skin coloured briefs just in case a wardrobe malfunction happened).

Wendy Kweh's Beatrice to Pang's Benedict was very much his catty and teasing equal in the scenes that they were playing off each other, but she was less effective on her own. Beatrice is in many ways one of Shakespeare's strongest female characters (Katherine from The Taming of the Shrew and perhaps the sisters Goneril and Regan from King Lear are the only ones that can even remotely rival her). Kweh nicely brought out Beatrice's independent streak but her reading of the script sometimes lacked the subtlety and dramatic pauses necessary to really bring out the full unbridled wit. That is just a small gripe, all things consider, in a largely effective and really quite fiery performance.

Given the complexity, fun and flair of Beatrice and Benedick, the actors playing Claudio and Hero always risk being upstaged. Julie Wee does her best in what is largely a cardboard character role, playing the lovely chaste besotten bride adequately. I was more disappointed with Jason Chan, who overplayed Claudio, descending into melodrama when denouncing his bride on their wedding day, and similarly lacking subtlety and range in expressing remorse (at his inadvertant betrayal) and joy (at discovering her to be alive). Prancing around and declaiming loudly a good Shakespearean hero doth not make.

The play was bolstered by an excellent supporting cast. Particular praise must go to a suitably villanious Don John (in a small, largely cliched role), and an effective Don Pedro, who served as an important foil to Claudio and Benedick. I was far more ambivalent about Leonato - especially in the more dramatic scenes involving Hero's denouncement. The play as a whole certainly handled the comedic elements far more effectively that the dramatic ones. The Watch also seemed to garner some laughs and more half-hearted ones when they could have threatened to steal the show.

Overall, it was certainly a pretty entertaining evening. For me the witty banter between Adrian Pang's Benedick and Wendy Kueh's Beatrice was fun enough to just about warrant the price of admission (a relatively cheap $25 student ticket in my case). The beautifully designed sets and costumes were a real bonus. Still, I never thought of Much Ado About Nothing as one of Shakespeare's stronger comedies and me and Karin agreed that the play as a whole lacked any high note (apart from seeing Adrian Pang almost totally naked, complete with six pack for the ladies). Still, a enjoyable, if humid evening out.

Acts and Omissions

It is currently far more acceptable to allow instances of passive euthanasia (allowing someone to die by withholding treatment), as compared to active euthanasia (injecting them with a lethal drug that would prematurely end their lives). This is partly linked to our strong inclinations towards the sanctity of life. While many would be squeamish at actively taking a role in causing a death (even if acting on a person's wishes), they are less likely to feel the same way about causing a death in an indirect way (e.g. withholding potential treatment).

This can be clearly seen in the responses to the classic runaway cart scenario. In the scenario, there is a runaway cart hurtling down some tracks. It is currently headed for a group of four workers in the distance, who are too far away to warn and too preoccupied to notice in time to get out of the way. However, you can throw a switch diverting the cart onto a separate set of tracks which would spare the four workers, however, in doing so a single individual would be killed. Most people would find it acceptable to throw the switch.

However, in a separate scenario, the same cart is hurtling towards the same four people, but the only way to stop it is to push a bystander next to you onto the tracks. He happens to be quite a large individual with the bulk necessary to stop the cart. If you throw yourself on the tracks, it would be insufficient to stop the cart entirely and the four workers would still die. In this latter case, most people would not push the person onto the tracks to save the four people. The only fundamental difference is whether you would be directly on indirectly causing the death of one person in saving the four.

So this difference over the direct vs. indirect causation of death is deeply held and can seem to translate to a doctrine of acts and omissions. So I play an active role if I administer an injection or prescribe a cocktail of drugs which the patient then takes (note in this case I am merely giving the patient the means to end their life). A passive role would be to 'let nature take its course' for example by withholding drugs so a patient would die 'naturally' from an illness. Studies have shown that many doctors (and nurses) often carry out the latter for infants with severely deformities, for example, or in prescribing large doses of painkillers that will hasten death but provide some comfort in the case of terminal illnesses. Some nurses even allow very elderly patients in nursing homes to succumb to treatable illnesses such as pneumonia, rather that subject them to intrusive medical care, particularly if that patient has been ill a number of times.

Two classic contrasting examples illustrate our strange understanding of acts and omissions. The first is that of 'Baby Doe', a baby born with severe Down's syndrome, but also an oesophagus that was not fully formed. The baby was thus not able to digest food. An operation could be performed to fully connect the oesophagus which would allow for the normal intake of food but Baby Doe's parents requested that the operation not be performed. The baby died five days later after two courts upheld the parent's request. That the baby could have survived if the operation had been performed is not in doubt, though he would have faced severe mental deficiencies.

Compare this to the case of Samuel Linares, a young toddler that swallowed an object that became lodged in his throat. He was rushed to hospital but suffered severe brain damage due to the lack of oxygen intake to his brain. He was only kept alive by a respirator, and was comatose for over nine months, after which the hospital recommended that he be placed in a long term care unit, as it was unlikely that he would ever regain consciousness. His parents' request that he be taken off the respirator were ignored. Eventually, his father, armed with a pistol, forced his way into the ward and disconnected the respirator personally, cradling Samuel in his arms until the baby died. He then surrendered himself, weeping uncontrollably, to the police.

The two cases are especially illustrative because if both babies had lived, there is little doubt that Baby Doe would have a significantly better quality of life. Given Samuel Linares was in what was effectively a persistent vegetative state, and doctors were unsure if he would ever regain consciousness, it is doubtful if you can say he even had a quality of life at all. (A British High Court Judge made a similar remark when ruling about Anthony Bland, a football fan in a persistent comatose state as a result of the Hillsborough Stadium disaster).

Does it make sense that we allow Baby Doe's parents to effectively consign him to death (by not giving permission for the operation) while refusing to allow Samuel Linares' parents to make a decision allowing for their son to die peacefully by removing the respirator that was sustaining him? If one viewed the respirator as an artificial form of intervention that is sustaining Samuel's life, then one can argue that the parents should have a decision in stating that he should not be put on a respirator in the first place (a rejection of intervention to save life), just as Baby Doe's parents refused the operation (which was a rejection of a life saving intervention). If we agree that both should have the decision, why should we not allow Linares' parents to pull the plug on the respirator, assuming that doctors had done all they could, and it was unknowable and even doubtful if Samuel would ever wake up?