Just to be clear....

It seems Italy has its own "Terry Schiavo" case going on, involving complicated issues of faith, quality of life, legal representation, power of attorney, church and state, executive vs. legislative vs. judicial power and other heart-wrenching entanglements.

I don't know the intricacies of the case enough to comment intelligently, but I did go through something tangentially similar personally. Twice. It never came to the final decision, but we did have those extraordinarily difficult discussions. I don't wish that on anyone.

Of course, many of the folks facing these decisions are doing so without the aid of a public record of the wishes of the infirm and incapacitated. But in an era with blogs and Twitter and social networks, we can all now leave our wishes out on the interwebs for everyone to see.

So, even though I think I've been clear with my friends what to do should this situation ever befall me, I'll put my thinking here for posterity.

If I ever fall into a coma or a persistent vegetative state with no hope for recovery, PULL THE FUCKING PLUG*.

*Unless it happens in the next year and a half, before I find out how BSG and Lost end. In that case, please use any and all means at your disposal, up to and including the needle in the heart from Pulp Fiction or jumper cables running from a Sears Die Hard directly to my ears, to resuscitate me so I can find out what happened with the ragtag fleet of humans and Cylons, or what the hell is going on with that island.

Also, even if I'm quasi-conscious, feel free to PULL THE FUCKING PLUG if:

• Dollhouse gets canceled before running a full season.
• The Gators win the national title next year, and Tim Tebow wins another Heisman.
• I get a really bad cold.
• RIM goes bankrupt and my CrackBerry stops working.
• I ever consider dating someone with a background in "adult entertainment."
• They stop delivering pizzas.
• The eco-freaks win, and air conditioning is outlawed.
• Television becomes all "reality," all the time, on all channels.
• I have another hard drive crash on my PC.
• The Democrats keep working on the tax code.
• All my coffee makers break.
• The new Watchmen movie sucks.
• The intertubes stop working.
• I get the sniffles.
• I don't live within an hour of a state with a low tobacco tax.
• I have to rely on a cable company or a non-TiVo DVR.
• The world's distilleries stop producing whiskey.

Okay, I think we're all clear now, right?