How Do I Feel About This?

Arafat's somewhere between life and death, according to news reports...

There was still no official public diagnosis to explain the Palestinian leader's critical condition. Outside the French military hospital where the 75-year-old has been treated for the past week, well-wishers maintained a worried vigil.

Under the glare of television camera lights, a hospital spokesman who on Thursday denied reports that Arafat was dead re-emerged late Friday afternoon to issue a short update.

"The state of President Yasser Arafat's health has not worsened. It is considered stable since the previous health bulletin," Gen. Christian Estripeau said. He took no questions.

Earlier, Leila Shahid, the Palestinian envoy to France, strongly denied persistent French and Israeli media reports that Arafat was being kept alive on life support.

"I can assure you that there is no brain death," Shahid told French RTL radio. "He is in a coma. We don't know the type but it's a reversible coma. ... Today we can say that, given his condition and age, he is at a critical point between life and death."

The guy's a terrorist, nothing more, nothing less. I don't want to be cruel, but the world will be a better place without him. Of course, being somewhere between life and death pretty much describes Jerry Garcia for the last decade of his life.