IN AN ONLINE program next week, the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University will host "A Conversation With Leila Khaled," an event it is promoting as a "historic" encounter with a prominent "Palestinian feminist, militant, and leader." One of the program's two moderators, Professor Rabab Abdulhadi of the college's Race and Resistance Studies Department, extols Khaled for her "steadfastness" and "resilience," and hails her "stubborn commitment to an indivisible sense of justice." In an enthusiastic Facebook post, the professor describes Khaled as "a huge inspiration" and a "feminist icon," and declares that she "wanted to grow up to become another Leila Khaled."

Leila Khaled is a terrorist.

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On Sept. 17, 1787, the federal convention in Philadelphia completed its work. Originally convened to draft improvements to the flawed Articles of Confederation, the delegates had quickly shifted gears, deciding instead to develop an entirely different system of government. Over nearly four months of grueling debate, they crafted something brand new: the Constitution of the United States. On Sept. 15, the text was engrossed on parchment. Two days later, the document was presented to the delegates for their approval.

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ON FRIDAY, six months after Governor Charlie Baker declared a state of emergency and began issuing shutdown orders in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court will take up a threshold question: Were the governor's commands lawful?

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AS A VOTER, I have two rules of thumb: (1) I don't vote for incumbents, and (2) I don't vote for Kennedys. Rarely do I violate either rule, but on Tuesday I had no choice: In the Democratic Senate primary in Massachusetts, the incumbent, Ed Markey, was being challenged by a Kennedy and I could oppose only one of them. So I voted for Markey — that is, against Joe Kennedy III. Which made mine one of the 765,000 votes that ended Kennedy's congressional career — and, let us hope, the Kennedy political dynasty.

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Three soaring flagpoles stand on the plaza outside the entrance to Boston's city hall. Two of the flagpoles are almost never disturbed — one always flies the American and POW-MIA flags, and the second displays the flag of Massachusetts. But what flies from the third flagpole varies. Often it's the flag of Boston; often not. The city has a longstanding policy of allowing private groups to hold flag-raising ceremonies on the plaza, when they can replace Boston's flag on the third pole with a flag of their choosing.

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