Discourse

Judging from the large exhibit of 26 Henry Coe landscapes at Grimaldis, this is a divided artist. Some of his paintings look as if they were created to fulfill an inner vision; some look as if they were created to please an audience that likes well-executed, pleasant looking, unchallenging landscapes.At his best, which is to say at his loosest, most gestural and dynamic handling of paint, Coe makes works that are visually stimulating and emotionally resonant. "Salt Marsh Canal," the best work in the show, has tremendous depth and a grand sweep of sky matched by the sweep of paint across the canvas.

Flamboyant female rebels have always surfaced; some triumphantly, some tragically, usually alone. Isadora Duncan, Georgia O'Keeffe, Billie Holiday: Their singular genius is what set them apart -- in forging art and legend, they rarely represented the aspirations of other women.That is where flamboyant female rebel Ani DiFranco parts from such august company. DiFranco, an ultra-kinetic singer/songwriter who plays the Meyerhoff tonight, doesn't stand apart from other women, but stands for them.

The discourse about al-Qaida by the U.S. administration and its allies can best be described as about everything and nothing. It is about everything because virtually all policy matters now seem to hinge on the war against al-Qaida. It is also about nothing because there is little substance in the administration's discourse as to what al-Qaida is and the concrete means to defeat it. A careful examination of al-Qaida reveals both why it has been successful in the short term and why it is doomed to fail in the long term.

WASHINGTON - Members of the independent Sept. 11 commission have received pledges of nearly $1 million for a private educational group they have created to push for the enactment of the panel's recommendations, commission officials said Friday. The educational group, the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, opened an office here last week. It also has a Web site, www.9-11 pdp.org, on which the 10 former commissioners say that the "perils of inaction are far too high - and the strategic value of the commission's findings too important - for the work of the 9/11 commission not to continue."

CRY OF THE INVISIBLE: Writings From the Homeless and Survivors of Psychiatric Hospitals. Edited by Michael Susko. A Harrison Edward Livingstone Book by the Conservatory Press. 334 pages. $19.95 hard cover. $16.95 soft cover. FEW NIGHTMARES can be as horrific as that of finding yourself in confinement without power or rights and forced to live according to a system in which the rules are either never explained or simply changed according to the unchallengeable will of the authorities.And how much more invidious if you are taught that everything is being done for your benefit and that your proper obligation and one hope of release is to demonstrate with uttermost sincerity your love and appreciation for your captors.

Thanks to that latest Internet spawn called WikiLeaks, the world now knows that diplomats, like all other human creatures, gossip, tattle on each other and even on occasion bend the truth to their own purposes. This disclosure calls to mind that delicious scene in "Casablanca" wherein Claude Raines closes Rick's Cafe for permitting gambling, even as the house croupier slips the Vichy official his latest roulette winnings. A significant element in the art of diplomacy has always been dissembling.

I disagree. Whether by personality or profession, I am compelled to take exception. Growing up, I liked adults much better than I did other children, thanks to their superior arguments. Now, as a law professor, I teach people how to sue. I disagree with myself, too. I am not so sure I should be so contrary. Yet our diverse democracy works at its best -- indeed, works at all -- only through robust discussion. In discussion, the most important question, to which of course there can be no right answer, is "Why?"

It didn't take the bad guys long. It was only minutes after Tim Russert's death was announced that someone apparently posted something so unpleasant on The New York Times' Web site that it was taken down almost immediately by somebody in the control room. I didn't see what was said, but some of those who posted afterward did, and they were outraged. By last Monday, pundits and bloggers were criticizing Russert's shocked and sad colleagues at NBC for their "overblown, self-congratulatory and self-indulgent" coverage of his death.

HEARD FROM a distance, where Arnold Schwarzenegger hasn't yet completely morphed from action hero to political hack, his "girlie men" jibe at California state lawmakers sounded like late-night comedy shtick. Because that's where it came from. He was parodying a parody of himself from an old Saturday Night Live skit. It didn't sound so funny, though, to the targets of the governor's ridicule - girls, men and gays all took offense - and was likely a preview of coming attractions during the political season that begins with the Democratic National Convention next week.

It's come to this: The best hope for this grand experiment in democracy may hinge on the right billionaire coming along to buy his way into the White House. Now that we have made fundraising the benchmark against which all conventional campaigns are measured; now that it has become a requirement that big-pocketed special interests subsidize the elections of politicians who will be beholden to them; now that modestly funded, perhaps massively talented Americans need not even bother to aspire to the job (Headline from 2013 we will never see: "President Vilsack Saves Social Security, Declares Peace In Middle East")