Word: pretexts
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Third, talking straight says that a special relationship is not a pretext for condescension. Israel is a powerful, sophisticated state. Why should it not be accorded the respect due any friendly nation that one felt was going blind to its own best interests? Is Israel below criticism...
...sudden, the rattiness is being excised. And in the process, several other qualities seem in danger of disappearing too: the reasonable scale, the special romance and the sense of celebration. On the pretext of rescuing Times Square, much of what makes the neighborhood special is about to be denuded, the scores of small, old, higgledy-piggledy buildings replaced by a dozen shiny towers. Two weeks ago, the state gave approval to leases for four big, bulky skyscrapers designed by Philip Johnson and John Burgee, part of a $2.6 billion plan to redevelop 42nd Street. A few blocks away...
When the Soviets lifted a rebel siege of the strategically placed town of Khost at the end of December, some Western diplomatic observers and Pakistani analysts in Islamabad thought that would give them a pretext to declare victory in the eight-year-old war and begin pulling out. But the Soviets have so far refused to fix a firm timetable for their withdrawal. The rebels, meanwhile, seemed determined to keep up the pressure, as they demonstrated late last week at the funeral of Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a onetime disciple of Mahatma Gandhi and in later years an anti-mujahedin leftist...
Oxford lads Jack (R. Donivan Barton) and Charley (Marc D. Peters) have invited Kitty (Kris Alexander) and Amy (Abigail Shapiro) to lunch in order to propose to them. Charley's aunt, the pretext for inviting the girls, sends word that she can't come. Through a Plot Machination and an Incredible Coincidence, the boys find a substitute "aunt": their friend Fancourt (Adam L. Schwartz) in full drag. A Plot Machination or two later, both Jack's father, Sir Francis (Billy Salloway) and the girls' guardian, Spettigue (Jon Hill) arrive, and both take a shine to the "aunt." Things get worse...
Despite her anguish, Pierson never once sought help from any adult. Prosecutor Edward Jablonski and others are worried that sentences as lenient as Pierson's might prompt other abused children to seek revenge. More frightening is the possibility that some unbalanced children may use alleged abuse as a pretext for killing their parents. Says Judge Vincent J. Femia of Upper Marlboro, Md., who has handled several parricide cases: "In effect, the defendant can argue that he did something that should have been done for the community...