Word: raison
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Time and again, after the late '80s, one comes up against Johnses that seem to have no raison d'etre, and are valued merely because Johns did them. What is the point of those tracings done from a reproduction of Cezanne's Bathers? As homages they're trivial; as formal studies they're as uninteresting as his tracings done from a motif of his old idol Marcel Duchamp. Perhaps it is true that, as his admirers believe, a sublimely arcane and complex intentionality lies behind the fragmented and mingily internalized imagery of late Johns, tying all its scattered hints together...
ELVIS: THE TWINLESS TWIN'S SEARCH FOR SPIRITUAL MEANING Peter Whitmer, a clinical psychologist and author of the newly published The Inner Elvis (Hyperion; $22.95), argues that Elvis' stillborn twin brother Jesse played a critical and enduring role in the King's life. "Elvis' psychic raison d'etre as a twinless twin was to put himself back together again," says Whitmer. "That was really the power of his creativity--as well as the momentum behind his self-destructive downward spiral...
...tuition is going toward) that a humanistic education is valuable even though it does not create ready-made employees? Or must liberal arts schools resign themselves to strictures of practicality and subscribe to the principle of "operational utility," defined by Michael R. Harris as a mandate implying "that the raison d'etre of a college or university consists in serving the immediate needs of society...
...council might well include phone calls from Time magazine, Harvard administrators and concerned off-campus activists. In short, council executives are very important people. If they talk sense, people will listen. Though the council may spend a majority of its time fighting for wrist pads and computers, its raison d'etre is its unique ability to represent students on all issues. We need services, but we need a voice at Harvard and beyond. Hats off to the candidate with that philosophy. He or she will most definitely get my vote...
Tadros begins his argument by claiming that he does not intend to "raise questions about Israel's raison d'etre, legitimacy or right to exist." He then proceeds to attempt to cast doubt about Israel's legitimacy by referring to the War of Independence as "so-called," and continuing throughout the article to put quotation marks around the word "independence" when referring to the establishment of Israel. Tadros then attempts a calculating revision of history by arguing that Zionism and the birth of Israel depended above all on the forcible expulsion and terrorizing of Palestinians...