Tautologies are not a superior form of logic

Tiger is back at the Augusta Masters Tournament, and “Ticket brokers aim to buy, sell,” which is what brokers normally do. But with ticket prices of $ 5,500, unauthorized ticket sellers see the opportunity of their lifetime to secure their share of the deal. The risks of being caught scalping seem fairly negligible since the Richmond County Sheriff’s office promises that its deputies “will be heavily enforcing the illegal sale of tickets.” That's reassuring, especially for those golf enthusiasts who desperately want to get one of “the highly coveted badges [which] are among the most sought-after in sports.” Aren't highly coveted items usually the most sought-after? Maybe not in Augusta, where “The golf fans that want to be there for the golf are already there or not there” (The Augusta Chronicle 4/1/10!).

The military's confusion about where they are when it comes to gay and straight Marines housing together cannot simply be attributed to April Fool's Day. While Marine Commandant Conway wants "to preserve the right of a Marine that thinks he or she wouldn’t want to do that – and that’s the overwhelming number of people that say they wouldn’t like to do so” (CNN.com), another official is concerned that "If those of us who are in favor of retaining the current policy do not speak up, there is no chance to retain the current policy." Duh? Yet, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff diplomatically tries to smooth over the controversy. “‘There's an opportunity in this process for everyone from junior to senior’ to have an opportunity to comment, Mullen said” (Huffington Post). An opportunity for an opportunity to comment is indeed a rare opportunity.

Time will tell who in the military will retain his position and who eventually will have to show the same willingness as Robert Ebert “to rescind reviews of movies he’s changed his mind about” (The Daily Beast). The five million dollar question is why anybody - Ebert, Roeper, Mullen or Conway - would have to rescind unless he changed his mind in the first place.

The NYT, too, offers stimulating food for thought when reporting on Mr. Obama’s obligations to first “host a much needed summit meeting on the need to better secure nuclear material from terrorists (“New Think and Old Weapons” 2/28) and second “galvanize the nation [and] articulate a substantive belief system [since] without a powerful vision to knit together his vision of America's future, he comes off as a doctrinaire Democrat” (“The State of the Union Is Comatose” 1/31). A summit (which actually is a meeting) meeting needed because of a need and a vision to knit together a vision? Now, that’s comatose.

Here is an excellent clip of Stephen Frye on tautologies, conciseness and other interesting language issues.