Another very large (multi-vortex) tornado is occuring near Mulhall, OK (at the center of this map)

9 PM, the winds are active but not real strong.

Washington Post
Chico Harlan 7:00 AM ET
9/3/13

Japan plans to freeze radioactive soil
The next step will be for General Electric to propose building one of their well-designed
nuclear power plants to provide long term power to the refrigeration units.

This disaster in Japan is a disaster that just keeps disaster-ing.

This is quite a long article, but here is the gist ...

The plant was built in an old river bed.
It rains in Japan ... water runs downhill

The company that built this GE reactor did not consider "what if ..."
The earthquake broke underground drainage pipes
The "ice wall" technology is untested and would cost ~ $1 billion
The company is near bankruptcy
The government basically opposes bankruptcy due to effect on economy



Washington Post
Chico Harlan
10/21/13

For Tepco and Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, toxic water stymies cleanup

TEPCO management that created the meltdowns by refusing to vent is also demonstrating same mismanagement with ground water management. If drainage pipes were damaged, then major construction two years ago should have been replacing those pipes. But TEPCO decisions (even to avert the meltdown) have favored business decisions (ie cost controls) rather than what is needed (product oriented thinking). Instead, they spent years looking for and hoping to patch leaks.

Same mismanagement applies to storage tanks. Many storage tanks are now leaking or on the verge of leaking since some tanks were even constructed with plastic bolts. Long term water storage requires welded tanks. TEPCO inaction means they must now build a new tank the size of an olympic swimming pool every day.

Apparently TEPCO believed government would let them dump that water into the ocean. Then discovered that would not be permitted when numerous international NGOs were even monitoring ocean waters. So now they have created more problems traceable to decisions using business school concepts rather than using engineering concepts.

TEPCO, what does heavy structural construction and maintenance, did not even have one ground water specialist in their 40,000 employees.

So many euphemisms in just one little article...

NY Times
HIROKO TABUCHI
November 10, 2013

Removing Fuel Rods Poses New Risks at Crippled Nuclear Plant in Japan
.

I read your excerpt twice and found no euphemisms at all. Care to clarify your point? Or point out my oversight?

Within my post, above
Within the article:

ok, I read all that in the post, got it. I still don't see your point though. I imagine you're suggesting those are the euphemisms you spoke of. and since we're both familiar with the definition of euphemism, what plainer, blunter, more precise and direct language should be used?

How about ....

What point are you making ?
Mine was very simple
... most every sentence and paragraph was written in such styles
which tend to down play or minimize the reader's responses.

My point is that the language in the article is factual and neutral, just how I expect a journalist to convey the information. I find your substitutions not neutral, and some are hyperbolic.

My point, since you asked, is that I like my journalism fair and balanced. I don't like it too bland (filled with euphemisms) or too spicy (filled with inflammatory language). I found the article neutral, fact based and unemotional.

That's part of the reason I try to always give a complete reference to articles I post,
so everyone can read the original writings and decide for themselves.

V, you could have just expressed your feelings in your first posting.
Instead, you played it out, asking for "plainer, blunter, more precise and direct language",
not for language that is "unemotional, balanced, and suitable" for an non-political news article.
What I responded was not (necessarily) the way I would write such a news article.

But part of the reason I have been following the situation in Japan
is a frustration within myself about the future of energy production
For me, it is not un-emotional; instead it is a serious question
with an emotional component, as from the following...

If I assume, and I do, that "global warming" is real and caused primarily by increased C02,
which at this time is caused/aggravated by the activities large, industrial nations, then
where are all the future energy needs going to come from ?

Half of the energy in the US is from coal... that's not a sustainable solution.
Natural gas may be cleaner, but it still yields CO2 ... likewise not a solution
Solar/wind may be feasible but do not seem to me to be efficient enough to meet world needs.
So... right now I tend to agree that nuclear reactors may well become the most likely path followed.

But having lived through 3-Mile Island and Chernobyl in a career of public health,
I believe the general public has been and is being soft-soaped
about the state of the art and the current safety of reactors.

We are seeing this acting out in Fukushima... technically, politically, and financially.
The U.S. and other world authorities are openly expressing doubt about the competence of Tepco.

Yet, of all countries we might expect to do a really great job of engineering for efficiency and safety,
and from the only people who have actually suffered, not one but two, nuclear explosions
on their land, we still see that bad things do happen... really bad things.
Eventually, I'm confident we will learn of men who died working to remedy this disaster.

So when it comes down to it on nuclear power, emotion cannot be left out
just for the sake of being "fair and balanced"

I feel people need the words to enable them to visualize the problems.

Emotion means a reader added information not intended by the author. Maybe 20 different adjectives the author could have used. All mean same to an unemotional reader. Emotional readers assume hidden inferences. For example, think a difference exists between risky and dangerous. If you 'feel' the two words have a different meaning, then you are assuming a perspective that the author did not specifically define.

Unless an author says 'risky' and 'dangerous' have two different meanings, then a reader can only be logical - assume both words define a similar concept.

The report does not even discuss a greater fear and unknown during rod removals. Rods might be cracked or broken. Dropping a rod is not a major fear. Trying to remove a rod that might be shattered or about to shatter (especially when moving it) makes this more dangerous.

This 'dangerous' move from Reactor 4 building is really quite trivial. Much greater risks still remain unaddressed in the other 'melted down' reactors. Peril in reactor building 4 is less compared to the hazards that remain elsewhere. Danger, risk, peril, and hazard are four words that connote same; that define a same threat. Only a reactionary or sensational reader would disseminate confusion or misconstrue meaning by assuming those four words have different implication. Which says: all four words mean same.

tw, please do not miscontrue the quotes.

My sentence does not refer to wording in the NY Times article.

I am the author, not the reader, of the sentence adding "emotion" to my discussion of nuclear power.
As such, it is quite valid for me in include emotion in the discussion... if I so choose.

My discussion of nuclear power came after I responded to a question from BigV,
according to his criteria ("plainer, blunter, more precise and direct language")
My preceding responses to BigV's question were not at all a "re-writing" of any part of that article.

I haven't delved into the background of the original speaker, but in my training in safety assessment of equipment and processes risk and danger (hazard) are two seperate concepts.
Risk is the lilekyhood that an event will occur and the danger is what the result will be if it does occur.
That's not a common perspective, but if the speaker was an engineer then maybe that is how they used the words and a reporter editorialising and substituting would alter the meaning, possibly deliberately.

Quality in engineering does not mean something is good, just that is the same as specified