2001-04-24
Maybe, just maybe the 40 % of the companies that are metric carry the
economic load of the other 60 % that aren't. Plus all of our technological
developments happened in laboratories where metric is used. It seems the
metric system is behind every success story, directly or indirectly, even if
the public is blinded to it.
John
Keiner ist hoffnungsloser versklavt als derjenige, der irrt�mlich glaubt
frei zu sein.
There are none more hopelessly enslaved then those who falsely believe they
are free!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nat Hager III" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, 2001-04-24 15:53
Subject: [USMA:12424] Kansas City Star
> Actually this is rather encouraging. They sound worried!
>
> <g>
> Nat
>
> 2001 The Kansas City Star Co.
> THE KANSAS CITY STAR
>
>
> April 22, 2001, Sunday METROPOLITAN EDITION
>
> SECTION: METRO; Pg. B1 ;C.W. GUSEWELLE
>
> LENGTH: 591 words
>
> HEADLINE: America can still make do without move to metric system
>
> BYLINE: C.W. GUSEWELLE
>
> BODY:
> After something like five decades of legislating, lobbying and
> public skepticism, metrication - the crusade to impose the metric
> system on America - is a dragon that refuses to be slain.
>
> If you doubt that, get on the Internet, look up the U.S. Metric
> Association, and see where it leads you.
>
> Over the years, the message from proponents has been the same.
> Unless we convert to the metric system of weights and measures that
> is the standard in Europe and much of the rest of the world, we're
> doomed to suffer terrible disadvantage in trade, science, education
> and other important areas of our national life.
>
> One might reasonably ask why it is, then, after all this time,
> that the U.S. economy still is the most robust in the world, that we
> remain the leader in volume of foreign trade, and that students the
> world over pray for the opportunity to be educated in the
> universities of this most backward of nations.
>
> We have measured in inches and feet and in gallons, pounds and
> ounces from colonial times to the present, and judging from what's
> become of us, we do not appear to have suffered any major harm.
>
> True, it's not how most of the world does it. But we're different
> from most of the world in many areas - law, governance, manufacture,
> human rights and conservation, to name a few. And are very much the
> better for it.
>
> Do not imagine for a minute, though, that metrication is a dead
> issue. The passion for meters, liters and kilograms simmers just
> under the surface, nurtured by committed interest groups and,
> indirectly, by the fabulous - and fatuous - notion of a world without
> borders, the so-called global village.
>
> National sovereignty, the catechism maintains, is a narrow and
> malicious conceit that must yield to the larger good. The European
> Union is seen as a model, although the zeal for it is far from
> uniform. Some members were dragged kicking and screaming into the
> club.
>
> And when economies go sour, the common currency gets anemic, or
> foot-and-mouth infects some member's herds, one gets a revealing
> demonstration of the fragility, the conditionality, of the community.
>
> The plain fact is that there is no one Europe, just as there is
> no global village. We are different peoples, shaped by our histories,
> our experiences and our luck, driven by different needs, guided by
> different values.
>
> But those who would have it otherwise are determined to bend us
> to their will. Just ask Steven Thoburn, the British grocer who
> recently was fined, placed on probation, and faces tens of thousands
> of dollars in court costs for violating the Weights and Measures Act.
>
> Actually, the measures we Americans use were derived from the
> so-called "Imperial" system, developed in England over more than
> 1,000 years, beginning in the reign of Edgar the Peaceful and given
> formal standing in 1215 in paragraph 35 of the Magna Carta.
>
> But England, as you know, now belongs to the European Union. So
> what was grocer Thoburn's offense? He sold a customer a bunch of
> bananas, weighing them out in pounds and ounces, without using the
> metric measures obligatory for the conduct of business in the member
> countries.
>
> Now I'm all for rooting out high crime wherever it's found, and
> punishing evildoers to the full extent of the law. Why just fine the
> grocer? Why not take off the rascal's head?
>
> Anything to save the community - which must not be too durable if
> a single bunch of bananas can put the whole jerry-built structure at
> risk.
>
