Mr. Glenn Hannigan Sports Reporter Atlanta Journal-Constitution Dear Mr. Hannigan:
Naturally I read with interest your article in yesterday's newspaper. Certainly you assume that fans of Olympic winter events are knowledgeable about the International System of Units (SI) commonly referred to by Americans as the "metric system". I was amazed to see that you changed the "the Snowbasin course, nicknamed Grizzly", from 3.0 kilometers to 1.90 miles in your article. You continued that paragraph and presumably changed the vertical drop (from start to finish) from 883 meters to 2,897 feet. Why could you not bear to tell us that skiers were pushing themselves to 145 kilometers per hour (km/h) but instead you felt it necessary to dumb down the article by changing it to 90 miles per hour. Everything taking place at the Olympics is in meters, kilometers and km/h, all of which terms relate to each other perfectly, logically, and understandably. Why must you change them? The "News for Kids" on Sunday, which I mail to my grandchildren, had a piece about the newly reinstated 'skeleton' racing which talked about the race in meters and then, inexplicably, changed gears to tell us that the 'take-off push' was about 165 feet. I have no doubt that was a conversion from 50 meters (50 divided by 0.3048 = 165).Why did the author of News for Kids Make that conversion? Also in Monday's paper, an article about speed skating by Michelle Hiskey did NOT change her reference to the 3,000 meter race. The measure of 3,000 meters is 3 kilometers. I assume that you know that. I hope that you will not accept my email as being offered in a condescending way, but I (at age 65) take all of these conversions by you reporters from metric measures to miles, feet, and inches as being offered to us as readers in a condescending way. Stop changing things from metric! Norman Werling 1240 Hunters Drive Stone Mountain, GA 30083 404-292-9328
