I am not sure if I can do anything for USMA or 'Metrication' back home from India. If I can be of any utility, I can be contacted <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Regards,
Brij Bhushan Vij <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Aa Nau Bhadra Kritvo Yantu Vishwatah -Rg Veda.
*****The New Calendar Rhyme*****
Thirty days in July, September:
April, June, November, December;
All the rest have thirty-one; accepting February alone:
Which hath but twenty-nine, to be (in) fine;
Till leap year gives the whole week READY:
Is it not time to MODIFY or change to make it perennial, Oh Daddy!
And make the calendar work with Leap Week Rule! ***** ***** ***** *****
From: "Carl Sorenson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [USMA:24929] RE: 30th Anniversary of the Metric Conversion Act of 1975
Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2003 20:07:00 -0700
Brian White wrote: >And why didn't anyone answer my 30 year >anniversary Metric Conversion Act email?
Actually, I had flagged the email for follow-up but subsequently forgot about it. Thanks for reminding me.
I think that, given somewhat limited resources, we should focus our lobbying
efforts on the people and organizations with the greatest influence, such as
corporations (to express our preferences), and key policy-makers
(government, media, educational, professional organizations). That way we
can make sure that specific initiatives pass. For example, we are working
on getting an amendment to the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act to allow
metric-only labeling. While the amendment won't change everything
overnight, it probably will give the USMA its best return on investment of
effort and money compared to anything I can think of that we can do right
now.
After working with USMA for a little while and thinking about what we can
do, I am coming to the conclusion that, while public awareness is important,
working with key policy-makers is probably the thing that will have the
biggest impact. If we can help convince a company to produce a metric-sized
package for consumer use, thousands of consumers may notice and become
slightly more used to the idea of dealing with the metric system. If we can
convince the AP and other news services to stop converting (at least some)
measurements away from metric, that gives people more familiarity with it.
After all, my move to the metric system was the result of years of dealing
with it in school, product labels (nutrition information), sports, and other
places.
Also, I'm not sure that we want to draw attention that metric conversion bill, especially one from so long ago. The bill was, as I understand it, quite weak. I would rather focus on specific changes that we can make and maintain so that we can point to them as evidence of the nation's conversion. People want to know why it should be an issue they should take action on *now*.
To get the government or something to really back an all-out conversion effort, I think we would need better timing. That doesn't mean I'm not pushing for as much conversion as I can, but people I talk to don't see it as something imminent. So, if we can give them something specific and maintainable, that can help a lot.
One area where dealing with the public may be useful is to get
organizational USMA memberships or individual USMA membership drives in some
potentially productive organizations. For example, when I think of all the
clubs on my campus, including engineering clubs, language clubs, and even
service clubs, it seems like we should be able to get some of them to become
members. I bet a lot of the club members agree with metrication at least in
principle, so if we could get their leaders interested we could really grow
the USMA. An organizational membership would spread out the cost and get
people involved who would never take the initiative themselves. I need to
think about this for a while.
Carl Sorenson
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