[USMA:30930] RE: Olympics, California, and SI

[Carleton MacDonald]

I think you are right.   Some think that the unfettered free market will bring this about over time.  Some members of the free market, including some on this list, are doing an admirable job.  But many are not, and will not.  The free market does not exist in a vacuum.  Some corporations have great power and can manipulate the political process to their ends.  Some politicians kowtow to them.  Some listen only to the whiners because only the whiners are making themselves heard - the "no" is a thousand times louder than the "yes".   It will take the government, exercising its Constitutional power to "fix the standard of weights and measures", to bring metrication about in the US.  Given the political polarization in this country, we'll be lucky if my grandchildren, when they get to middle age (and no I don't even have grandchildren; I just got the last kid out of high school), see "km" on the freeway distance signs.   Carleton -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf Of Harry Wyeth Sent: Sunday, August 29, 2004 06:38 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:30923] Olympics, California, and SI As US Olympic watchers are aware, NBC's treatment of track and field events has been horrible, metrically-speaking.  Not only have the results of field events been reported exclusively in FFU/IFP (DAUs!), but the primary running commentator, Marty Liquori, always seems to report the progress of runners in terms of miles and yards. Six hours from now, when the men's marathon is run, I can almost guarantee a repeat of the same stuff.   As someone posted here, they did the same four years ago, and we complained, and nothing happened. And the same thing happens in the Winter Olympics.  And nothing happens when we complain to the AP about their news articles, or to almost anyone else, for that matter.   And now our "Governator" will cave in with California abandoning SI in road construction.   I have believed for years that, with some exceptions like soft drink bottles, the US will never really, really, convert to SI unless the federal government forces the issue.  It's a pretty sad state of affairs.   HARRY WYETH