David King
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: [USMA:31448] Fw: America needs to measure up to itself Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 18:45:49 -0600 From: Paul Trusten <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: U.S. Metric Association <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Someone asked if any letters to Mr. Keane at the Herald resulted. I guess I ought to offer up the one I wrote, below:
----- Original Message ----- *From:* Paul Trusten <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> *To:* [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> *Sent:* Thursday, November 11, 2004 20:23 *Subject:* America needs to measure up to itself
Dear Mr. Keane,
Thank you for your interesting and useful /Boston Herald/ column concerning the metric system in America. Your article is very instructive for those like myself who continue to work for adoption of the metric system in the U.S.. For us, you have catalogued concisely the tools of fear, distortion, and jingoism employed by our opposition for decades.
You say that the metric system makes no sense, but you say so by using values in the context of another system of measurement in order to confuse, not to educate. Twenty degrees Celsius is in fact the start of spring, 90 centimeters is a reasonable waist size, and 100 kilograms might be considered overweight. Besides being inaccurate, it is unfair to apply these numbers to metric units as if they were associated with other units in order to scare people.
The argument about dividing things into thirds is very old and tired. This pressing need to divide things into thirds only seems to come up when an attempt is made to argue against the metric system. How often has division by three ever been an issue for you? On the other hand, having to convert sets of measurements of feet-and-inches to all inches, add the inches, and then convert back to feet and inches is a most cumbersome practice that has bedeviled us Americans for centuries. Why should we continue to be proud of that? The same decimal system of arithmetic we use to add those inches could be used instead to add millimeters, in one fell swoop, to get the total.
That the rest of the world uses the metric system might be instructive for the United States. But that is not the primary reason for us to adopt it. We should adopt it because, minus your verbal terrorism, and when it is used by itself, it is easier to use than the "system" we have been using.
As far as orneriness being patriotic is concerned, I am attaching to this e-mail the obituary of a man who fought for our country and for the metric system all of his professional life. If, after reading his credentials, you still think that metric is a tool of our enemies, I'd like to know how you arrived at that conclusion. Also, while you deprecate the fact that the metric system is the measurement language of science, our country is now losing the global science pre-eminence it once had. Could this have something to do with the lack of knowledge of the metric system among our students? Now, /that /is something you should be scaring people with.
Thank you very much for your kind attention. So as not to end on an adverse note, I am a Boston native, and with this year's Red Sox, I,too, can die in peace!
Sincerely,
Paul Trusten 3609 Caldera Blvd., Apt. 122 Midland TX 79707-2872 USA
