[USMA:36591] Who keeps the metric system down? ... We do ... We do.

[Pat Naughtin]

Title: Who keeps the metric system down? ... We do ... We do.

Dear All,

I found this blog reference to the Lyn Nofziger article that was posted here some weeks ago.

http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench/news/2893/keeps-metric-system-down

You may be interested in the comments, especially one from Paul Trusten.

I quote from the blog:

Who Keeps the Metric System Down?
In a Washington Post remembrance of the late Reagan Press Secretary Lyn Nofziger, long time friend and political rival Frank Mankiewicz claims that they worked secretly to kill the metric system in the United States:

... during that first year of Reagan's presidency, I sent Lyn another copy of a column I had written a few years before, attacking and satirizing the attempt by some organized do-gooders to inflict the metric system on Americans, a view of mine Lyn had enthusiastically endorsed. So, in 1981, when I reminded him that a commission actually existed to further the adoption of the metric system and the damage we both felt this could wreak on our country, Lyn went to work with material provided by each of us. He was able, he told me, to prevail on the president to dissolve the commission and make sure that, at least in the Reagan presidency, there would be no further effort to sell metric.

It was a signal victory, but one which we recognized would have to be shared only between the two of us, lest public opinion once again began to head toward metrification.

I must say that I have been intrigued by the word 'do-gooder' since I read Nofziger's initial article. I can't get out of my head the inverse of 'do-gooder'. Does Nofziger regard himself and his 'long time friend and political rival Frank Mankiewicz' as 'do-badders'.

I also wonder if either Nofziger or  Mankiewicz was ever aware about how much they have cost the USA by their decision to oppose the metric system, and their effective sabotage of metrication, during the Reagan administration.

Cheers,

Pat Naughtin
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216
Geelong, Australia
61 3 5241 2008
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.metricationmatters.com

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