Interesting analogy Paul, Maybe you can tape SI unit posters in the Congressional bathrooms so people are forced to look at them everytime they make use of one :). I hope you're keeping pressure on the little Congress critters to amend the FPLA as well. Maybe with enough slow cooking the proverbial metric lobster will be ready to eat by 2010.
Mike On 3/14/07, Paul Trusten, R.Ph. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
HUH? Has USMA's PR Director lost his freaking mind? A few words from Satan's lawyer. SI has a big PR problem. Yes,it is a better measurement system. But, really--to most Americans, does "better" mean "easier?" A table of customary unit values reads like a nursery rhyme. Twelve inches to the foot. Three feet to the yard. Yes, at 5280 feet to the mile, it gets cumbersome, but I think most people don't seem to have to deal with the 5280. They just may not care about decimal, about "better." Leave well enough alone, they'd say. Or, to quote my Dad on metric, "I just couldn't be bothered." The nursery rhyme suffices. It has sufficed for two centuries. Efficient mathematical manipulation, metrological coherency, a true standard of measurement? I can hear the refrain coming from those who are far, far away from this forum: "Who gives a f---?" So, it comes down to leadership, society, industry, and, as Australian officials described, the need for a technical change in measurement practices. With regard to measurement, it is a matter of the U.S. maturing. Just this morning, I was talking to a friend about his daughter finishing her potty-training. This vast and complex nation, the nation put to melody in Dvorak's Ninth Symphony "For The New World," for all its progress, still has metrological toilet training to do. The path to measurement maturity is going to be a challenging one. We are going to have to sell the "easier" of SI. The good news is, I think we can do it, and I think we shall do it. -- Paul Trusten, R.Ph. Public Relations Director U.S. Metric Association, Inc. Phone (432)528-7724 www.metric.org 3609 Caldera Boulevard, Apartment 122 Midland TX 79707-2872 USA mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://home.grandecom.net/~trusten
-- "The boy is dangerous, they all sense it why can't you?"
