I hear you, but I think I have to disagree. The 10' tent doesn't really make them "anti-metric," but it does perpetuate the status quo of "duality is fine." We have been stuck in stasis since 1866 when "duality is fine" first became the law of the land. In 143 years, progress has been limited to: *The 1893 Mendenhall order, and 1959 adjustment of the foot and pound. *In 1994, requiring most consumer goods to have both metric and Customary net contents, under FPLA. (But meat, deli, produce, and beer remain Customary only). I suppose I should note a few things are metric-only like wine, spirits. We have backpedalled or failed to complete: *Metric in Federally-funded highways and Federal buildings. *Enforcing EO12770, making Federal agencies metric (look at NASA). *Completing permissive-metric-only for either FPLA (stalled at NIST) or UPLR (stalled by 2 States). Unless we are more agressive, it could take another kiloyear. An activity planned for a 3 m x 3 m tent would fit fine in a 10' x 10' tent AND send a message. A message that scientists and engineers should be trying to send. (there are other groups that I probably wouldn't berate for not using metric, but scientists, engineers, USMA, and a few other groups need to set the example)
--- On Tue, 10/20/09, Stephen Humphreys <[email protected]> wrote: From: Stephen Humphreys <[email protected]> Subject: [USMA:46039] Re: Fwd: USA Science Festival tents To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Date: Tuesday, October 20, 2009, 4:24 AM Sometimes the things I read here make me very surprised. There's almost a paranoia involved. Please can you believe me when I say, quoting a *tent* as 10 x 10 foot does not make the USA Science Festival anti-metric. Not even slightly. Ordinary people - far from also not equating a tent to anti-metricness - could be scared off or at least perplexed by such pseudo-warlike polarity on how people measure things. At best telling someone that quoting a tent that way is not pro-metric will make them think that people who want metrication are quirky and odd. At worst it would scare people off. I'd be less concerned about some blurb which took the size of a tent off the packet it came in in feet and be more concerned with what gets discussed INSIDE that tent. Isn't that what matters? CC: [email protected] From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: [USMA:46035] Re: Fwd: USA Science Festival Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 07:26:21 +1100 Dear Paul, Thanks for passing on the reference to the USA Science Festival information. Sadly, I guess from their reference to '10x 10 foot' Festival tent, that this is not to be a fundamentally pro-metric event. I am reminded that 'Scientists and Engineers for America and fifteen other science organizations' united to ask seven questions of the 2008 congressional candidates in preparation for the presidential elections in the USA last year. I was stunned that 16 science and engineering organisations were able to raise such significant questions without mentioning the resistance to the metric system in the USA at all. It reminded me of the line, 'There is an elephant in the room', but no-one wants to admit that it's there! See the article, 'A metrication elephant': Did you know you can get Messenger on your mobile? Learn more.
