Great letter, Paul.
---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2010 11:11:14 -0500
>From: "Paul Trusten" <[email protected]>
>Subject: [USMA:47183] ATTN: Mr. Jon Scott, Fox News: thank you for metric
>system frame of reference
>To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
>
> Dear Mr. Scott,
>
> This morning, while speaking on the air with
> astronomer-photographer Marco Fulle about his
> photographs of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in
> Iceland, you mentioned a distance of "a hundred
> meters" to him without referring to traditional
> measurement units. I want to thank you for using
> the metric system as the sole frame of reference for
> your viewers. Although it is not yet the everyday
> measurement system for the people here in the U.S.,
> the metric system is the legally preferred system of
> measurement for U.S. trade and commerce (Metric
> Conversion Act of 1975 as amended 1988).
>
> Part of the reason for the postponement of U.S.
> changeover to metric is that the U.S. media have
> hidden, or "dumbed down," the use of metric units
> by converting them to traditional measurements for
> broadcast. I hope you will continue to use metric
> units exclusively in your broadcasts, but I also
> hope that you were not simply using metric units
> this morning because you were "speaking to a
> scientist." The metric system is the ordinary
> system of measurement for nearly every nation except
> the U.S., and the sooner we apply it to our daily
> lives, the sooner we will be ready to compete in all
> ways on a planet which uses only the metric system.
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Paul Trusten, R.Ph.
> Vice President and Public Relations Director
> U.S. Metric Association, Inc.
> www.metric.org
> [email protected]
