My wife and I were in Portsmouth in 2005. Susan tripped over a curb and fell down, badly cutting her face. First aid didn’t work so our friend Claire took us to Queen Alexandra Hospital’s A&E (accident and emergency) room. The woman behind the counter came out with a clipboard when she saw Susan was in pain so Susan didn’t have to stand at the window. Twenty minutes later we were taken back to the clinic where a doctor cleaned her wounds, used surgical glue to patch things up, put some plasters (UK for bandages) on them, gave us some brochures on wound care, and sent us on our way. “Where do I pay you?” I asked. “Pay?” was the response. Their feeling was that the value added tax I’d pay when buying things during our three weeks there would cover it. I walked away saying, “I think this is how it’s supposed to work.”
I have teabagger friends whose opposition to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which they call Obamacare, is that the “gummint” is “forcing” them to buy insurance. Yeah, so they don’t become freeloaders when they get hurt or sick and can’t pay, and the hospital builds their uncompensated care into their cost structure for the rest of us. (I thought paying your own way was a tea party virtue.) To get back on topic, we went to Stonehenge the next day, and got on a motorway. A sign came up for the next exit and indicated that it was 1 m away. I didn’t see the need for an sign that was only one meter from the actual exit since certainly by then one would see the exit. The UK needs to get off its duff and finish the roads. Then all that’s left is beer and milk and that is, as my next door neighbor lawyer friend would say, de minimus. Carleton From: owner-u...@colostate.edu [mailto:owner-u...@colostate.edu] On Behalf Of Martin Vlietstra Sent: Friday, January 11, 2013 14:32 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:52146] Re: U.S. and UK metrication I believe that one of the other things that keeps costs down in Europe is the way in which negligence is handled – lawyers make far less out of the system. From: owner-u...@colostate.edu [mailto:owner-u...@colostate.edu] On Behalf Of j...@frewston.plus.com Sent: 11 January 2013 08:27 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:52145] Re: U.S. and UK metrication Indeed. While the UK NHS is not perfect, it IS very good, having had to use it myself lately – and consumes under 9% of UK GDP, vs. America’s 14% of GDP using privately run providers (source MoneyWeek, a UK weekly financial magazine). One advantage of something like the NHS that keeps costs down is enormous buying power coupled with uniformity of standards (all metric of course!). John F-L From: ezra.steinb...@comcast.net Sent: Friday, January 11, 2013 3:36 AM To: U.S. Metric Association <mailto:usma@colostate.edu> Subject: [USMA:52139] Re: U.S. and UK metrication Agreed, Martin. Conservatives in the USA do something similar when they rail against the idea of having a European-style "socialist" single-payer health care system "rammed down our throats". :-( Ezra _____ From: "Martin Vlietstra" <vliets...@btinternet.com> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <usma@colostate.edu> Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2013 12:46:16 PM Subject: [USMA:52137] Re: U.S. and UK metrication All that the MP is concerned with is votes for himself. The Eurosceptic movement has convinced the British public (at any rate the stupid part of the public) that metrication is something that is being forced on Britain by the EU. Common sense does not enter the equation. From: owner-u...@colostate.edu [mailto:owner-u...@colostate.edu] On Behalf Of John M. Steele Sent: 10 January 2013 11:24 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:52132] Re: U.S. and UK metrication I wonder if the MP has ever considered fixing the daft rules on road signs and beer, vs the alternative of wasting teaching hours on obsolete units. Imperial - only good for drinking and driving. Nope, I don't think that will succeed as a tagline. _____ From: Paul Trusten <trus...@grandecom.net> To: U.S. Metric Association <usma@colostate.edu> Sent: Wed, January 9, 2013 1:33:21 PM Subject: [USMA:52129] U.S. and UK metrication Dear Mr. Percy, Thank you very much for your quick reply to my letter and especially for addressing the concerns of a foreigner. In the U.S., members of the House of Representatives and the Senate rightly refuse to receive email from anyone but one of their respective constituents, so I am honored by your expenditure of valuable time. Yet, I can also see by your second email that I have pressed one of your hot buttons. I assure you it is also a hot button of mine, and has been for 38 years. I also apologize for my bumbling email-ery. I had wanted to finish my letter to you, but if you keep reading my original message, you'll see it is incomplete. On that last point I surely agree, except to say that there is confusion enough on UK measurements without any change in education. On my visit to Edinburgh in 2009, I had to ask what the speed limit signs meant. They looked just like the ones in Germany: red circle around a number. I learned by asking that they meant miles per hour. Perhaps it is time for the UK to change fully to the metric system, roads included. My proposal is to finish what was started. Partial metrication is not metrication. True metrication is what was done in Australia: everything metric, right down to the grams of steak in restaurants and the frame of reference in warning signs ("no smoking within 5 meters"). I, above all people, do not want to promote confusion in matters of measurement. But metrication cannot succeed without teaching only ONE system. I am told that metrication was the goal of your government's actions in 1965, and, as is the case in the U.S., where an abortive attempt was made to change to metric in the 1970s, our countries still have work to do, as neither a man nor a country is an island any more. Why this obsession with keeping the measurement of only beer in imperial measurement? Is milk in imperial? I shopped in Edinburgh, and and found consumer products generally to be metric. How can a nation exist with the public emphasis on metric in some areas and a different emphasis in others? Is there a particular romance in being nonstandard? I don't know if you have this problem in the UK, but here in the U.S., the cultural prevalence of two systems of measurement, contrary to what you wrote in your article, surely does us harm. The healthcare system continues to condone the use of teaspoonfuls and tablespoonfuls in medication orders. Our Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP, www.ismp.org <http://www.ismp.org/> ) informs me that there have been, I believe, about 50 reports of unit mixups that have resulted in harm. One teaspoonful is approximately 5 milliliters, so if the units are confused, the result can be a fivefold overdose. At this very moment, I am involved in working with U.S. authorities to eliminate non-metric units in that part of healthcare in which I am involved. I want to thank you very much for the opportunity for this dialogue, and I know it must be a pain to have your Blackberry get you angry, but I have my iPhone doing it all the time (grin). I hope to continue this conversation. As I failed to identify myself before, I shall now say that I am, SIncerely, Paul R. Trusten Registered Pharmacist Vice President and Public Relations Director U.S. Metric Association, Inc. www.metric.org <http://www.metric.org/> trus...@grandecom.net +1(432)528-7724 ----- Original Message ----- From: brigg.go...@gmail.com To: Paul Trusten <mailto:trus...@grandecom.net> ; brigg.go...@gmail.com Cc: n...@nctm.org Sent: 2013-01-09 11:45 Subject: Re: It is called the INTERNATIONAL System of Units! Hello there, Imperial measurements are not going to be replaced on UK roads, not now, not tomorrow and not any time soon. Nor are we going to allow the sale of beer in litres. As such children must learn both. Why do you want to endanger road users and put children at risk by not having them learn the ONLY legal measure on our roads. Seems a bit backwards and ignorant of you. Regards Andrew Percy. Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange _____ From: "Paul Trusten" <trus...@grandecom.net> Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2013 11:39:38 -0600 To: <brigg.go...@gmail.com> Cc: <n...@nctm.org> Subject: It is called the INTERNATIONAL System of Units! Dear Mr. Percy, I am writing to protest extremely any move to revive the teaching of imperial units in British schools (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/9790670/Modern-schools-must-teach-imperial-measurements.html ). To this, you may be thinking, : "Well, you Yanks broke away from us, so this is none of your business." Not so. Measurement is everybody's business. And, the U.S. is one of the original signatories to the Meter Convention in 1875, thus making it a full partner in the building of the International System of Units. Still, what happens in the UK concerns us. I am writing today, not only to British interests, but to the educational interests on my side of the puddle in the U.S., to urge the elimination of the teaching of pre-metric units in our schools with all deliberate speed. We shall show reverent respect to those old units, by which we lived our lives for so many years. The Light Brigade will always ride half a league onward, Robert Frost will forever have miles to go before he sleeps, and people will continue to describe a slow process as "inching along." But, in terms of commerce and science, we have been in a global time for many years. Our planet is tinier than it has ever been. The inefficiencies (and, in my profession, the dangers) of there being two extant systems of measurement is a long-range practical problem that must be wrested from the political and cultural objections of the moment. Our national identities should be tied, not to our prejudice, but to our wisdom. To continue to teach the old units is to nod to the perpetuation of their continued use. In your article, you state that the coexistence of two measurement systems has not done your country Be they in London or Los Angeles, Manchester or Minneapolis, all school children should be learning only the SI metric system of measurement in school. To do otherwise would be a grand leap backward, which is opposite to the direction of the world. The chorus of naysayers, be they in your country or mine, does nothing but pull both of our lands down like quicksand. These were the same voices that told the train riders to stick with the stagecoach, and the automobile driver to revert to relying upon a horse. No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2013.0.2805 / Virus Database: 2637/6021 - Release Date: 01/09/13
