Mark, Thanks for writing a reply to this ignoramus. The Metric Maven tells me that the WSJ is strongly anti-metric and occasionally produces pieces like this.
The Wall Street Journal has a Facebook page relating to this article, and the majority of responses there disagree with Mr Panero. It’s funny how writers like Panero and John Berelmans Marciano are completely confident in writing about measurement systems without any sort of qualification or experience in this field. Perhaps we should get more engineers and scientists to do art and literary criticism. The Facebook post connected to the WSJ article is here: https://www.facebook.com/WSJOpinion/posts/1160538364126636 <https://www.facebook.com/WSJOpinion/posts/1160538364126636> Many thanks, Best wishes, Peter Goodyear, Melbourne, Australia e-mail: [email protected] > Begin forwarded message: > > From: John Altounji <[email protected]> > Subject: RE: [USMA 1096] Re: A self-styled "cultural critic" denounces the > metric system in the Wall Street Journal > Date: 24 May 2019 at 03:58:38 AEST > To: Mark Henschel <[email protected]>, Peter Goodyear > <[email protected]> > Cc: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> > > Nice response > > John Altounji > One size does not fit all. > Social promotion ruined Education. <> > Education is values first, then knowledge. > http://bit.do/tounj <http://bit.do/tounj> > > From: USMA <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Mark Henschel > Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2019 2:17 PM > To: Peter Goodyear <[email protected]> > Cc: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> > Subject: [USMA 1096] Re: A self-styled "cultural critic" denounces the metric > system in the Wall Street Journal > > My response: > Just to let everybody know I did respond to that silly article in the Wall > Street Journal. If it will make anybody feel better, even Wilbur Ross, the US > Secretary of Commerce, thought it was a silly and inaccurate article. I had > to send my responses to the idiot author of the article in pieces using > tweets since I saw no way to send the entire article. If someone has a way to > send the entire thing to the editorial board at the Wall Street Journal, you > have my permission to do so: > > > The car you drive is metric. The roads you drive on were built by metric > bulldozers and metric road graders. If you ride the subway the gauge is > standardized at 1,435 millimeters. Your photocopier is metric, as well as > your cell phone. The Wall Street Journal is printed on presses that were > built using metric units. When it is distributed electronically, the > computers are metric. All the drugs you take and alcohol you drink are > metric. US farmers sell their products overseas by the tonne, which is 1,000 > kilograms or as heavy as one cubic meter of water. > > The Russians and Chinese went to the moon and beyond in SI metric units, and > the Russians were first into space with Sputnik. Remember that Yuri Gargarin > circled the globe in a metric space capsule. > > The fact is that the USA is already at least half metric, and it is easy to > see why. For example: > > If you have a piece of lumber seven feet, three and one quarter inches long, > and cut off a piece two feet, eight and nine sixteenths of an inch long, how > much is left? Compare that to subtracting 1.82 meters of lumber from a board > 3.45 meters long. Which calculation was easier? Do you see why buildings in > metric countries go up much quicker and are less expensive than those built > in the USA? > > The fact is that 95 percent of the people of the planet Earth have already > “changed their culture” to adopt the SI metric system. There is simply no > reason to believe Americans are not adaptable enough to be able to do the > same. > > > > Mark Henschel > > > > <http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail> > > Virus-free. www.avg.com > <http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail> > > On Thu, May 23, 2019 at 8:23 AM Peter Goodyear <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > Hi, everyone, > Once again we have a writer attacking the metric system because it is suited > to modern science and technology and isn't the old-fashioned measure used by > our great grandfathers when they were tilling the soil. If it was a critique > by a metrologist, a surveyor, a scientist, – someone who has a need to > measure and calculate, – it might be worth seriously considering, but not > this piece. > > It’s the usual stuff: tainted at birth by the French Revolutionary Terror; > replacing millennia of customary measurement; indivisible by three; gave > birth to the Industrial Revolution; took America to the Moon. The only new > thing I can see there is the name of the author, James Panero, a “writer, > editor and cultural critic,” according to his website. > > We've heard this too often before. This time it was published by the Wall > Street Journal on 20 May, World Metrology Day. > > The original article in The Wall Street Journal is only available to > subscribers, but I found it posted on the author's own website > <https://jamespanero.com/> where we are told: > James Panero is an American writer, editor, and cultural critic. As the > Executive Editor of The New Criterion > <https://www.newcriterion.com/author.cfm?authorid=16>, he writes on art and > culture monthly and serves as the magazine's gallery critic. > > I bet he’s never had to calculate anything more complicated than his bar tab. > > I’ve posted it to Reddit, and comments, if any, will be here: > https://www.reddit.com/r/Metric/comments/bs2b4b/be_a_leader_not_a_liter_wall_street_journal/ > > <https://www.reddit.com/r/Metric/comments/bs2b4b/be_a_leader_not_a_liter_wall_street_journal/> > > Mr Panero's article is appended below. > > Best wishes, > > Peter Goodyear, > > Melbourne, Australia > e-mail: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > > > > > > > THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, May 20, 2019 > > Be a Leader, Not a Liter > Who needs the metric system, anyway? > > World Metrology Day is Monday. Forgive me if I don’t raise a pint—sorry, 473 > milliliters—in commemoration. This date is meant to celebrate the > International System of Units, otherwise known as the metric system. Against > pascals of pressure, the U.S. stands nearly alone in maintaining its own > “customary units” of weights and measures. We should stand tall on our own 2 > feet. The metric system has never measured up. It was customary units that > calibrated the machinery of the Industrial Revolution and took us 240,000 > miles to the moon. > > Proponents of the metric system have been metering out contempt since their > inhuman invention emerged from the French Revolution. In 1793 France’s own > customary units, including the pied du Roi (king’s foot), fell victim to > Jacobin Terror. The radicals standardized regional differences and went the > extra mile, rationalizing their measures through the blinding logic of > Enlightenment thought. > > The metric system became a symbol of modernity. More than overturning > millennia of custom, the meter also overturned man and his labor as the basis > of measurement. Nearly all customary units derive in some way from use. The > acre was the amount of land a yoke of oxen could till in a day. The fathom is > 6 feet, the span of the arms, useful when pulling up the sounding line of a > depth measure. The meter is unfathomable, calculated (imprecisely) as a tiny > fraction of the Earth’s circumference. > > Worse than the abandonment of human measure is the imposition of decimal > division. From calendars to clocks, French radicals went all in for 10. That > works well for abstract calculations, as with dollars and cents, but not when > measuring things in the real world. The Romans counted in 12s, as in the > hours on a clock and the inches in a foot. The Babylonians used 60, from > which we get minutes, seconds and degrees. A simple system of 8 still exists > in our ounces—and in computer bytes. Eight, 12 and 60 divide easily into > halves and quarters, even thirds, while a decimal system does not. A third of > a meter is roughly 33.33 centimeters, a third of a foot exactly 4 inches. > > The abstract inhumanity of the metric system may be newly measured as new > bases are adopted to replace “Le Grand K,” a platinum cylinder kept locked > away in France that has been the kilogram standard. The metric kilogram will > now be determined through a new fixed agreement of Planck’s constant, the > length light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458th of a second, and the > amount of time it takes a cesium-133 atom to vibrate 9,192,631,770 times. > It’s so simple! > > The U.S. has come close to compulsory metrication more than once. The latest > push came out of the 1970s, with metric textbooks, metric road signs, and > “The Metric Marvels,” a “Schoolhouse Rock” knockoff. President Reagan ended > the effort in 1982. > > With the European Union being cut down to size, can we hope for a return to > British imperial units, which the U.K. was forced to abandon after it joined? > A pint’s a pound, the world around, and it beats walking the Planck. > > > > _______________________________________________ > USMA mailing list > [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > https://lists.colostate.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/usma > <https://lists.colostate.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/usma> > > > <http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail> > > Virus-free. www.avg.com > <http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail> >
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