A4 - Wednesday, December 7, 1983 - North Shore News

THE PACIFIC Marine Training Institute building is more than just a welcome addition to the North Shore education scene

and the continuing development of the Lonsdale Quay area. It’s award-winning design and striking architecture provides a
new target for area photographers.

Strictly personal

by Bob Hunter

APART FROM MIX-UPS in conversion formulas
in airline maintenance manuals and the difficulties
the Marines will have when they invade because the
signs are all in metric, there is one definite advan-
tage to the federal government’s numerical nazism
(ie. metrification program).

It’s this: | no longer worry
about the temperature,
because | don’t understand
Celsius, and, of course,
distance ts as meaningless as
weight

kt's wonderful! All that ex
tra arithmetical baggage | us
ed to carry around ts banish.
ed from my mind I hive ina
wild, pure state, as innocent
as a Troberandian in a
tropical paradise

{ mean, places are ciher
far away (many digits) or
near (a single digit) and the
aw as ewther warm or cold
Why worry about degices
anyway?

As for weight, I'm quite
happy, al my age, to forget
about the bathroom scales
entirely If } cat and drink
too much, my gut gets
bloated If t don’t cat or
drink at all. at shrinks Since
my height doesn't seem to
vary much, there's very little
ceason foc me to worry about
those hind of measurements,
anyway I'm free!

That's why at's dtstecssinag
to hear Highways Muinister
Alen Fraser talk about bring.
ing back ruad signs that will
show distances tn untles as
well as thingamajiga. Good
gricf, I'll be forced back into
having some vague sense of

where | am in relation (6:

other places And maybe I'll
even know again how fast
I'm supposed to go

It's the peopte tn Nova

Scotia that I really feel sorry
for. If Premier John
Buchanan goes ahead with
his plan to convert the pro-
vince's road signs back to Im.
penal measurement, then
everybody will once again
know how far its from Hal.
fax to Sydney.

Who wants to carry thal
fond of information around
in ther heads?

Of course [’m just a poor
barbanan who has to resort
to a pocket calculator to
make sense out of the world
around him by converting
back into feet and pounds
and trying to remember what
Fahrenheit was tke Ob
viously, | must have right
brain paralysis

Although, 1's funny, the
disease seems to be rampant.
A cecent Gallup Poll showed
that a whopping majority of
72 per cent of Canadians are
having trouble converting to
metric. Not onty that, but the
percentage who find at “‘very
Gfficult’’ has actually risen
in the last few years

That's odd [f you listen to
the Metric Commission, the
job ts almost done cacept for
a few “‘Loose cnds’’ to be
tied up by 1985 1 mcan, the
metrification czars must
know what thcy’re talking
‘about. They threw away $8.6
million in the past year in
Durcaucratic fiddling, plus
another $11 million in grants.

Yet fewer than a third of
the inhabitants of the Truc

Never give 2.54 cm

North feel at home with the
great new system. Could it be
that somewhere in the frozen
bowels of the Ottawa laby-
rinth, a crack team of out-
rageously over-paid man-
darins is actually out of touch
with the mindset of the great
unwashed? [ realize it’s un-
patnotic of me to entertain
such a naughty notion, and
Bob Kaplan will probably get
me for u. But there. | said it
and I'm glad.

Aye

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WITH ANY PURCHASE AT THE RON ZALKO ACTIVE WEAR YOU
WILL RECEIVE 3 COMPLIMENTARY WORKOUT PASSES AT RON
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FRIEND AS A GIET.

Even at the msk of some-
day once again being able to
tell how far I am from Kam-
loops or finding out how
much I’m paying for food
and fabrics, I have to ap-
plaud the Ontario judge who
threw out charges against two
Toronto businessmen who
dared to sell gasoline by the
gallon.

Add to that the uprising in
Nova Scotia and hints from
Victoria that the highways of
B.C. might get bi-numerical
signs (why, indeed, two
languages but only one
system of measurement?) and
you have the makings of a
political and legal counter-
revoluuion against the small
gang of metric thugs who
have seized power in defiance
of the popular will.

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COUNTER-ATTACK AND
seatbelt enforcement pro-
grams were among the most
successful carried out by the
local RCMP this year.
_Mayor Jack Loucks told
North Van City council Mon-
day that ‘‘the seatbelt pro-
gram was pursued so
vigorously (in North Van)
that it resulted in the greatest
percentage increase in

Crackdown
is lauded

seatbelt use of all par-
ticipating centres, going from
69 percent in 1982, to 83 per-
cent in 1983.”’

Also successful in reducing
car accidents was the
Counter-Attack program,
which used a mobile breath-
testing van and published the
names of convicted drinking
drivers in the North Shore
News, said Loucks.

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