Tag Archives: metric system

Convert

Convert: (v) to change; transform.

All my life, I’ve been asked to convert.

As a young boy, I was threatened that we would soon convert to the metric system. Still waiting.

I had to convert to being color-blind. I wasn’t raised that way, nor was anyone else under the age of twenty.

I was told to convert to the idea of divorce, and then to the concept that dividing children between households was wise, even though Solomon passed on the idea.funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Each time it has been explained to me that for the sake of tolerance and mercy it is good that I allow for other people to have their choices.

I had to convert to the practicality of pro-choice, even though I find abortion enigmatic.

But now I’m being asked to convert to sexuality. I have always believed that sexuality is having an orgasm. I do not care how you reach that climax, nor should you be interested in my path.

But we were told to convert because of the stigma, prejudice and animosity toward homosexuality. Excellent. This made me more open, congenial and kind to lesbians and gays. Then I was told this was insufficient.

I was informed that even though lesbians and gays were “born that way,” there is another group—bisexuals—which should be included, even though their existence brings to question the assertion of being born gay. Not satisfied with the LGB community, transgenders were thrown in. Transgender actually has nothing to do with sexuality but is a processing in the lives of a few people to discover in what gender they truly find themselves.

Then, this was no longer sufficient. Even though for years it was the LGBT community, a Q has been added—for “questioning.” This is apparently for people who were not born in any particular way, who are deciding who they want to be, even though we originally said this was not something you determined.

What is obviously missing from the acronym is an H—for heterosexual.

Why would that be?

I guess if I want to convert to something, I would like to see a consistency in thought rather than trying to jump on at the amoeba stage and hang around for the entire evolution… to being human.


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Celsius

Celsius: (adj) a scale of temperature in which water freezes at 0° and boils at 100°

I was terrified.

I had to believe it was true because my Weekly Reader printed it.

This was the small newspaper handed out to me when I was a young boy. It had stories about recent discoveries as well as projections on
 what would happen in the future.

The Weekly Reader informed me that the metric system would take over in the United States in the next few years.

I believed it.

I was so frightened that I went out and tried to learn it.

That was many decades ago, and aside from a few signs adding the word “kilometers,” two-liter bottles of Coke and packaging putting milligrams in parenthesis, the United States is still metric-free.

Likewise, we still honor Farenheit over Celsius.

Even though the contention for metric and Celsius is that it’s easier to comprehend, we Americans–a sturdy lot–choose to pursue abstract numnbers, like “36 inches makes a yard” and “freezing is 32 degrees, Farenheit.”

Occasionally when my travels take me to the border of Canada, the local newspaper will list the daily temperature in Celsius. The numbers are so ridiculous. How can a 90-degree day be captured in a 40-plus Celsius?

It’s confusing.

Do I think we will ever go on the metric system or that Celsius will become the rule of the thermometer? Probably not.

It gives me pause to wonder what else was in error in my Weekly Reader. Does this mean we won’t have flying cars by 1999?

 

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