HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Citizens News, 1980-11-06, Page 4x ? ilin'in i-ri•°► ► T 7Ae—
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Citizens News Novemb.r 6 1980
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It's up to you
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Z.C.N.
Go to the polls and vote
Few municipal elections posses the charismatic
allure and colorful rhetoric often found at the
senior, and larger, provincial and federal levels.
True, the feds and the provinces have the
numbers game going for them in money and people.
And often the election planks have more promises
than a professional con on the hustle.
Yet, for the little bit of autonomy that is still left
in the hands of local governments, particularly in
the smaller towns, townships and villages, there is
a strong and urgent need to not only muster a suf-
ficient number of candidates but, more important, a
sufficient number of "knowledgeable and
qualified" candidates.
Voters in Zurich and area have many candidates
to choose from and if elected should perform very
adequately in the service of their 2ommunity.
There is an excellent mixture of candidates who
have both previous political experience or who
posses a background which be advantageous in the
political system.
It very well could be that this election heralds a
new era in municipal politics as the property
owners in Zurich and Stanley township take a more
active interest in the affairs of their community.
This can only serve to benefit all parties concerned.
This year almost every municipality in our area is
having an election. That is good! And our thanks go
to the men and women who have decided to run for
the various offices available to them. By their com-
munity minded actions these many candidates have
taken a giant stride in defeating election com-
placency. It remains only for the electorate to com-
plete this victory over complacency by taking the
time to evaluate the credentials of the candidates,
to assess the issues and then, by all means, to go to
the polls and vote on election day, Monday,
November 10.
PubNshsd Each Wednesday Ay J.W. Eedy Publications Ltd.
Member:
Canadian Weekly Newspapers Association OMarie Weekly News►apers
News Editor - Tom Cr.ech
Second Class Mail Registration Number 1385
Subscription Rotes: S8.50 per year in advance in Canada S19.S0 per year outside Canada Single copies 25d,
Association
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Rumblings
By
TOM CREECH
Gnomes
and characters
1111111111111111111.
It's election time - all around -us tvith ,Ontario
municipal elections only a few days away and the
United States president election coming to a conclu-
sion.
In light of all this electoring which has been going
on the following article appeared in the Stratford
Beacon -Herald. What caught the writer's eye was the
headline "Gnomes of Zurich."
"ZURICH, Switzerland (AP) - The first thing I did
when the express pulled into the Zurich station was to
look around for a gnome. "Having lived in England for
eight years and listened to a succession of Labor party
politicians, I knew the gnomes of Zurich for what they
were: mischievous malevolent money manipulators
responsible for most of the world's monetary
• problems.
Lord George Brown copldn't have said it better.
For it was he who popularized the term "Gnomes of
Zurich," which afterwards fell so easily from the lips
of prime ministers Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan,
According to William Safire's- Political Dic-
tionary, Brown, as British foreign secretary in 1964,
accused the "gnomes of Zurich" of making.a killing on
the revalued pound sterling when currency speculators
who downgraded Britain's credit standing forced the
Labor government to adopt another austerity budget.
A gnome, especially a neutral, non-aligned Swiss
one, was a handy bogeyman for any politician to have
around at election time. Gnome flogging was a stan-
dard feature of every paid party politicial broadcast
during my tenure in the British Isles.
The word gnome, Safire writes, was coined by a
16th -century Swiss alchemist who investigated mining
and the diseases of miners.
He says the word "is from the Greek ge-nomos,
earth dweller, and originally meant a misshapen being
who guarded the mines and quarries of the inner
earth... The mining derivation made Brown's phrase
especially apt: in Zurich, the gnomes deal in gold, a
metal that was the quest of the alchemists."
Wil Huygen's best selling Gnomes book of a few
years back_ puts the average height of a full-grown
gnome in the prime of life (about 275 years of age) at
15 centimetres.
The gnomes of Zurich are much taller - mostly
normal human size - and there was no trouble finding
them. They were hurrying In and out of banks with an
attache case in one hand and three newspapers in
three languages tucked under the other arm.
The male of the species invariably wears expen-
sive Italian loafers dangling a gold tassel and a severe-
ly cut German suit with shoulders that seem to conceal.
the coathangers from his last three hotels. He 'wears
gold -framed tinted eyeglasses, chomps on a Davidoff
cigar and carries his garishly visa -ed passport in a
handsomely tooled Florentine leather wallet.
In their attache cases, gnomes carry a calculator,
a fold -up umbrella, several financial magazines in
several languages, a Swiss chocolate bar (the gnome
quick lunch) and a bottle of mineral water (gnomes
are suspicious of everything,. especially the local
water) .
Gnome conversation is a gazetteer of pesos, baht,
zelotes, drachmas, rubles, krone, rupees, escudos,
cruzeiros; yuan, ' dong, piasters and other global
tender.
Ask ' a gnome, "How's things?" and he will
counterask if you want the computation in yen, marks
or dollars.
In general, they are stolid, almoststumpy in build,
like Swiss rhedieval church architecture. Gnomes are
prompt, meticulous, cautious, aggressive, slow with
the quip but quick with the calculator. They jog, deter-
minedly, for relaxation, and prefer the stately tea danz
to the,disco.
If someone approaches you in the Zurich airport
and whispers, "change money?" - this isnot a gnome.
But if the air reverberates with a chorus of unseen
sprites cooing "the rate today is .6171 U.S. dollars to
the Swiss franc, you know the gnomes of Zurich are at
hand."
Talking about gnomes, reminds us of the fact that
each community has certain individuals who are
referred to as "characters'.
The term "character" is not used in a demeaning
Please turn to page 9