Date: Thu, 7 Nov 1996 10:31:46 -0800 (PST)
Subject: odds and ends.

First, corrections to my last letta canton is like a province, there are
13 of them" The number 13 was based on some faint memory of something I
read in a museum the last time I was in Europe.  The truth is there are 23
Cantons and 3 half Cantons.  

"the Jacques-Droz automatons"
 The name of the builder is Jaquet-Droz (although that may be incorrect
too now that I see it).  Anyway, I didn't want anyone looking it up and
accussing me of being wrong :)

Okay, so tady you get some tidbits about swiss life.

Like most countries in Europe, Switzerland has manditory military service.
Also like many countries, they have an option to do civil service of
various sorts for about twice as long (although this option only became
available one year ago).  Women are still not required to perform this
service (unlike many countries which now require the same service from
women).  Anyway, what makes the service here different from anywhere else
I have heard of it is the time period over which you serve it.  At age 20,
you are required to serve a 4 month stint.  Then, every year from then
until you are 32, you serve 3 weeks a year.  Then, from 32 to 50 you serve
3 weeks every 2 years.  What a royal pain in the but.  Can you imagine, 3
weeks of every year, you are required to leave what you are doing (i.e.
possibly missing school, work, family wedings, etc.) and go serve for 3
weeks.  On top of this, because they have this required service, there are
very few professional military people, which means at any given time,
their army is composed of soldiers with 1.5 weeks of current training, and
most of these "soldiers" are random doofi of the street.  I learned this
in a portion of the 4 hours I spent driving to Zurich and back with my
professor.  He says one of the best feelings in the world was when at age
50 he returned all his stuff (excluding his gun, which he no longer had
because they had confiscated it after he had shot it in the air once :)
and was "liberated".  He did not aprove of the military service and I
think made it quite clear.  He used to call their 100 km training marches
prominades because he liked walking anyway.  The other bogus thing is that
everybody starts as a private 2nd class (the very bottom) regardless of
university degrees or anything.  They of course prompt anybody that has
university degrees (like my prof) to attempt to be an officer.  Also,
because my prof speaks french, he was especially desirable (apparently a
lack of french officers) so they actually made him go to officer training
at one point, but while he was there, he spoke no french whatsoever and
"acted weird" and after a few days they told him they "did not need him".
Anyway, the whole system sounds absolutely stupid and I am very happy not
to be a Swiss citizen.

On another note, women only got to vote in Switzerland in 1971 !!!
Different levels of government started to let women vote at different
times, but the federal was in 1971 (and I think that may have been earlier
than the cantons).  My prof mentioned that one of the non-serious
arguements for not letting women vote was "the men are voting how they are
told to vote by the women anyway, so they do not need their own votes".
Anyway, I though this was absolutely crazy.

One cool thing about swiss politics is that they have referendum votes 3
or 4 times a year on10 or so item.  I think it is cool that the people get
that involved.  Apparently though, very few of these "initiatives" (these
are things people want to make laws) and even fewer of the "referendums"
(these are laws that have been passed that people what revoked) pass.
Apparently Switzerland is very conservitive politically as shown by the
lack of passing referendi and the very late allowance of woman voting.

One more odd legal tidbit:  in different parts of Switzerland you are only
allowed to grow certain types of grapes for wine.  For instance, here in
Neuchatel, there is one single red wine grape (pinot noir) and 6 types of
white grapes.  These are the only grapes you can grow for wines here.  The
reasoning has to do with the governement attempting to improve the quality
of wine.  There are many other restrictions and such as well.  It all
seemed odd to me, but apparently it is quite approved of.  Also, did you
know that all grapes grown in Europe are either American grapes or are
European grapes grafted onto American grape plant roots ?  I didn't.  The
reason is that in the early 1800's a "bug" was brought from North America
that attacks grape plant roots and it wiped out the entire European grape
industry.  Of course, the American grapes were immune, and thus the
current state of affairs.  Weird eh.

They aren't getting shorter are they?  they will when I run out of things
to say :)

Aaron