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DURING THE SUMMER OF 1957, CBS RADIO PRESENTED THE STAN FREBERG SHOW AS A SUMMER REPLACEMENT FOR THE BEST OF BENNY--perhaps the last great example of comedy on Old-Time Radio, tending mostly to satiric sketches and routines crossing into parody.

On occasion, Stan Freberg would use as running gag the idea of referring to foreigners appearing on the show as "Swiss--that way, we don't offend anybody." (Playing, no doubt, on the neutrality of the Swiss Confederation on the international stage, even if they've resisted membership in the United Nations until some 15 years ago ... and still resists joining the European Union.)

Never mind that Switzerland recognises four official languages (French, German, Italian and Romansch, to be exact), or their storied financial secrecy having been humbled by international campaigns against money laundering forcing some semblance of transparency along the Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich, or even the likelihood of tweaking their monetary policies so as to reduce dependency on the gold standard, or--well, you get the idea.

Still, though, you have to wonder if the idea of referring to foreigners, irrespective of nationality, as "Swiss" so as not to offend anybody does sound a bit interesting. As for how the Lou Dobbs/Glenn Beck/Michael Savage element would react--that's anybody's guess. 

Meanwhile, in case you want to gen up on the latest from across Switzerland, there's always SwissInfo.org, the online portal of Swiss TV/Swiss Radio International for Swiss news, sport, business and culture.

(Did I mention their also having streaming audio?)

Oh, and another interesting thing Swiss: From the mid-1930's until the mid-1990's, they had a rather interesting hybrid of radio and Muzak known as the Telefon Rundspruch, which offered six channels of news, music and light popular programming transmitted over telephonic lines; a necessity considering the mountainous terrain of Switzerland not usually conducive to traditional radio reception.