Gnomes of discontent

What's with German garden gnomes?

(home of gnomes, c 2011 krautlandnews)

How can these things be so emotionally charged that a soft-spoken, sandal-wearing K-Landnews contributor is willing to put up a fight in order to keep the garden in its gnome free state?

Of course, there is no emotionally significant gnome, except animated movie gnomes. Which you shouldn't really count either. A gnome is a lump of plaster or plastic, a roundish, bearded, red hatted creature sitting in the yard, unimpressed by speeding through the universe at thousands of miles per hour.

The neighbor's cat stops a few feet from the gnome when it first encounters the new object on its daily stroll through the gardens and yards. The cat tilts its head a little, shifts the weight on its front legs like a miniature champion boxer, gets distracted by the magpie on the power line and loses interest in the gnome.

In the newsroom, the gnome discussion is not settled.

This is pure kitsch!

It's a traditional German yard ornament, we are in Germany, and I find them cute.

Kitsch is also a German tradition, we even use the word 'kitsch' in English, because gaudy is not gaudy enough.

It is worth noting that the gnome in question lies on his back and is sticking out his tongue.
It is equally worth noting that the gnome in question looks much more like a leprechaun and is uniformly mud colored.

Well, it was uniformly colored when we schlepped it home, now his little tongue is red.

You painted the tongue? 

Only the tongue, it looks great, doesn't it? Since he's reclined, he can cradle an empty wine bottle.

A vino gnome? Couldn't you..., ah,...I give up. At least it's not a Buddha.

I knew you'd like it.

....

As a matter of fact, you find a surprising number of garden Buddhas in German front yards these days. We have not tried to do a survey on the motivation for their proliferation.

How would you go about it? Pardon me, ma'm, I see you have a Buddha, may I inquire what the reason is?

Even if they gave us the usual "oh, the Americans" credit, this does not seem a good idea, at least not in our town. Maybe in a neighboring town, where they don't know us and we won't return anytime soon.