Quotable Quotes and Politics

[femkes_follies]

Looking for something completely different, my Google-Fu lead me down some interesting roads today.



I give you a few quotable quotes from the Northshield list, just after their advancement to Kingdom:

"If the question had been clearly
stated in any poll "Is it your wish for the area known as Northshield
to split off from the Kingdom of the Middle to become the Kingdom of
Northshield?", we might still be a part of the Middle asking that
question today without a clear consensus. What the question did was
allow people to come together from differing agendas and live under one
roof ie a principality. The question when that new roof was constructed
was how we would live together and how we would interact with the rest
of the Kingdom. As was the case with Calontir and Ealdormere it seemed
that the prevailing culture of the Midrealm really wasn't prepared to
allow for a clear sense of limited autonomy for Northshield. This has
lead us to the road where we are today some 7 months away from the new
Kingdom of Northshield. No doubt as HE Raito and HE Caradoc have
pointed out there are those of the mind that always sought for a
separate Kingdom of Northshield. I do not blame them for where we are
today or hold them as accountable in any negative sense ie betrayal.
The majority of Northshielders came together to create a Principality.
This we did. Once done we strove for the best Principality that we
could be. This is something that we all should be ferociously proud of
for we all contributed to it's success. Unfortunately, such a life long
relationship with the Middle was not possible as is the case with the
Principality of the Mists and the West Kingdom."

And another interesting thought:

"Actually, I think the word 'separatist' does not describe well what had
happened in 1986. I was working closely with the Kingdom Chronicler at that
time. I spent all my spare time for 2 and a half weeks every month as Lady
Edwina put the newsletter together and I remember the letter from the King
that she had to print at that time. What that letter said did not explain
the background of the circumstances that generated the statement from 'His
Majesty' that the Middle did not have regions, they were 'administrative
constructs'. This letter was not directed at Northshield though I know that
at the time a lot of people thought it was. The letter was directed at the
region of Ealdormere. They were holding a warlord tourney for the region,
following the path of Calontir, to lay the foundation of an identity of
playing together for the region. Apparently 'the lady' of the warlord in
1986 did not understand that the honor of leading the troops of Ealdormere
did not extend to her. She demanded recognition, special treatment or
something and foolishly thought that if she petitioned the crown they would
agree with her. His letter was directed at Ealdormere and caused them to
organize into a Principality. The side effect was to create resentment in
Northshield which had been trying to develope a identity that could be built
on to become a Principality one day, but we were not his target. I don't
think that the thought of regions organizing into principalities so they
could become kingdoms was ever on his radar."

An especial Favorite of mine (especially at the end):

"Seriously, the poll to go principality was just that-a decision to go to
Principality status. Principality status was also, conveniently, a
necessary step toward going kingdom. Some people saw principality
status as an end goal. Some number of people certainly saw
principality status as a step closer to kingdom status, rather than an
end in itself.

But the poll questions were always strictly limited in scope; voting to
go principality was not an endorsement of going kingdom, although many
people did vote for principality status with the goal or expectation of
eventual kingdom status in mind.

(As I suspect some people voted for Kingdom status with the idea of some
part of Northshield soon becoming a principality in turn...)


Old joke: How many Midrealmers does it take to change a lightbulb?

Change? CHANGE!?!? That was *Cariadoc's* lightbulb!!!!"

More thoughts from these interesting folks:

"But the point is that Calontir is small enough that the Crown could
visit every group, every year, between the summer and winter reigns,
even with a shorter heirship. The Heirs don't have to make up the
Crown's travel slack.

Northshield is small enough (in terms of the number of groups) that our
royals could do that, too. There is no real need for a long heirship
for Nortshield; it is mostly just convienient logisiticly. (except for
the Heirs, and they don't have to jump in with both cars, either.)

But for the Midrealm, it's pretty much impossible for the Crown to get
to every group, every year. Or even every other year. Which I think
is a good sign that even after we leave, the Midrealm will still be too
large for good governance."

And from the Stallari minutes from 2000:

"HE Fiona reported on behalf of Mistress Libbet that there were more participants in the Northshield regional A&S Faire than in any other region ; Northshield had 80 entries and Pentamere, for example, had 15.This is typical.All of the Pentathlon entries at Kingdom will be from Northshield.There were approximately 125 attendees at the Faire"

Which makes me wonder: Does Northshield have more talented people? Or was the Principality Faire conducted in such a way as to garner more interest - in short, did A&S faire matter more in Northshield? And why?

*ponder*