Kalistan

[Doc]

Minor Princess Debuts in Kaliburg
Her Highness tells her opinion to the Press for the first time
Kaliburg, Grand Duchy of Ananto
May 10, 5722


Her Highness, the Minor Princess, makes her Debut at Spring Formal held at the National Theater in Kaliburg

Her Highness, the Minor Princess Jennifer-Ericka Rebecca Ananto-Rosenfeld has entered Kaliburg High Society and has agreed to speak with La Moda for her first interview. "Being out in Society has its perks," she says. "I don't have to ask my mother everytime I want to go out, or every time a reporter wants to speak with me. I understand why there are rules, and I suppose not having the press hounding little kids is a positive thing, but I am 16 years old now, and I have my own opinions."

The Minor Princess sat down with La Moda's Corinne Edwards for the interview, held at Cliff House on Wilson Hill.

C(orinne) E(dwards of La Moda): Your Highness, it is a pleasure to finally get to meet you.

(Her Highness, the Minor Princess) J(ennifer-Ericka Rebecca) A(nanto-Rosenfeld): It is my pleasure. Thank you for coming to my home.

CE: First things first, how does it feel to be out in Society?

JA: It is really a blast. I mean there are still rules and everything, but debuting is such a milestone for so many of the people I know. For years I watched people I knew go through their own debuts and then they started dating and got a lot more freedom and I sort of really wanted that. I was a late bloomer, you might say, and spent a lot of time sick when I was younger, and I used to read magazines a lot, like of all the society women, with their finery and jewelry and all the gossip and everything. I was just in awe of them. And when I was 14, I wasn't sick so often, but I was still really skinny, and wondered how I would ever fit into like one of those gowns, and everything. Now, I feel great, and I look great and I really like myself and have a positive self image and just in time for my turn to be in the magazines. It's great how things work out."

CE: You've been in the press before though, haven't you?

JA: Oh that dreadful photo, yes. I looked positively goulish. That was just a couple years ago, but it was taken when I was just getting past whatever was going on in my guts. I think the doctors said it was an autoimmune thing-- But it didn't feel like eating anything for like years and I couldn't keep on any weight or anything, and I was so weak. I went to the hospital a few times and they said eventually it was something like a gluten allergy, but not that, something else. Anyway, we changed the diet to basically a vegan diet, though I do eat fish now with it, and whatever was going on cleared up. I was basically poisoning myself with something in my diet for years. I started gaining weight immediately and I started putting on muscle mass too. I could work out, I could run, I could do all this great stuff, and I caught up quick. But that picture was taken when I was just finishing up with all that. Its kind of scary how thin I was when I was 12 and 13...

CE: Did that illness affect your mental state?

JA: Well, it was just something that I couldn't do anything about, and that was the hardest part. I am a kind of person who likes to be in control of things, I like to know that I am not in a situation I can't do anything about. I like to be able to learn about things so I can understand how they are affecting me or how they can control me. I then figure out how to turn the tables, you know- If I know how they work, I can bend things to my own uses. But this was something we couldn't figure out for years. They gave me anti-biotics, basically every kind you can think of. The doctors even prescribed medicinal cannabis to try to get my appetite up. They did tests, took like a gallon of blood from me, checked everything under the sun, you have no idea. I'm not going to tell you, but let's just say, nothing can gross me out now. When we found out it was about the stuff I was eating, stuff I had been eating my whole life that my body was rebelling against, that was something I could control. Long story short, if it affected my mental state, it made me tougher, it made me kind of addicted to having that kind of control over my life, and it gave me the opportunity to learn a lot about how nutrition works in the body.

CE: So then, describe your diet for our readers. There might be someone out there who is undergoing the same thing.

JA: Well, its basically whole foods. I stay completely away from processed foods, processed wheat is a no-no for me. I stay away from a bunch of added sugar in stuff, and a bunch of fortified vitamin sprays. I eat almost exclusively farm fresh vegetables: I get to spend a LOT of time at farmers markets in the summer, and we have a home garden planted here which I get to go out into and just pick stuff off the plant and eat it right there. It doesn't get any fresher than that. I don't get to eat a lot of bread, sadly, I miss that. But my mother will make me a loaf of potato bread which I can use to scratch the itch. She makes it from scratch, its very simple and also very basic. Salads, chickpeas and legumes, lots of fruit and nuts, and I am allowed to eat as much fish as I could possibly consume. Kalistani fisheries have been restored so that we produce some of the highest quality fish on the planet, and its really good for me. I can go through three pounds of fish in a week: I can bake it with some lemon and herbs, or make it into fritters, or eat it as sushi. I have become quite the fish sommelier- I have learned how certain fishes pair with other foods.

CE: You should write a fish cookbook!

JA: Ha, I've never thought of that.

CE: Well, its good you were able to get on top of your health issues. We are all glad you are still here.

JA: The feeling is mutual. It feels great to be healthy.

CE: So besides your diet, what are some of your other interests?

JA: Well, I would say I am very interested in history, and also politics. I think I could talk for hours about politics with my mother. She's probably the best person in the world to talk about politics with. She's so smart.

CE: What sorts of things do you all talk about?

JA: We talk about how the government works a lot of the time, but we also talk about what good government is in general. When she was a little girl, her parents focused almost exclusively on her older brother. And they didn't really talk to her about government or administration or anything like this. She was the middle child, and she was sick one time, and that was when her parents, my grand parents and her brothers flew to Kundrati and then their plane crashed. So she was kind of left to sort of have to learn all that stuff real fast. She decided early on that my sister and I would be part of my brother's education. Problem is, I think I took after her while my brother, who is going to be Emperor, took more after my aunt: He'd rather skate all day, while I am in here trying to take this stuff seriously and learn it, and someday he'll be the Emperor and he'll wish he was out skating at the skatepark with his dumb friends, while I'll know all about the government, and won't have anything to do with all that knowledge.

CE: One thing we could do is get your ideas on the record here, and then someday you can look back at them and see if they changed.

JA: That would be neat. I don't think they will. There's only one correct answer to most political questions in Kalistan, I have decided.

CE: Alright then. Tell our readers your theory of government.

JA: My theory of government is that government exist to preserve order in society. That order is necessary for people to live a good life. Disorder and division in society is tolerable and will happen. Disagreement doesn't mean weakness. It just means difference of opinion. And opinions can be different as long as the structure is maintained. Like, disagreement within the structure.

CE: So you are not for democracy.

JA: Certainly not. All we have to do is look around us and we can realize just how miserable people who live in democracies really are. Take a place like Gaduridos, for example.

CE: Gaduridos? Maybe...

JA: They have a democracy there. Yes, they have a king, a new king. But they have always insisted that they should be a democracy, even when they were a constituent nation in the Anantonese Empire. They have this weird fetish for democracy. And while they were with us, they refused to allow Kalistan to correctly order their society because they had to keep their democracy. And their nation got worse and worse and worse until they were becoming a problem for our nation, dragging Kalistan down the drain with them. So my mother had to cut them off. And as soon as they get free, they start having elections again, name a king and marry him to another Empire. What does that say?

CE: Errr, I'd rather you tell me what that says, Your Highness. I'm not an expert on Gaduridos.

JA: It says to me that the democrats in Gaduridos don't have the first idea what's going on, and just resented Kalistan so much that they would rather poison a perfectly good and natural relationship with us than actually straighten their country out, follow the correct path and correctly order their society. They prefer chaos and democracy to correct order and peace.

CE: Perhaps an alternative is that they see democracy as the correct way to order their society?

JA: That's ridiculous, Ms. Edwards. Democracy is never the correct way to order anything. I don't mean to contradict you here, and I mean no disrespect, but Absolutism is the only way to correctly order a society. It makes it so the people are truly free. It's the only way that can.

CE: Perhaps, but I think there may be a number of correct ways to order the society, absolutism being the one which works best for us, but maybe Gaduridos has a different way of doing things.

JA: Their way is wrong.

CE: Perhaps we might shift subjects, Your Highness.

JA: Well, let me say one more thing about this. And this is something that I and my mother don't necessarily agree upon, but I am confident that I am right. Democracy and constitutionalism makes everything upside down. For everyone, not just Kalistan. It puts the people who are least competent, least skilled, in charge of everything. Those articles about how bad democracy is, they are right. Power is like water: it is only meant to flow down hill. That's the natural way of things. It would be weird if it went the other way, and yet this is exactly what these democrats try to make it do. To give people power over their government. It just seems perverse, don't you think?

CE: And your mother disagrees with that?

JA: Absolutely. She seems to believe that people pick their own ways of doing things. I wish I could make her understand what I am trying to say. But she is probably too much of a philosopher to ever agree with this. We've had some debates over this, and I don't feel sometimes that I can say what I mean but she always says, "Be reasonable. Imagine if the entire world were like you say it should be. You probably would only be happy if you were the Empress of that world. But if you were one of these illiterate peasants that you think inhabit all these countries, you wouldn't like it very much."

I can see that, but she's wrong: I think people crave a ruler, a person to liberate from the trouble of having to make all the decisions for yourself all the time. I see it everyday across Kalistan: People constantly sacrifice the freedom of choice between 900 relatively generic, indistinguishable options in a market if they know that one of those options is actually good. They all go with that good one and ignore the other 899 and would be stupid if they didn't. If you extend that fact to the government, you have to ask, who needs 6 or 8 equally terrible milquetoast popular parties when they are all garbage? People just need one good party, one who will get things done, and the others are just static and noise then meant to distract people from picking the one good party. We have that system in this country. So people do not have to waste their entire life trying to determine which of 8 different parties is going to hurt them the least and usually ending up picking the one that is actually going to hurt them the most.

CE: So Your Highness believes that democracy is bad because it gives people too much choice? Isn't more choice better than less?

JA: When your choices are all liberal pabulum, then no, having 4 equally bad options is not better than only having one bad option. Gaduridos just saw this when their labor party split into a hundred parties. Now PdT voters will have to decide between three Parties who agree on 98% of things, but for whom the last 2% are absolutely critical differences. How can anyone ever live in a system like that? It's abhorrent.

CE: Perhaps its a good thing that your mother, the Empress, and you continue to debate this question rather than settling it.

JA: Haha, don't even get me started on how much she likes most of her subjects...

CE: Indeed...

JA: I would tell her to invade Gaduridos, personally, get it back on the right track, with us. That would cure them of that democracy fetish they seem to be incapable of escaping.

CE: I think Lady Erika Donahue once expressed that sentiment.

JA: I am named after her, you know, Lady Erika.

CE: I suppose you are, Your Highness.

JA: She was a great woman: I admire her courage and conviction. And I also greatly admire Lady Melanie too. She has her mind in the right place on a lot of these issues.

CE: Would it be safe to say you align with the Nationalist line then, Highness?

JA: Without question! It's really the only legitimate position to have on the topic of our nation's interests. Kalistan is first, everyone else comes next.

CE: Well, Your Highness. I can honestly say, this interview has been an experience. I don't think I have ever met such a passionate young woman in my years of reporting for La Moda, who expresses her opinions with such force.

JA: I am my mother's daughter. Have you ever met her?

CE: I have never had the opportunity to meet Her Imperial Majesty, the Empress before.

JA: We could set it up for you. I know Lady Houston (Her Imperial Majesty's Personal Secretary), she'll set it up for me if I ask her to.

CE: Your Highness, that is very thoughtful of you, but I am a style reporter. I think an interview with the Empress is a little outside of my beat.

JA: Well, I guess we didn't talk much about style.

CE: No, but I feel that you had a lot to say, and we could make the argument that the expression of opinions, especially the opinion of a young woman such as yourself, who is at the very start of your intellectual journey in life, falls under a style. Attitudes change with the times, much like fashion, and it would be very interesting to see how yours change over time.

JA: I doubt they will. I'm pretty certain.

CE: That may very well be, Your Highness.

JA: Well, my mother always says only a fool never changes his mind. So I suppose there is a possibility. Either way, I did enjoy speaking with you. We will have to do it again, and I promise, next time I will stick to the topic.

CE: It was a pleasure to meet you, Your Highness. I hope you will continue learning from your mother. All of her people, at least, believe that she may be among the wisest people in this nation and you certainly could not want a better teacher than the Red Empress.

JA: I will. And I wish you a wonderful rest of your day.

CE: Thank you Your Highness. I wish you a wonderful rest of your day too.

Editor's note:

Given the several subjects covered in this interview, which our interviewer said she found to be one of the most unique she had ever done in her life, and in the interest of ensuring that this interview did not paint the Royal Family in a negative light, we submitted the unedited draft to Her Imperial Majesty's office before running it, and asked her secretary to pass it to the Empress for comment. The goal was to determine if anything the Minor Princess had said anything that would represent official disagreement with Imperial Policy. For her part, the only section the Empress asked us to not print was the rather long digression on "turning Baltusia into a plantation to support Kalistani Athosia," saying that might prove to be unnecessarily incendiary, though she explicitly did not forbid us from referring to it here. The rest of the article was annotated extensively, with spelling, word choice and typographical errors noted and corrected throughout, and style suggestions made on nearly every sentence. The author said she felt that the Empress had corrected the draft as if she were a Vrassan school teacher grading a student's essay.

The returned work contained a handwritten message, in, of course, a very unique calligraphy which is associated with Her Imperial Majesty. We have to assume that the note was indeed written by the Empress, and it read:

"Dear Editor. Our daughter is learning. We request patience from your readers. She has a strong mind and a kind heart, and may very well surprise you all some day. Thank you for treating her and her thoughts seriously--they are reflective of some of the currents in our society and while we may on occasion see things differently, we would be dishonest if we pretended that they did not exist.- CA-C."

@LaModa