Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Weekly Wikipedia Find: Haemophilia in European royalty

Aristocratic inbreeding again, Justin? I know, I know. But its an awesome concept. Incest: an awesome concept? Yes. Yes! YES!!

The only problem with incest (yes the only problem) is that it tends to allow the propagation of undesirable traits such as a horrible underbite or excessive bleeding. Yes, today's focus of the royal intermarriage corner is haemophilia in European royalty.

Haemophilia, the inability of the body to control blood clotting, was passed among the houses of Europe by that nineteenth century queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland's Victorian era, Queen Victoria, who likely developed the condition through spontaneous gene mutation. From there, she passed this gene to her son Leopold, an inconsequential heir (fourth in line!) who would die from the excessive bleeding, and princesses Alice and Beatrice, consorts of Princes of Germany. And through their children, the disorder would reach the houses of Prussia, Russia, and Spain. Natural selection at its finest.

Of course, today it is sad to report that hemophilia is extinct in the Royal Houses of Europe, but there is still hope that it does in fact still reside, hidden, waiting, in the genes of a female descendant of Victoria.

Wikipedia by Week
Week Thirty-Seven: Library of America
Week Thirty-Six: Honeypot
Week Thirty-Five: Glasgow smile
Week Thirty-Four: Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel
Week Thirty-Three: Mono no aware
Week Thirty-Two: Royal intermarriage
Week Thirty-One: Amputee fetishism
Week Thirty: Turtles all the way down
Week Twenty-Nine: The Diogenes Club
Week Twenty-Eight: E pur si muove!
Week Twenty-Seven: Unico
Week Twenty-Six: Panopticon
Week Twenty-Five: Legendary
Week Twenty-Four: Ostern
Week Twenty-Three: Kilroy was here
Week Twenty-Two: Jack Parsons
Week Twenty-One: The Wold Newton Universe
Week Twenty: Anonymous
Week Nineteen: Monty Hall problem
Week Eighteen: Brown Booby
Week Seventeen: Dieter Dengler
Week Sixteen: New Jerusalem
Week Fifteen: Technological Singularity
Week Fourteen: Numbers Station
Week Thirteen: Culper Ring
Week Twelve: Mary Sue
Week Eleven: Byford dolphin diving bell accident
Week Ten: Deep-sea gigantism
Week Nine: Bloop
Week Eight: Rat king
Week Seven: Gustave Doré
Week Six: Tomorrow
Week Five: Borscht Belt
Week Four: Swampman
Week Three: Chinese room
Week Two: Ambrose Burnside
Week One:
Lolita fashion

Labels: , , , , , , ,

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Weekly Wikipedia Find: Royal intermarriage

I like the idea that all of the royalty of Europe is interrelated. It is a highly insular aristocracy, paranoid to such a degree for fear of that taint which is plebeian blood.

The purity of bloodlines. Such a class distinction. A limit on social rising. One can only rise so high. You Icaruses need not even apply.

Of course, when it comes to such purity, there is only a limited supply. Royal intermarriage eventually means royal interbreeding. Interbreeding of course being incest. Fuck your cousin (Not that there's anything particularly wrong with that. Certainly not against the law most places, even less so past beyond first the rest of places. I'm just saying).

Sure the occasional cousin fucking might be a-okay with your genepool. The problems start to arise with the constant cousin fucking. Thats when you get things like the Habsburg lip in your House of Habsburg. And that doesn't clean out easy. Tends to leave a stain.

Wikipedia by Week
Week Thirty-One: Amputee fetishism
Week Thirty: Turtles all the way down
Week Twenty-Nine: The Diogenes Club
Week Twenty-Eight: E pur si muove!
Week Twenty-Seven: Unico
Week Twenty-Six: Panopticon
Week Twenty-Five: Legendary
Week Twenty-Four: Ostern
Week Twenty-Three: Kilroy was here
Week Twenty-Two: Jack Parsons
Week Twenty-One: The Wold Newton Universe
Week Twenty: Anonymous
Week Nineteen: Monty Hall problem
Week Eighteen: Brown Booby
Week Seventeen: Dieter Dengler
Week Sixteen: New Jerusalem
Week Fifteen: Technological Singularity
Week Fourteen: Numbers Station
Week Thirteen: Culper Ring
Week Twelve: Mary Sue
Week Eleven: Byford dolphin diving bell accident
Week Ten: Deep-sea gigantism
Week Nine: Bloop
Week Eight: Rat king
Week Seven: Gustave Doré
Week Six: Tomorrow
Week Five: Borscht Belt
Week Four: Swampman
Week Three: Chinese room
Week Two: Ambrose Burnside
Week One:
Lolita fashion

Labels: , , , , ,

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Weekly Wikipedia Find: The Wold Newton Universe

It must be literature week here at The Genius Defines. Just kill me now, eh? Am I right, guys? Am I right or am I right?

The Wold Newton Universe takes noted science fiction author Philip José Farmer's notion that famous literary characters were all members of the same bloodline (the Wold Newton Family) and runs with it. This bloodline includes Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, Doc Savage, Solomon Kane, The Time Traveller, Allan Quatermain, Fu Manchu, Philip Marlowe, James Bond, etc. (OMG tag heaven!!1!). Of course, this is no ordinary bloodline to include all these exceptional individuals. Rather, it has been effected by the meteorite that struck the village of Wold Newton in 1795. That's the real-life meteorite which struck the real-life village of Wold Newton in the real-life 1795. The town's descendants then are gifted with extra endowed with intelligence and strength becoming of their fictional statures. Also, a community does not make a bloodline.

Onto the actual expansion of this idea is the sense that these now connected characters can infinitely extracted upon and within each other, looping and looping, so that 90% of all fiction (EVAR!) takes place in Farmer's mind as he shakes a snow globe. It's intertextuality, people; when will you learn (I might remind you that Spock is a descendant of Sherlock Holmes).

Wikipedia by Week
Week Twenty: Anonymous
Week Nineteen: Monty Hall problem
Week Eighteen: Brown Booby
Week Seventeen: Dieter Dengler
Week Sixteen: New Jerusalem
Week Fifteen: Technological Singularity
Week Fourteen: Numbers Station
Week Thirteen: Culper Ring
Week Twelve: Mary Sue
Week Eleven: Byford dolphin diving bell accident
Week Ten: Deep-sea gigantism
Week Nine: Bloop
Week Eight: Rat king
Week Seven: Gustave Doré
Week Six: Tomorrow
Week Five: Borscht Belt
Week Four: Swampman
Week Three: Chinese room
Week Two: Ambrose Burnside
Week One:
Lolita fashion

Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,