Onesies

Deltas
For much of human history, only the very wealthy would have had clothing made just for sleeping in. In general, people were so tired from physical labour or hunger that they slept in their daily wear or, if they were lucky, an undershirt or smock", which was like a vest worn next to the skin and washed every six months whether it needed it or not. Nowadays the infant one piece romper suit or "onesie" is a way of combining a top and trousers in a loose garment which cannot be easily pulled off by a child, they are the symbol of babies and everything that is cute about them.

Lenina

Since everyone is obsessed with material goods in Brave New World, clothing is a good measure of character. On one level, clothing will tell you to what caste an individual belongs. Gammas wear green, Deltas wear khaki, Epsilons wear black, etc. But they also tell us about the society that the "civilized" people live in. For example in chapter 9, Lenina is wearing "a pair of pink one-piece zippyjamas." By that Huxley means onsies in a way implying her infantile behavior.


Question: Why would Huxley want to associate grown adults with a baby's infantile behavior?


Link to History of Pyjamas, Adult onesies, and Funzees

When Words Are Scarce They Are Seldom Spent In Vain

Deltas

Eloquence is the powerful, elegant, forcible and effective use of language. It’s persuasive, inspiring and reflects quality and conviction. Some might say that eloquence is a way of strikingly verbalizing strong emotions in such a way to be influential. The article that I found online talks about the power and benefits of being eloquent. Although this article gives tips to women on how to put more power to what they say and how they say it, I think that eloquence is a great tool for anyone to acquire and use. Just like Mark Twain said "The difference between the right word and almost the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."

This ties in with chapter 8 because John starts quoting Shakespeare like there is no tomorrow and poor Bernard doesn't understand a single word he is saying be cause of his conditioning. His conditioning has denied the right to know the power of carefully selected and spoken words, or like Shakespeare and John would say: "When Words Are Scarce They Are Seldom Spent In Vain"


Question:What is the connection between the Shakespeare passages that John quotes and what was happening in his life at the time he read them?


link to The Power of Eloquence

Benefits Of Breastfeeding

Deltas
As the oldest child in a family of three children, I have been lucky enough to see and remember when my two brothers were babies. One of the things that most sticks in my memory is seeing my mother breastfeed my littlest brother, Angel, who is now three and not a baby anymore.

The article that I found online relating to chapter 7 is about the benefits of breastfeeding. This article claims that breastfeeding helps improve mothers' health, as well as their children's. A woman grows both physically and emotionally from the relationship she forms with her baby. Just as a woman's breast milk is designed specifically to nourish the body of an infant, the production and delivery of this milk also aids her own health.
This article relates to Brave New World, because in chapter 7 Lenina is revolted by the image of two young women breastfeeding their infants. this also relates to our society nowadays. In today's society, breastfeeding is often thought of as unnecessary. Young mothers are mistakenly led to believe that formula does very well as a replacement for breast milk. Others (like Lenina) don't want to have an intimate relationship with their babies.


Question: Based on what we know so far about Brave New World why do you think that breastfeeding completely disgusts Lenina and the other "civilized" people in the World State?


Link to Why Is Breastfeeding So Important?

The Soma Of History

            

http://huxley.net/soma/

               As we know, Soma is a drug that the government uses to control their people in Brave New World. Based on this article, this drug was found and used by the Indo-Iranians about 4,000 years ago. They split into two different groups, one group was the Indo-Aryans; the other became the ancient Iranian people. Even they were different to each others, but they had the same rite, in this rite the people used the plant to make illusion. This plant was called soma by the Indians and haoma by the Iranians. This plant can make they feel happy and feel like they were connecting to a heaven and can talk/hear to their God.
 
                In chapter 5, they are in a party. They took soma, and their mouths keep saying " Ford, Ford, Ford..." many times. Some of them said that they could hear him and know that he was coming, but all of us know that to them Ford was a God. If he was a God, how could they hear him and see him. They used soma which makes they felt they could hear/see in a party. They feel Ford joins them in a party, but it is just an illusion from soma. It is not the truth, this chapter and an article below in kind of similar.

Why do they have to use a soma to have a fun time?

Does everyone have to take it? Why or why not?

Negative And Positive Effects Of Dating

                We all think that dating always has positive effects, but who knows that it also has negative effects. In this article, it tells us what is difficult and easy about dating. When you have a boyfriend or girlfriend, you can't  be selfish to others. You also have to be honest with others. The most important thing is to not be jealous before you know the truth. Usually, a boy will be jealous when his girlfriend hangs out with friends of the opposite sex. The same for a girl, she will be jealous and angry if she sees her boyfriend is with another girl. If you want to keep peace between you and your boyfriend/girlfriend, you should find out the truth before you guys break up. However, dating is not easy as we see. Dating can make you laugh, happy, feel safe but sometimes it can make you cry, sad, and feel dangerous.

                   This article is related to chapter four in Brave New World, because Lenina had a date with many men and slept with them. We know that she is a person who likes sex, but for each man she slept with before. Their love broke up so fast, but this time her love with Henry is longer than normal. Is Henry really a good man for her to be believe in? Also, Henry knows that Lenina slept with many men, but why he still loves her. Isn't he jealous? It is another story. In part two of chapter 4, Helmholtz Watson has been with too many girls in less than four years. It doesn't mean he never loves them, maybe his ex-girlfriends are selfish or didn't honest to him or really jealous because something. We can see both of them Lenina and Helmholtz have the same problems that they broke up with their love many times, maybe from the negative and positive effects of dating. Lenina also goes out with Bernard as a date, she agrees to go with him to Savage Reservation.

Why did Lenian agree with Bernard to go to Savage Reservation with him?
http://date.mx/dating-advice/negative-and-positive-effects-of-dating/

Joana Melendez-Iotas

http://www.theage.com.au/news/in-depth/how-it-feels--to-use-recreational-drugs/2008/01/09/1199554739462.html



       In the article "How it feels like to be on recreational drugs" Talks about how it is when your own drugs.Like the authors say "It's all about temporary escapism- not escaping from your life all the time- but maybe for 20 hours,it like a holiday" just like how Lenina and Henry refer to there trip in the book as a "friendly world of a soma-holiday. In the book Brave New World citizens are made to think that taking the drug "soma" is ok because in this society it's not looked down upon but encouraged by everyone to consume this drug.This drug is part of there everyday lifestyles.They take this drug in many different dosages.Once high of this socially accepted drug they are oblivious to the world around them.Just like any known drug today, users may feel more energetic and sociable, which can make it attractive to people who have social anxieties, shyness, or who lack the energy to go out and do things. This is probably the reason why in this chapter everyone is having sex orgies and having so much fun, and completely ignoring the fact that they come from hatcheries and that something must not be right with there society.This article related to ch.5 because in this chapter everyone is taking drugs and having relations with everyone and the article makes it easier to understand why it is that there acting this way.

Questions: Do you think our government should supply as with drugs that would make us do things that we usually wouldn't do just to forget what society we are living in?

2.If we was to live in this type of society would you still consume soma even if it is not mandatory to do so?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110330101242.htm

Studies find surprisingly gender differences are related to sexual harassment. That women view sexual harassment as bothersome. But it doesn't seem to be associated with distress, only when they saw it as a frightening. That for men, sexual harassment was distressing when they saw it as either frightening or bothersome.


This article relates to chapter 5 because Bernard is like forced to have sex with everyone even though he doesn't want to. He has a different mind set from everyone else and he try to blend in like everyone else.

What quote from the book makes him an different?

the history of soma

The Indo-Iranians were an ancient people who had their homeland somewhere in Central Asia. About 4,000 years ago they split into two distinct groups. One group, the Indo-Aryans, moved south to the Indus Valley; the other became the ancient Iranian peoples. Both preserved a vast body of religious oral literature which was only later written down. These scriptures are the Rig Veda and the Avesta, of the Indians and Iranians respectively. Both works describe rituals in which a plant with hallucinogenic properties was consumed. The plant was called soma by the Indians and haoma by the Iranians. Although some of the descendants of these peoples still perform their rituals, the identity of the sacred entheogenic plant has been lost and non-psychoactive substitutes are now used in place of the mysterious soma/haoma. In addition to the various non-psychoactive plants that have been used as soma substituted in both the Zoroastrian and Hindu traditions, a great number of candidates for soma have been put forward by Western investigators over the last two hundred years. Among the suggestions of more or less convincing candidates have been cannabis, Ephedra, a fermented alcoholic drink, Syrian rue, rhubarb, ginseng, opium and wild chicory.         Most of these suggestions have been summarily rejected for reasons I will not go into here. Scholars had become rather bored with the whole question as it seemed to many of them an unanswerable one. However, the whole debate was rekindled by R. Gordon Wasson during the late 1960s when he proposed a new candidate for soma - the fly-agaric mushroom. The arguments he put forward are complex; suffice it to say that many distinguished orientalists and other scholars accepted his thesis. In the late 1980s another highly plausible candidate was proposed by David Flattery and Martin Schwartz. Unlike Wasson, who had largely concerned himself with the Indian sources, they concentrated on the Iranian evidence. They suggest that Syrian rue (Peganum harmala) was far more likely a candidate since its hallucinogenic effects are well-known in the Indo-Iranian homeland even today. Their arguments are highly persuasive and convincing.
        However, just as Syrian rue seemed to be taking the place of the fly-agaric mushroom as the most likely candidate for soma, archaeological evidence emerged from Russian excavations in the Kara Kum desert of Turkmenistan that set the cat once more among the pigeons. In this area, known to the ancients as Margiana, the Russians uncovered a number of sites of monumental architecture dating from the second millennium BC. One of these sites, Gonur South, consists of a fortified complex of buildings, a number of private dwellings and a fort. Within this complex there is also a large shrine (known to have been used as a sacred fire temple) consisting of two parts: one clearly used for public worship and the other, hidden from the gaze of the multitude, an inner sanctum of the priesthood. In one of these private rooms were found three ceramic bowls. Analysis of samples found in these vessels by Professor Mayer-Melikyan revealed the traces of both cannabis and Ephedra. Clearly both these psychoactive substances had been used in conjunction in the making of hallucinogenic drinks. In the adjoining room of the same inner sanctum were found ten ceramic pot-stands which appear to have been used in conjunction with strainers designed to separate the juices from the twigs, stems and leaves of the plants. In another room at the other end of the shrine a basin containing remains of a considerable quantity of cannabis was discovered, as well as a number of pottery stands and strainers that have also been associated with making psychoactive beverages.
        The excavators believe that, given the considerable size of the fortress, the shrine may well have been dispensing the entheogenic drink to worshippers from all over Margiana in the first half of the second millennium BC. The shrine at the later site of Togoluk 1 (probably dating from the mid-second millennium) seems also to have been used to make hallucinogenic drinks as a similar pottery strainer has been found there, although traces of psychoactive plants have not been detected. The shrine at a third settlement, Togoluk 21, dated to the late second millennium, contained vessels which revealed remains of Ephedra again, but this time in conjunction with the pollen of poppies. An engraved bone tube from the same shrine was also found to contain poppy pollen.
        These sites also yielded up other artefacts that gave tantalising clues as to what sort of rituals took place in these Bronze Age shrines. Designs on a cylinder seal depict a drummer, an acrobat and two men with the heads of monkeys. The rituals that took place under the influence of the psychoactive drinks seem to have involved the participants wearing animal masks. The discovery of these sites in the eastern Iranian cultural region allows archaeologists to reach certain conclusions. First these temples, which were on the scale of contemporary Mesopotamian ones, shown that the eastern Iranian region had its own architectural traditions on a grand scale and that it was not merely a 'cultural backwater'. Second, that the sites in Margiana precede the previously discovered fire temples of later Iranian tradition (in some cases by a whole millennium) and should be seen as their prototypes. Third, that the discovery in the shrines of the remains of opium, cannabis and Ephedra in ritual vessels that are dated between 2000-1000 BC show that soma in its Iranian form haoma may be considered as a composite psychoactive substance comprising of cannabis and Ephedra in one instance and opium and Ephedra in another. This identification of haoma has an archaeological background which neither the fly-agaric nor Syrian rue can match, unless such evidence comes to light. Despite the considerable efforts made to discover the botanical identity of soma, it may be that this is one mystery that will never be satisfactorily solved.

"The Secret Formula to Attract Girls"

The article "Dating Expert Details Ways Guys Can Attract Girls" by Carlos Xuma, details ways that men can attract women. At first glance, one would think the article would run down a list of shallow and materialistic necessities, but it actually provided some interesting advice for the male specie. In order for a man to attract the opposite sex, the "dating guru" reports that he does not have to possess six figure salaries, drive a nice Porshe, or look like Brad Pitt (Alpha male physical qualities), but rather have qualities like confidence and the ability to provide (Alpha male traits). Women, are biologically programmed to be attracted to guys who "make them feel safe, secure, and able to provide for them," Xuma says. The secret formula to attract girls is to worry less about outward appearances, and instead worry about developing alpha male traits and characteristics. 

This article relates to "Brave New World" chapter four part two because it details the secret for men, who may not have the alpha male looks, to attract women. This relates to the section of the chapter because although Bernard is an Alpha male, he does not LOOK like the typical alpha male, which is in turn making him develop some sort of Napoleon complex where he has to scream, shout, and demand things in order to feel bigger than what he really is. Bernard's small stature has even began to effect his ability to attract women. If Bernard were to read the aforementioned article, he would be able to see that it's not about his looks, but rather his inner qualities that will make the ladies come running. 

Question to the Group: 

Do you think that if Bernard were to work on having the inner qualities of an Alpha male, as stated in the article, that he would be able to get more women? 

Link: www.nytimes.com/alphamales

handy info

to my fellow classmates here is a really good website for finding out info about the book link below

http://www.huxley.net/whoswho.htm

WELCOME TO OUR BRAVE NEW WORLD

Welcome Period 6 to our new blog! Think of this blog as your own morsel of the world wide web; where you can (as a group) post your collective thoughts, summaries, and reactions to the amazing novel "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley. 

The purpose of this blog is for you all to be "Brave New World" critics, where you can push each other to dissect the themes, characters, and story plot. Each of you will be assigned to a blogging team (of no more than 4 or 5 people) that will meet daily in order to complete a particular assignment. By the end of the week, the assignment is to be posted onto this blog by your selected publisher. 

To hold each of you accountable, every member of the class has the responsibility, as audience members of this blog, to post comments and/or questions to at least two blog posts each week.

In the coming days, our class will have a more detailed introduction to "Our Brave New World Blogger Project". Until then, enjoy the first week of building background for the amazingly thought provoking novel known as "Brave New World"!

Best,

Ms. Cahill & Ms. Stone