How Cheerleading Is a Sport Essay Example for Free

How Cheerleading Is a Sport Essay Many consider cheerleading not a sport, but the New York Times states, one of the quickest growing sports for girls in our country today is cheerleading. Additionally, the New York Times doesn’t differentiate between sideline and competition cheerleaders. Sideline cheerleaders are on the sideline cheering on the football team and getting the crowd pumped for the football game. A competition cheerleader competes against other schools or teams in competitions that last two minutes and thirty seconds which consist of stunting, tumbling, dancing and jumps. Cheerleading is a sport because it is made up of teamwork, vigorous practices, it’s very dangerous, and it has rules and guidelines like any other sport in today’s society. Teamwork is the most important aspect in cheerleading. â€Å"Teamwork is not only crucial for executing the pyramid or stunt, but also to prevent injuries. Additionally, judges look at a squads ability to function and perform as a team demonstrated by synchronization and execution of stunts† (Allen). Teamwork is defined as everyone working together to achieve a common goal. The main goal for a cheerleading competition is to get first place, but that doesn’t always happen. To achieve this goal, everyone has to be ready to go and work together, but also communicate as a team. A competitive cheerleaders’ goal is to do all they can to win the competition overall. Cheerleading is a sport that involving people working together as a team, but without cooperation, synchronization, and communication, first place is not attainable. To be a cheerleader, you have to go to practice just like any other athlete. Cheerleaders have vigorous practices just like football. Competitive cheerleading is a sport that includes strength. For a person to be a cheerleader, you must be in shape and flexible because in a cheerleading routine you need to be able to tumble, stunt, jump, and dance without stopping for the entire two minutes and thirty seconds. Cheerleaders must learn to tumble, just like gymnasts. The only way cheerleaders will learn to tumble is if they attend practice and work hard without ever giving up. A cheerleading practice consists of conditioning, going over the routine full out over 50 times, jumping, tumbling, stunting, dancing your heart out, and even more conditioning. Cheerleaders perform stunts that require strength. In a stunt, flyers are tossed in the air, by their two bases and back spots in different stunts that require strength, teamwork, communication, and cooperation. To be able to perform the very challenging stunts, cheerleaders need to condition and workout like any other sport that competes. Cheerleading is considered the number one dangerous sport for girls in todays country. Sports injuries for cheerleading appear in the ER more than five times the number of any other sport. According to LiveScience staff, cheerleading injuries account for more than 67 percent of sports injuries (LiveScience). While watching a routine, you will see that most cheerleaders will have on an ankle brace, a knee brace, or a wrist brace. They wear braces because cheerleaders easily get hurt and they have to wear a brace to be able to cheer and not reinjure themselves. In most cases, the cheerleaders will continue to wear the brace after their injury is healed because they don’t want to hurt their previous injury. The most common injuries are ankle sprains. Cheerleaders may need surgery for some of their injuries because in most cases a cheerleader could of torn their MCL or ACL. That means the cheerleader could be out for months. In worst cases of injuries, their have been cheerleaders that have broken their necks in stunts, like pyramids or basket tosses. There have been cases in which cheerleaders have died because they have fallen out of a stunt and onto their head causing brain damage. Many consider cheerleading not a sport because they don’t use balls, but that’s not true. Cheerleading has rule and guidelines just like any other sport in the world. The rules and regulations in cheerleading are very strict. Some rules in cheerleading are routines must not exceed 2 minutes and 30 seconds. A cheerleading routine must be performed on mats or spring flooring. In addition, each athlete must wear his or her uniform and jewelry is prohibited. If a judge catches jewelry on a cheerleader, they will deduct points for appearance. If a bobby pin or clip hits the floor, the team gets points deducted. Props such as flags, banners and pom pons are allowed. Also judges are the ones who judge the routines. The judges are like the referees in a football or basketball game. The judges will judge a routine on motions, dance, tumbling, jumps, facial expressions, and their overall performance. Many Americans think that cheerleading not a sport, but by the definition of a sport, cheerleading is considered a sport. â€Å"A sport, according to the Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Advisors, is a physical activity or competition that competes against or with an opponent, governed by rules and regulations under which a winner is declared, and primary purpose of the competition is a comparison of the relative skills of the participants† (Renee). Many say that competition cheerleading is a sport, but not sideline. In my opinion, any type of cheerleading is a sport because there is a chance that at games, an injury may occur. Sideline cheerleading is considered a sport, just like competition cheerleading, because most high schools use their sideline team as their competition team. Also at games the sideline/competition team will perform very risky and complicated stunts that people might get seriously injured.

Transactional Vs Transformational Leadership

Transactional Vs Transformational Leadership This essay is required to conduct a better understanding of leadership styles transactional and transformational leadership styles from researching on Richard Branson and Steve Jobs success, and discuss about different types of changes (incremental and radical changes) may occur in an organisation in order to learn change management methods can be applied to a real case (Virgin Group). Although both of the excellent leaders exhibit characteristics of both transactional and transformational leadership styles, this essay will identify Steve Jobs as a transactional leader and Richard Branson as a transformational leader with three reasons for each statement. This essay will identify and describe six examples of changes (incremental and radical) for each leader (three examples each type). At last, this essay will discuss about the concepts of change management and explain Kotters 8-Step Change Model by applying to a real case (Virgin Group). Transactional Leadership VS Transformational Leadership Good leadership is the key to the success of an organization. Transactional leadership is performance-oriented and transformational leadership is people-oriented. To be more specific, transactional leadership involves reinforcement to monitor and justify followers performances by using reward and punishment, while transformational leadership tends to inspire and motivate the followers loyalty and concentration by leaders charisma. Steve Jobs as Transactional Leader Transactional leaders characteristic behaviours are: (Barbuto, 2005) Contingent Reward Contingent reward is actually a usual way that most of the managers use to motivate teams, create positive competition and improve effectiveness. Steve Jobs had the impressive ability to notice talent and active employees and allocate them to the right place in the company. Each year, Jobs took his top 100 people on a retreat. It is not only a reward as a vacation, but also an acknowledgement from STEVE JOBS! In my opinion, acknowledgements from successful genius would be the best reward for my hard working. Management by exception Transactional leaders take actions based on the exceptions (performance) of the employees. Steve Jobs categorised his followers as either geniuses or bozos, and quickly firing those who fall in the latter camp (Greene-Blose, 2012). Another characteristic of transactional leadership would be the desire for control which is typical Steve Jobs style. His favourite presentation tools were a whiteboard and a Magic Marker, which gives him fully control in the conference. After his reinventing Apple, Jobs had several weeks of product review sessions. Finally he run out of patience and shouted the team to stop, grabbed a Magic Marker to the white board and wrote down four words: Consumer, Pro., Desktop and Portable. Then he said:Here is what we need! (Isaacson, 2012) This is Steve Jobs, full of power and passion, who gave clear incentives and strategies to his followers with his wisdom and visions. Richard Branson as Transformational Leader Transformational leaders characteristic behaviours are: (Barbuto, 2005) Idealized influence Richard Branson has become a role model for his followers inside or outside of his Virgin Empire by his own passionate and fearless life style. With his own words, You want to create something you are proud ofà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ That has always been my philosophy of business (Branson), Richard Branson broke many world records such as the fastest recorded Atlantic crossing by boat, the first Atlantic crossing by hot-air balloon, etc. He proved that anything is possible to his followers and the rest of the world with real examples. (Ocker, 2008) Inspiration motivation Richard Branson is a visionary leader with dreams and relentless work attitude which make those dreams come true. At the early stage of Virgin Group business, he once said:I want Virgin to be as well-known around the world as Coca-Cola. (Branson) After decades of time, the brand of Virgin have become world well-known, and covers many different areas of business which Coca-Cola wound not dare to try. Those kinds of ambitions and courage ties his group together and close, and leads him to keep on improving Virgin Group services and productions. Individualized consideration Richard Branson business maxim is staff first, customers second and shareholders third (Locke, 2009). One of his most famous and interesting story would be the lawsuit against British Airways for its protracted libel actions and ended with a settlement of about  £600,000 total. After Richard Branson got the money, he divided it to all his employees for their hard working. It was not only a reward, but more like sharing a triumph. On the other hand, the major reason of Richard Bransons business success is that he takes care of customers needs with innovations and consideration, such as placing a rubber ducky in each bathroom of Virgin-owned hotels in order to make guests feel ate home, putting Listening Posts in their record stores and allowing customers to listen to entire CDs before purchasing. (Richard Branson Virgin) In general, transformational leadership style is considered more as a friendly and flexible way to organize a company, while transactional leadership is considered more tough and efficient. It is hard to say which one is better. All the good leaders all over the world (include the two above) have the characteristics of the both leadership styles., such as Steve Jobs charismatic characteristics and spiritual motivating speech skills (Transformational), and Richard Branson strict management ways on the lower level positions in the organisation (Transactional). Transformational leadership does not replace transactional leadership but improves the effectiveness of transactional leadership from a different angle. (Bernard, Bass, Riggio, 2005) Incremental Changes VS Radical Changes Changes are inevitable in human lives as well as in business operations. Incremental change takes place over a long time period for development purposes, while radical change is more often triggered by a crisis or a business opportunity. There are several differences listed in the following table. Incremental Changes Radical Changes Reasons Business development Expansion Dealing with crisis Seizing a significant business opportunity Period Long period of time Short period of time Examples Improvement Such as TQM, new system implementation Revolutionary changes Such as restructuring, merger, take-over Approaches types May be small, slow, on-going May be onetime events, quick Respond and effect Hardly noticed by the management level Immediately adapt May cause resistance to changes Steve Jobs Incremental Changes Example1: Pixar In 1986, Steve Jobs bought The Graphics Group from Lucasfilm for $10 millions, changed the name to Pixar and started his career in animation manufacturing. With his visionary plans and technology support from his computer company NeXT, Pixar developed a software package called RenderMan (which has been widely accepted and used in filmmaking industry). RenderMan was implemented into the existing Pixar production line slowly in order to improve quality of the products. After ten years time, Pixar finally achieved an amazing success in the animation filming industry. It kept producing a series of animation films, beginning with Toy Story (1995), which led Pixars worth to over $1.5 billion. It took 10 years to implementing and perfecting the new software into production and transferring Steve Jobs leadership style into Pixars existing operation, and achieves a remarkable improvement at the end. This is an incremental change made by Steve Jobs. Example2: Digital hub strategy After Steve Jobs returning to Apple in 1997 as an interim CEO, he successfully brought Apple back to profitability with a amazing consumer desktop computer iMac. By facing negative predictions about proclaiming PCS would disappear within a couple of years, Steve Jobs continuously led Apple to keep on perfecting i products with the meaning of internet, individual, instruct, inform and inspire as the same way Apple always do. (Steve Jobs introductory 1998 iMac slide show) In 2001, Steve Jobs unveiled the Digital Hub Strategy to the public and in the next 10 years time he kept on launching a series of new products which extremely changed and led the trade of the whole world. (Kurian, 2012) There was an interesting event that Steve Jobs called himself as the iCEO of Apple instead of interim CEO humorously which entertained the public very much (Macworld San Francisco 2000). It was also a smart way to promoting i products while teasing with the board of Apple for rehiring him as a temporary executive officer. This huge successful change took 10 years to be accomplished followed by Steve Jobs leadership piece by piece. It maintained the old producing direction and improved production qualities. It was a long period on-going process of implementing Jobs wisdom into Apple Company. Example3: Retirement from Apple Steve Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003, but he kept on denying any serious problem. That is why everyone was surprised when Apple announced that Steve Jobs would not go on stage for the Macworld keynote in 2009, and he took six months off at the same year. Jobs finally resigned as CEO of Apple in 2011 but remained as the Chairman of the companys board, and he passed away after 6 weeks. (Kurian, 2012) There may be some radical changes involved for damage control purpose, but in general, Steve Jobs took care of his retirement carefully and smoothly to avoid negative impact within 3 years time. For instance, he distributed his responsibilities to other executives step by step, and before his final resign, he strongly recommended Tim Cook in written, that letter was released to the public later in order to retain faith. The whole process was carefully planned and implemented in a long time step by step. In my opinion, it can be an incremental change. Steve Jobs Radical Changes Example1: Macintosh VS Lisa In the early 80s, Apple was creating a business-oriented computer named Lisa under Steve Jobs supervising, but later after that, Steve Jobs thrown out of the Lisa project because of his bad temper. He was so angry and decided to take revenge by developing a small project called Macintosh in order to destroy the sales of Lisa. (Kurian, 2012) It was a radical strategy. Macintosh had user-friendly interface (point-and -click) which inspired other computer manufactories and changed the direction of computer industry since then, but it was not as welcome to the market as Jobs expected though. At that time, IBMs PC was more compatible with its cheaper price. Because this action was taken rapidly without well planning and careful market researching, Macintosh project failed. Example2: Staging a Coup There was another revenge taken by Steve Jobs after his removal from Lisa project, he tried to stage a coup. As we all know, he failed again. (Kurian, 2012) It was a restructuring plan, and he took actions rapidly. But without endorsement from Apple board of directors and support from other colleagues, he got fired from his own company. Example3: Reinventing Apple By 1996, Apple rehired Steve Jobs as an informal adviser to the CEO. At that time, Apple was keeping on losing money and Steve Jobs staged another coup. He successes this time and became an interim CEO in 1997.The first thing he had done after his promotion is cutting off the production lines and focused on four products. This effective decision brought the lost confidence back to the Apple community (Kurian, 2012). In the meantime, Jobs took other actions such as announcing a new slogan Think Different and launched an amazing project which brought Apples resurgence lately, the iMac. (Edwards, 2008) Those actions and decisions above are radical changes (restructuring and redesigning the production processes). They were new strategies to the company for solving a financial crisis in a short time period. Richard Branson Incremental Changes Example1: Virgin Atlantic There are some unique features Virgin Atlantic has while other airways may not have can be considered as incremental changes. Such as, serving a cup of ice cream while passengers watching movies during travelling in order to provide a better service. Virgin Atlantic does not provide meals for short distance flight in order to reduce ticket price. This kind of services is provided for improving quality of service. Example2: Virgin Group Because Richard Branson received a lot of support from his family and friends during hi early period of business stage (borrowed money from his auntie and supported by John Lennon), the whole Virgin Group services can be considered as a long term process for implementing Richard Bransons plan of giving back to the society and helping those people who has ambitious but doesnt have opportunities. Such as, Virgin Money provides a set of formalised documentations help people who need loans. Although Virgin Money U.S. did not work well in USA, Richard Branson helped millions of people with his good heart in UK. Those actions can be considered as Incremental Changes. Example3: Eco-friendly efforts In 2007, Richard Branson launched Virgin Earth Challenge dedicating in to environmental issues. He made several decisions that supervised the whole world, such as a $25 millions prize for inventors who comes up with a viable solution for scrubbing carbon gases from atmosphere. He also pledged to reinvest all profits from Virgin transportation business over the decade into developing ecologically benign fuels. This kind of actions may not affect other Virgin companies, but they will improve Virgin Groups reputation, it is also a long time period project. Richard Branson Radical Changes Example1: Virgin Records Shop At the beginning, Richard Branson started his records business as mail ordering company in London, and it went well. After a postal strike, the mail order business was crippled. Richard Branson was forced to seek new outlets and he opened his first retail store in Oxford Street in 1971. This was a strategy for dealing with a crisis situation, and operated immediately. It changed Virgin Records business process and structure. Example2: Selling Virgin Music Group Selling Virgin Music probably would be the hardest decision Richard Branson has ever made in his whole lifetime. This decision was made in order to get money to take Virgin Atlantic back into private ownership (Vinnedge, 2009). This change was forced by a financial crisis and included restructuring process. Example3: Closing Virgin Money U.S. Richard Branson launched a loan servicing company called Virgin Money U.S. in America in 2007, and began its withdrawal after 2 years (Lepro, 2010). Its social loans were transferred to Graystone Solutions. This time, Richard Branson misjudged the market and had to make the decision in order to limit the damage. Other reasons of this collapse might be the bad economy and different culture in America. This change included restructuring and take-over in a short time. To sum up the above examples and explanations, incremental changes are normally well planned and taken over by pieces, there is less possibilities of failure. Radical changes are immediate responses for a crisis or significant opportunity, there are chances of failure. Change Management in Virgin Group Story of Virgin Mobile In 2007, Virgin Group announced the completion of its biggest challenge which brought over 10 million customers and 13,000 employees merger of NTL, Telewest and Virgin Mobile under the Virgin Media brand. It is known as the largest Virgin Company in the world. This operation took more than two years to complete the whole the merger, and Virgin Group handled it carefully, especially on employees resistance. Reasons of employees resistance to this change and strategies It is necessary for leaders to understand that resistances to changes are normal. In order to deal with those obstacles, leaders have to identify reasons of employees resistances firstly and develop different strategies for different situations. Some common reasons are following: Fear Mostly, employees fear comes from uncertainty about their career. In this situation, employees were worried about if there would be a layoff or if they were qualified for the new company. Strategies: Virgin Group kept employees involved during managing changes. The high level of the management went done to the front line staff and listened to the staffs ideas and problems, and shared their own experiences. Richard Branson took care of individual needs carefully. Meanwhile, he also announced that if the employees no longer have the enthusiasm, they would be better to find a new job. As long as the employees performed with full responsibilities, they would always be considered as a part of the company. This kind of instructions increased the sense of the urgency, and motivated employees to move on positively. No faith in new process Former NTL and Telewest employees might have uncertainties about the new process of Virgin Group. Because NTL and Telewest Company had several years of struggling with the bad economy environment, they could not be sure whether the new company would lead them to improve the organisational performance. Strategies: Richard Branson gave responsibilities to his employees, and went to the front line personally to inform clear instructions. Establishing clear instructions and explanations, and demonstrating a picture of a better future would increase employees faith and certainty of the new process. Comfort personal preference Former NTL and Telewest employees had their own ways of daily operations, and the new company brought its new ways of doing business, so they might have the difficulties to adopt the new culture. Such as, those staff had their old way of dealing with customers calls by following the instructions and scripts strictly, while Richard Branson believes that each customer would have his/her unique problem, staff should help different customers differently. Strategies: Richard Branson threw away all the scripts and told call-center employees to help customers within one call if possible. In order to support their work, he allocated necessary resources to the font line. Lack of knowledge Although some former NTL and Telewest employees were expert in their old company, they might need to start from the beginning since the new company had its unique ways of doing business. Strategies: For this kind of anxiety, Richard Branson responded with three words only: Live and Learn! He provided resources and training programs for employees in order to create a positive learning environment, and he also encouraged communication among different levels of the management to understand individual difficulties. Lack of trust Virgin Group has different diversity of businesses and it used to prefer small piece of business, whether Richard Branson has the ability to lead the large company to make profit and keep growing would be unpredictable. This is the reason that some employees might have difficulties to adapt the changes. Strategies: Richard Branson kept developing new products and services, and led the company to profitability, such as more packages of Virgin Broadband, more channels and TV programs for Virgin Media Television, and etc. Those successes brought back the trust in several years, not immediately. Application of Kotters Change Model Create Urgency At this stage, it is necessary to deliver a message that the whole company really needs this change. The company has to provide solid reasons and convincing dialogues support this decision. To Kotters belief, this stage is the most important stage; lack of preparation would easily lead to a project failure. In Virgin Medias case, leader should show people NTL and Telewests poor performance reports and most importantly, the potentials, because no one will have faith in a failed business. With a brief introduction of development scenarios, leader should emphasise the opportunities and benefit from this merger. Form a Powerful Coalition In order to influence people to accept the change, leader needs a group of key people from different department to support the change management process. They dont necessary have to be who has legitimate power, but also can be expert, and other influential people. In Virgin Medias case, leader should select powerful and influential people from ex-NTL and ex-Telewest Company, and select good communicators from Virgin Mobile, in order to organise a supportive team. Once organised, the team needs to work together and continuing to create urgency in their own working areas. Create a Vision for Change The next step would be generating an overall vision about the change, including values and reasons of the change, short summaries, and strategies to execute that vision. In Virgin Medias case, leader should have a clear idea about what to do with ex-NTL and ex-Telewest, and why Virgin Mobile needs to conduct a merger with them. As the matter of the fact, Richard Branson was trying to build the first quadruple play  [1]   media company in UK, and after couple of years hard working, he did it. Communicate the Vision After creating the vision, leader should deliver the message to the team members, and with their help, the message can be distributed to all aspects of the company. The message should not be sent through meetings only, most importantly through daily communications among the whole company. In Virgin Medias Case, Richard Branson tried to communicate with employees as much as possible and motivate them to maintain in a positive working attitude. Those ideas and visions were implanted into employees mind during those communications. Remove Obstacles In order to ease employees resistance to changes, leader should avoid having resistance to employees resistance. Leader should be willing to listen and understand employees difficulties and find a way to help them walk through it. In Virgin Media case, Richard Branson provided clear instructions to all employees, and went to the front-line in person to listen to employees. He allocated necessary resources to them and tried to create a learning environment, in order to improve performance. Create Short-term Wins Celebrations for short-term wins would be the easiest and most efficient way to prove that we are doing the right things and we are doing things right. It is not only for motivating employees passion of working, but also for gaining trust. In Virgin Medias case, leader should recognize and reward people for their excellent performance and making changes happen, and encourage them to keep on working positively. Build on the Change Kotter believes that it is very important for leaders to avoid celebrating too early and being complacent about current short-term success. There would be always rooms for improvement. In Virgin Medias Case, Richard Branson kept on producing and developing new products and services, and tracking on employees performances all the time. He went through daily operations in details in person to seek for ways of improvements. Anchor the Changes in Corporate Culture Formalising the changes and including them as part of organisations culture would be the last step of change management process. This step can be considered as a closure and promotion. In Virgin Medias case, Richard Branson announced Virgin Groups success to the public all the time through different kind of channels, such as TV, radio, Virgin websites, blogs, magazines and etc. Conclusion After researching on Steve Jobs and Richard Branson life stories as a leader, this essay is conducted in order to gain a better understanding about the concepts of being an excellent leader. Leadership Style Steve Jobs was considered as a tough and strict (even dictatorial) leader, but he was also a respectful leader who could inspire and motivate followers by using his wisdom and charismas. Richard Branson is considered as gentle and flexible leaders, but he is very strict on day-to-day operations. As a leader, being transactional can improve employees performance while being transformational can improve effectiveness. Therefore, there is no one simple leadership style for one organisation. Both of the leadership styles are crucial to a business success. Types of changes Incremental change may takes place over a long time period for development and improvement purpose, while radical change may be triggered by a crisis or a business opportunity and generated in a short time period. Because incremental changes are normally well planned and taken over by pieces, there is less possibilities of failure. Radical changes are initiated immediately after realising a crisis or significant opportunity, so without a careful plan and on-going monitoring there are chances of failure. Change Management It is important to understand that employees resistance to changes are natural, but how to manage those negative feelings are critical. In general, leader should keep employees involved in the decision making, address their problems and seek for solutions, create a positive learning environment and make the change happen by working with employees as an example. Change management processes should be carefully planned and operated, especially the preparing stage (Create Urgency). A powerful coalitions positive support would make the operations accomplished smoothly, that is why selecting the right team member is very important. Leader and coalition should lead by examples, communicate with employees and deliver visions as much as possible. Do remember celebrating on short-term wins and establish big victory formally as companys culture.

The Tempest Is A Play About The Power And Dangers Of Creativity :: essays research papers

The Tempest is a play about the power and dangers of creativity. Discuss. "From beginning to end the play-write gives prominence to the problems of dominion, freedom, political failure and of repetition." Like Russ Mc Donald I also believe that Shakespeare devoted his last comedy largely to the exploration of the shapes and effects that possession and the search for power can have on persons. The Tempest's central character, Prospero, is also crucial to this interpretation. His unique magical gifts give him undefeatable power to wreak vengeance on his enemies. It is a position fraught with dangers both for him and for others. But he is not the only veichel. Entwined with this wizard's inventive qualities are questions over what can only be called, by a modern reader as the theme of colonialism in the play which pervades the minds of all the 'civilised' Italians; Caliban and Miranda are the two primary victims of this patriarchal society. One must also make a note of the motif of usurpation in the play and recognise its interesting implications. Shakespeare initiates a mood of danger and imagination from the off, as the play begins with the great tempest which threatens to bring the sailors to their doom. The tempest we also find out was the intention of Prospero rather than the will of nature thus immediately establishing Prospero as a character with unusual powers but with severe possibilities, this is highlighted by the juxtaposition of the pleading Miranda who says†¦.. This is not the only time in the play where she plays this role, when Ferdinand falls in love with Miranda Prospero treats him harshly and Miranda's leaps to his defence while telling Ferdinand †¦.. Her we see the danger that Propero's magic combined with his nature can prove too much for some. But there is more danger ahead as we shall see.

Virtual Reality is Reality :: Exploratory Essays Research Papers

Virtual Reality is Reality In his essay, "A Rape in Cyberspace," Julian Dibbell wrote about a violent event that occurred in LambdaMOO, a virtual reality community. To some, Dibbell states, this event was nothing more than "spidery flitting of fingers across standard QWERTY keyboards" (450). On the other hand, to the victims it was much more. In his essay one of the victims was quoted as saying " ...[I] have thought about it for days. He hurt us both" (453). The effect that the virtual event had on the victim was obviously real; thus, this event effected their real life. According to Heim, the author of "The Essence of VR," virtual reality is "an event or entity that is real in effect but not in fact" (16). Is it the effect of a matter or the fact, materiality, of a matter that depicts how real an event is? If it is the fact, there is a distinct line between virtual reality and real life. However, if the impact that an event has on a person's life is what makes an event real, then virtual reality i s very real and the line between virtual reality and real life is very faint if it exists at all. The use of virtual reality is increasing in many areas of society such as: communication, business, education, and medicine. Perhaps this increase will cause the lives of all people, even those who do not use computer technology which is typically thought of as the medium for virtual reality, to be impacted. It is important to know if and where the line between virtual reality and real life exists due to this steady increase of virtual reality use. This essay will provide evidence focusing on how the line is slowly disappearing as virtual reality is shaping the way medicine effects our health and livelihood. The ways in which virtual reality impacts peoples' lives are rapidly increasing, especially with the increased use of virtual reality in medicine. One example of this is in the testing of colon cancer. An article from ABCNews entitled "The Wonders of Virtual Surgery" states that, "the American Cancer Society predicts that 96,500 people will get colon cancer in 1998, and 47,700 will die of it.

Native American Relations with The United States Essay -- Exploratory

Native American Relations with The United States What were the significant treaties, policies, and events that defined US Government and Native American Relations? How did the Native American respond to these treaties, polices, and events historically? How did these treaties, policies, and events affect the subsistence, religion, political, and social structures of the Native American people? I will answer these questions through the examination of two centuries of US history in six time periods that define clear changes in the relationship between the Native American and the US Government. Formative period 1780 -1825 One of the critical tasks that faced the new nation of the United States was establishing a healthy relationship with the Native Americans (Indians). â€Å"The most serious obstacle to peaceful relations between the United States and the Indians was the steady encroachment of white settlers on the Indian lands. The Continental Congress, following [George] Washington’s suggestion, issued a proclamation prohibiting unauthorized settlement or purchase of Indian land.† (Prucha, 3) Many of the Indian tribes had entered into treaties with the French and British and still posed a military threat to the new nation. The new US Government was careful not to antagonize the Indians and sought to treat them with mutual respect. This is evidenced in early treaties where the term â€Å"Red Brothers† was used to convey this sentiment of equality. By 1800 interaction between the Indian and white settlers had become quite common through trade. Many Indians traded for household goods, traps and tools. The US became concerned about the cultural differences and sought to improve the Indian station in life by providi... ...ll as the opportunity like the Seminole to develop a culture rich in tradition and assimilation that fosters a self-reliant people. Sources Cited American Indian Research and Policy Institute, â€Å"Framework of tribal sovereignty†, URL: http://www.airpi/org/marge1.html, 1998 Bailey Thomas A., Kennedy David M, The American Pageant: A History of the Republic 10th ed , Lexington, Massachusetts, D.C. Heath and Company,1994. Brown, Dee, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West, New York, Bantam Press,1970 Josephy, Alvin M, The American Heritage Book of Indians, New York, American Heritage Publishing Co,1961 Prucha, Francis Paul, Documents of United States Indian Policy, Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press,1990 Schlesinger, Arthur M, The Almanac of American History, New York,Brompton Books Corporation,1993

Elementary Ethnography in the Movies

A not-so-usual moviegoer can create streams of thought inside the movie house, and the experience of being inside that large, dark hollow can be a quite vivid experience more than the plot of the film in the taking. This is the fine point of tangency of the two essays (sic) â€Å"The Magic of Moviegoing† (essay 1) and â€Å"Sit Down and Shut Up or Don’t Sit by Me† (essay 2). Besides this point of tangency, we see more divergence than convergence for the two essays. Basically, the two essays intentionally or unintentionally teach a lesson of simple social research. Employing the method of ethnography, Essay one draws up a conclusion of movie-going having several rituals in the process. This observation is characteristic of functionalist remark where daily human behavior is made up of different rituals, which serve its â€Å"function† or purpose.   Meanwhile, essay two utilizes the same observation method, but maintains the objective of watching a movie rather than remaining true to the objective research of the social science in action happening right before the author’s eyes. Ethnography employs participant observation – a process where â€Å"the researcher enters the group or situation that he or she is studying†¦to try to understand the motives and meanings of the group of people they are studying.†Ã‚   (Walsh, 2001: 67) The author of essay one amused himself for his discoveries inside the movie house as a participant observer. He says about the movie going ritual: â€Å"But there's another question, equally interesting, that seldom gets examined or even asked. It's not the What but the How of the matter: How do we watch the movies? How do we behave during this pop rite of going to the picture show?† The same amusement goes with the author of the second essay. He says of putting on the shoes of a famous socio-anthropologist, â€Å"I’ve amused myself with a Margaret Mead-like study of the way people come in and take their seats and their antics during the movie.† Analyzing from the point-of-view of the social research process, Essay one sticks with the object of the study – the group or the audience. Meanwhile, essay two keeps its observation only before the start of the film and shifts attention after the start of the film, thereby losing the consistency and intent of the study.   Thus, a small lesson for the student conducting a social research: be clear with your objective and remain objective with the study. Observations made in Essay one reflects behavior of people as a group or more formally, social psychology. Meaning, people act differently as an individual and as a group. The author realizes this by saying thus, â€Å"(the) convergence of disparate people turns into an audience.† Clearly, this is the reason why he posits that film viewing in the sala set is bland and lacking of the necessary effects to rival the vividness of experience and intensity of film viewing as a social experience. However, the first essay is quick to respond to the need of the second essay for attentiveness and ethics in watching movies. It said that, â€Å"when we are most truly alone, we are most truly an audience.† The author of the second essay would have been happy to know that the author of the former agrees with the point of etiquette inside the movie houses. Albeit implicitly, we are sure that second essay agrees that some sort of collective and social interaction during the movie proper is necessary to make the experience more fulfilling. In the whole, the two essays request the attention of movie buffs and the uninitiated alike.   One can be a student of sociology just by doing a thing we like most. A movie house can be a place full of lessons for the social research process. The catch is that one must have a keen eye and good sense of observation to capture life moments and scenes outside of the silver screen. REFERENCES: Atkinson, R. L., Atkinson, R.C., Smith, E., Bem, D., & Nolen-Hoeksma, S. (1953). Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology, 628-638. Walsh, M. (2001). Research Made Real: A Guide for Students, 66-68.   

Police Shooting Essay

The claim that the NYPD is becoming trigger-happy cannot really be said conclusively without comparing it to other large metropolitan areas in the United States and when doing so it seems that the answer is, at the present time, no.   In 1999, 11 people died at the hand of an officer in New York, in 2000 it was 41.   1993 had 23 people killed by police that was the same year that David Dinkins was mayor. Now if you compare this to Chicago last year, 2001, 13 people were killed by police with only 10 in 2000. LAPD was the only U.S. city to have the death rates from police shootings fall lower than New York, down from 39 to 6 in between 2000-2001.   But LAPD’s crime reduction still did not match New York, which was drastically lower.   Even with demonstrations and poor poll rating, the number of civilian complaints about the police fell to 4,903 in 1999, the lowest since 1994.   Even though the NYPD is not perfect the trend still predicts that improvement is still happening.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Some attribute the decline to economics such as lower unemployment or demographics, fewer criminal youths.   No one wants to believe that it could possibly be tougher policing.   A new computerized system that maps the criminality in the city has been given credit by most.   Along with this system and weekly brainstorming meetings among senior police and precinct captains NYPD has been able to predict and locate new outbreaks of crime quickly and find better ways of cracking down on them. Some point to the focus on quality of life crimes like littering and graffiti painting.   Enforcing these types of crime has shown the community that law will be enforced and this has given a clear message.   The changing of how police officers are rewarded for performance has also made a really huge difference.   It switched from rewards for number of arrests to rewards for lower reported crimes. Only until an incident with Patrick Dorismond, who was shot by police in March of 2000 by the street crimes unit, did the NYPD gain a more critical look into if they are trigger-happy.   The unit is a plain clothed police squad that can be sent anytime anywhere.   At the time they were investigating an outbreak of cab drivers who were being murdered.   Another function of this unit is to find illegal weapons.   In New York City it is quite frequent that individuals can become stopped and frisked, but many residents do not like this fact.   It seems that this activity focuses on many blacks and Hispanics. Dorismond was approached by officers from the street crimes unit but because they were in street clothing Dorismond did not realize they were officers and a scuffle began with the result of Dorismond’s fatal shooting.   He was unarmed and the family is searching for answers.   What really hurt the department was when the mayor’s office decided to make public Dorismond’s juvenile record, trying to portray the man as â€Å"no Altar boy† did not go over well with the community and became nationwide news giving the police as being very insensitive. Racial Profiling seems to be at the heart of this problem, the mayor points to studies that the disproportionate number of people accused of crimes come from ethnic minorities and that is the reason why more of those minorities get stopped.   A recent study by Timothy Lynch of the Cato Institute points to the tactics of this policing unit as the problem.   They point out that it is unconstitutional and makes shooting like Dorismond’s a predictable result.   It gives the police â€Å"the mind-set of a soldier† training the unit as soldiers.   Some have said that legalizing guns for citizens and legalizing some drugs could be a solution to eliminate the need for this unit. As you can see there are many openings for improvement in the NYPD and while researching this topic I have found that it is obvious that improvements have been made, but they are slow in coming and in implementing.   Media has played a very important role in keeping this in the public arena, where it needs to be.   It was difficult when the changing of the way departmental review of rewards, such as being rewarded for reduction in crime reports, was implemented and there was much debate on if this would really work.   But now since it has been implemented it has shown great improvement in community safety. Now a focus on racism should be examined closely to fix what is really, in my opinion, at the heart of this controversy.   I think if officers of tomorrow were educated in multicultural terms racism will fade away, like time.   America has had many dark moments in history and hopefully racism will become just a dark moment in the past.   I don’t think that we can actually say that NYPD is trigger-happy, but I do think that acts of racism could be behind the shootings that have happen between the NYPD and its citizens. Reference: Anonymous (2000, May 6).   â€Å"United States: The Thin Blue Line†.   The Economist,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   London Ed. Vol. 355, Issue 8169, pg.32.