Extreme sports Essay Example for Free

Extreme sports Essay The X Games is one of the more popular sporting events, where people gather to watch athletes compete in extreme sports. Some of these sports include skateboarding, mountain biking and motorcycle racing. The community around extreme sports can sometimes be seen as exclusive and particular when it comes to defining what an extreme sport is and who is a true extremist. Originally, I believe the extreme sport community created this division of athletics because they thought their sports did not fit in at a standard sporting event. Part of the reason some the extreme athletes participate in their sport is because they see it as  a way of defying the boundaries of what is seen as a typical sport. Most extreme sports are about pushing limits. Extreme sports are not conventional in the sense that practicing isn’t really necessary, a coach isn’t necessary, and the sports are very individualistic. Some of the extreme sport athletes do it for the adrenaline rush. They do it purely for themselves. Their reasoning contrasts to some of the other sports where lots of practice and coaching is essential for success. A lot of the athletes that compete in non extreme sports are focused on getting sponsors or when you’re younger, getting recruited for college. For the extreme sport community this is considered to be feeding into the capitalist society/culture. Part of extreme sports is about taking risks and not having anything to fall back on. The X games have put a strain on the extreme sports community because some seem to think that the event has altered the true goal of the sport, which is to take risks and to go against the mainstream culture. Some people seem to believe that it has become like the other sporting events, in the sense that there are now big sponsors and judges. They argue that the extreme athletes are no longer taking risks because they want to make  sure they can land the trick. The goal is no longer to try new tricks and push the bar, but its more about doing what you know will please the judges. This goes against what extremist originally wanted for the sport. It takes the risk out of it and you no longer do it for yourself but for the judges. The fact that there are sponsors is also a cause for controversy because some people see it as the athletes being sellouts. For example, Tony Hawk is famous skate boarder. He has a lot of sponsors, video games, and ads. Some say he is no longer a true extremist because of it. At the same time, what makes the sports in the X games more extreme than say diving or gymnastics? Both sports are very individualistic and there is a lot of a risk, yet they are not seen as extreme sports. I think the extreme sports community has tried to make their community too exclusive and extreme sports benefit from the X games and the sponsors and judges it brings. The event does bring aspects that were not originally a part of the sport, but the extreme sports community will grow now. Extremist can still continue to push limits and do the sport for themselves despite what others may think.

The Contemporary Issues In Hospitality Management

The Contemporary Issues In Hospitality Management Experiencing HRM issues in Hospitality: Whatever the choice of terminology or decisions on organisation, effective HRM and the successful implementation of personnel activities are essential ingredients for improved organisational performance. The smooth-running man or woman is an essential feature of any company and for some industries people are not just important but the key factor for successful performance. HR policies and practices have an important role in hospitality to play in facilitating the effective implementation of management processes. Hospitality Companies today face five critical business challenges: globalisation; profitability through growth; technology; intellectual capital; and change, change and more change. These challenges provide HR with an opportunity to play a leadership role in the development of new capabilities to meet the challenges. The five challenges present a new mandate for hospitality human resource management in order to help deliver organisational excellence in the following four way s:- It should become a partner with senior and line managers in strategy execution an expert in the way work is organised and executed to ensure costs are reduced and quality maintained a champion for employees, vigorously representing their concerns to senior management and working to increase employee contribution and commitment an agent of continuous transformation, shaping processes and a culture to improve an organisation 2.1 Training: One major area of the HRM function of particular relevance to the effective management and use of people is training and development. Staffs are a crucial, but expensive, resource in hospitality. In order to sustain economic and effective performance it is important to optimise the contribution of employees to the aims and goals of the organisation. Training is necessary to ensure an adequate supply of staff who are technically and socially competent, and capable of career advancement into specialist departments or management positions. There is, therefore, a continual need for the process of staff development, and training fulfils an important part of this process. Training should be viewed, therefore, as an integral part of the hospitality process. Because specially in hospitality industry new IT based training are getting famous irrespectively in hotels, airlines. Training benefits includes:- Improve performance which results in cost savings of HRM Improve productivity Improve quality of customer service Improve self esteem of employees Improve sense of job security Increase comrade and sense of team work among employees Increase higher morale among employees and Reduce employee turnover and absenteeism Reduce stress and tension of employees Reduce waste Reduce work conflict among employees In todays competitive business weather hospitality industry is facing new skill developing process in different way. Customers are now more concerned about quality service rather than just service. According to WTTC tourism hospitality industry supporting more than 258 million jobs worldwide and generating some 9.1% of global GDP. In 2008 UK Government  £112m fund for hospitality training reveals the importance of training. Travelodge welcome this fund from Government. Chrissie Herbert, director of HR at Travelodge, said: As we approach the 2012 Olympics we are in a skills race to ensure we have the number of people needed to match the demand. 2.2 Customer Care: After training customer care is the another big issue in hospitality industry now-a-days. It is important to remember that good customer care start with good staff care. Surveys reveals that people are happiest at their work when they feel valued and important, when they are involved in the business and feel knowledgeable about what is happening. In todays hospitality business customer care is the main concern where all businesses should focus on because customer expectations for quality are increasing, presenting the industry with a double edge sword; at the same time qualified labour is becoming harder to find and keep and this is a great challenge for HRM in any hospitality business. Thats why HRM in hospitality trying to get more effective result by training existing employees in several field in hospitality. Customers are demanding higher levels of service excellence. Linking this issue with seasonality, a common characterise of tourism enterprise , Baum and Hagen(1999,p130)wrote, the lack of sustained employment, which is characterise as seasonal operations, undermines the ability of operators to deliver quality, which the market place, increasingly, expects. Service remains key factor for hospitality but value for money is becoming increasingly important as recession looms, research has revealed in UK 2009 by Square Meal Restaurants Bars report, which surveyed more than 9,500 diners, found service remained a major gripe (44% of all complaints containing words such as over-priced, costly and poor value) for customers. 2.3 Stress in Hospitality: Work stress is now recognised as a major issue in the human resource management within the hospitality industry context. Service quality issues are beginning to assume major importance in the success of many operations. Interpersonal conflict and work stress responses associated with hospitality industry employee management conflict, together with approaches to service quality. In European Union countries, hospitality industry has been identified as one of those most stressful sector to work, with frequent contact with inebriated clients and customers. Exposure to violence and sexual harassment is sometimes viewed as being a regular occurrence and a part of the job in the sector. Stress factors in the hospitality industry include an intensive interface with customers; increasing customer demand for highly diversified and personalized services; tight requirements on timely delivery of services, especially in kitchens and restaurants; unclear roles in a customer-dominated environment; and lack of training for supervisors. These result in low control of employees over their work. The health status of workers in the hospitality industry is worse than that of the average population, especially concerning mental health. In hospitality there are different reasons for stress and they are: global competition, customer expectations and demand for highly diversified and personalized services, tight requirements on timely services, especially in kitchens and restaurants, unclear roles in a customer-dominated environment, and lack of training for supervisors, reducing in staff to reduce cost, lack of control over working situations, seasonal staff turnover etc. 2.4 Empowering the employees: Empowerment, formerly known as participative management, reduces employee turnover and increases customer satisfaction. High hospitality industry turnover is the result of poor employee selection, inadequate training and an over-abundant management staff. Empowering the staff makes them work better together as a team and leads them to provide a better quality of service. In a simple way, empowerment extend democratic approach from workforce which is very good for hospitality organisations because its not possible for hospitality managers to be everywhere every time, in those moment empowerment make employees more participative and delegate them towards job satisfaction. Empowerment was known as participative management, but the problem had always been that implementing the concept was much more difficult than talking about it. No one knew how to overcome this problem for the usual reasons that all concepts can fail that is, identifying the whos, whats, whens, wheres and hows of implementation. The hospitality industry today requires to examine the way to manage. Hospitality industry is plagued with turnover statistics that are way out of proportion and this situation has developed because of poor hiring practices, insufficient training and overstaffing in management ranks. Empowerment is a style, not an evolution. It is a philosophy that must originate from the top if it doesnt, it will fail. Empowerment flattens out the organizational chart naturally by eliminating the tiers of responsibility, replaces desire to establish accountability with results, allows hospitality industries to respond to the aspect of customers needs and complete satisfaction. HRM in hospitality industry must understand the economic benefits of employee empowerment. Employee empowerment makes each individual responsible for doing the job to the best of their ability which results in greater guest satisfaction, returning guests and lower employee turnover. Hiring the best person for the job and adequately training that individual will also lead to greater employee empowerment. Empowering management personnel requires altering the job so that management receives feedback on their management style from their staff as well as their supervisors. 2.5 Management Leadership in hospitality: Effective leadership is the number one factor that influences success in hospitality organization. Maintaining cultural identity, employment brand and employee satisfaction requires consistent and regular communication. Leadership skills include a strong focus on relationships, emotional intelligence, a track record of results and innovation, a focus on process and outcome, and the ability to give positive and constructive feedback. Also important is the ability to teach and coach others and provide recognition both formally and informally. Management and leadership style is a contemporary issues in todays hospitality business. There is a sentence Employees dont leave their jobs, they leave their managers. The reason for that is the style adopted by todays leaders are not always right and its a big issue. International Labour Organisation(ILO) said almost 600,000 employees a year leave hospitality managers in their droves, which leads hospitality industry average recruitment and initial training cost  £1,500, costs around  £886m as a whole. Labour turnover for the whole hospitality, leisure tourism and travel (HLTT) industry stands at 30%, although some employers within the hospitality industry alone report double or triple this figure. Yet, only 14% of employers feel their labour turnover is too high. HRM should be part of any pilot program to help leadership understand, anticipate and mitigate management problems in hospitality. When HRM has experience in participating in a virtual team, it lends credibility for HRM to fully participate and respond to problems as they arise. 3. Conclusion: It is known that, hospitality industry stands on employee performance. So, HRM department in hospitality now-a-days getting more and more challenge day by day because every business strategy of todays world more focused on service which is a crucial issue in hospitality field. HRM managers should emphasis on the need for professional approach and right leadership attitude to achieve goals and keep status. HRM in hospitality industry has grown with its impact and status because of huge number of hospitality industries increased globally. Only The British hospitality industry contribute  £46 billion to the UK economy and the core hospitality economy is estimated to directly contribute  £34 billion in tax revenue by creating 2.44 million jobs in the hospitality sector the 5th largest industry in the UK, and a further 1.2 million jobs are indirectly generated by hospitality which is around 8% of the total UK employment. This statistics proves that, the HRM has great responsibility to play a vital role in hospitality sector by adjusting with market needs and trends.

The Use of Symbolism in Nathaniel Hawthornes, The House of the Seven G

The Use of Symbolism in Nathaniel Hawthorne's, The House of the Seven Gables In Nathaniel Hawthorne's, The House of the Seven Gables, the present is haunted by events of the past; the past actually becomes a curse upon present individuals in this narrative, because it influences their lives. Through the symbols, the actual House of the Seven Gables and the portrait of Colonel Pyncheon, Nathaniel Hawthorne provides sufficient detail to prove his theme - past events, frequently influence the lives of present individuals. The transformed characters, in the end, abandon the symbols of ages long past and effectively abandon the curse of the past in their lives. The actual House of the Seven Gables symbolizes the weight of the past, firstly because the house is actually cursed by an ancient plebeian accused of witchcraft. From the very beginning, neighbors say Colonel Pyncheon builds the house "on an unquite grave" and it indeed has a "bad air" (14). The Colonel constructs his house upon the very spot of the small hut of Matthew Maule, the one accused of sorcery; actively contributing to the ruin of the wizard, the society in which the Colonel lives regards him as less than impeccable. Maule addresses Colonel Pyncheon as he dies on the scaffold to iterate the curse that would haunt his lineage for generations: "God. . . God will give him blood to drink!" (14). The house becomes a symbol of the curse, and the Colonel, by building where he did, seems to give Maule "the privilege to haunt . . . the chambers into which future bridegrooms were to lead their brides, and where future children of the Pyncheon blood were to be born" (14). The curse o f the past affects all members of the present Pyncheon household, and the Maules keep th... ...s to rest. The present Pyncheons and Maules quit the house and the portrait to take up residence in the country home of Judge Pyncheon, thus signifying an escape from the bondage of the past. The house, with its reminiscent decorations, architecture, memories, and dreams is put behind the present Pyncheons along with the portrait of the "evil genius" of the family that suggests secret wealth and his eternal presence (101). The good Pyncheons abandon the embodiment of the past that has curse their lives for so long; they leave the past for life in the present, and this abandonment proposes new life, prosperity, and future, things unthinkable under the influence of the embodied past which is the curse of the House of the Seven Gables and of the Portrait of Colonel Pyncheon. Works Cited Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The House of Seven Gables. New York: Penguin, 1961. The Use of Symbolism in Nathaniel Hawthorne's, The House of the Seven G The Use of Symbolism in Nathaniel Hawthorne's, The House of the Seven Gables In Nathaniel Hawthorne's, The House of the Seven Gables, the present is haunted by events of the past; the past actually becomes a curse upon present individuals in this narrative, because it influences their lives. Through the symbols, the actual House of the Seven Gables and the portrait of Colonel Pyncheon, Nathaniel Hawthorne provides sufficient detail to prove his theme - past events, frequently influence the lives of present individuals. The transformed characters, in the end, abandon the symbols of ages long past and effectively abandon the curse of the past in their lives. The actual House of the Seven Gables symbolizes the weight of the past, firstly because the house is actually cursed by an ancient plebeian accused of witchcraft. From the very beginning, neighbors say Colonel Pyncheon builds the house "on an unquite grave" and it indeed has a "bad air" (14). The Colonel constructs his house upon the very spot of the small hut of Matthew Maule, the one accused of sorcery; actively contributing to the ruin of the wizard, the society in which the Colonel lives regards him as less than impeccable. Maule addresses Colonel Pyncheon as he dies on the scaffold to iterate the curse that would haunt his lineage for generations: "God. . . God will give him blood to drink!" (14). The house becomes a symbol of the curse, and the Colonel, by building where he did, seems to give Maule "the privilege to haunt . . . the chambers into which future bridegrooms were to lead their brides, and where future children of the Pyncheon blood were to be born" (14). The curse o f the past affects all members of the present Pyncheon household, and the Maules keep th... ...s to rest. The present Pyncheons and Maules quit the house and the portrait to take up residence in the country home of Judge Pyncheon, thus signifying an escape from the bondage of the past. The house, with its reminiscent decorations, architecture, memories, and dreams is put behind the present Pyncheons along with the portrait of the "evil genius" of the family that suggests secret wealth and his eternal presence (101). The good Pyncheons abandon the embodiment of the past that has curse their lives for so long; they leave the past for life in the present, and this abandonment proposes new life, prosperity, and future, things unthinkable under the influence of the embodied past which is the curse of the House of the Seven Gables and of the Portrait of Colonel Pyncheon. Works Cited Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The House of Seven Gables. New York: Penguin, 1961.

Comparative Fascism in Europe :: Essays Papers

Comparative Fascism in Europe Is it â€Å"easier† to write a fascist credo than an anti-fascist credo? Why or why not? Fascism was an enforced State while antifascism was a chosen opposition Defining a fascist credo is difficult because the fascists built their support and policy on negative integration. This was coupled with an alliance and hostile takeover of the political right. If the fascists were on the right, then, their most obvious enemies would be on the left. With street brawls and political assassinations, the Socialists most assuredly were an opponent of fascism. Was socialism, then, the antifascist movement? While the political fighting occurred between left and right, the fascists opposed another large group as well: the liberal establishment. The fascists eventually took violent action against liberalism as well, in the form of World War Two. Thus, fascism was against these political groups, but were those political groups antifascist in nature or in action? The answer is quite simply yes, these groups were antifascist. The common element between the antifascist groups was that joining them and being active within them was a voluntary action; this is opp osed to life in fascist regimes, wherein people were forced to become fascist. In this sense, fascism was totalitarian, because it made everyone become part of the system or else wanted by the police. The freedom in the liberal system, wherein people were Catholic, democratic, socialist, communist, and so many other things, was in opposition to the very idea of that freedom being taken away. People willingly joined these groups, making an antifascist credo easier to define, because it was a choice to be antifascist. Certainly a more complex definition of fascism is required. However, the framers of fascist thought itself, Mussolini and Hitler, never truly bothered to define fascism for their supporters or for posterity. Mussolini tried in the Enciclopaedia Italiana of 1932, published a full 10 years after Mussolini took power. Mussolini said that his â€Å"own doctrine, even in this period, had always been a doctrine of action† (Mussolini, 586). This is the most obvious facet of fascism, its love of action; it is in the name of action that no true doctrine was ever laid out (Mussolini, 587). Mussolini proceeded from there to explain fascism in negative terms, saying: â€Å"For us fascists, the State is not merely a guardian†¦nor is it an organization with purely material aims†¦nor is it a purely political creation, divorced from all contact with the complex material reality which makes up the life of the individual and life of the people as a whole.

Free Nature vs. Nurture Essay :: Argumentative Persuasive Topics

Nature vs. Nurture There has always been a large controversy over whether inherited genes or the environment influences and effects our personality, development, behavior, intelligence and ability. This controversy is most often recognized as the nature verses nurture conflict. Some people believe that it is strictly genes that effect our ways of life, others believe that it is the environment that effects us, and some believe that both of these influence our behavior. Either way, social scientists have been struggling for centuries deciding whether our personalities are born or made. Tests are done often on identical twins that were separated to see how they are each influenced by their separate environments. In the past twenty years, it has been discovered that there is a genetic component to every human trait and behavior. However, genetic influence on traits and behavior is partial because genetics account on average for half of the variation of most traits. Urie Bronfrenbrenner, who studies genetics, said, "It is not nature vs. nurture, but the interaction of nature and nurture that drives development." Researchers are finding that the balance between genetic and environmental influences for certain traits change as people get older. Also, people may react to us in a certain way because of a genetically influenced personality and, we may choose certain experiences because they fit best with our instinctive preferences. This means that our experiences may be influenced by our genetic tendencies. One way researchers study the development of traits and behaviors is by measuring the influence of genetics through out ones life span, and it is found to be that the genetic influence on certain trait increase as people age. A research was done to see whether a trait would show up in a child if it was environmentally influenced or genetically influenced. A child was given more negative attention than another was, and it increased the chances of the child having depressive symptoms and anti-social behavior. But these symptoms disappeared when accounted for genetic influences and how parents treat their children. There are three types of gene/environment relations. The first one is called a passive correlation. It is to be explained as, for example, if a musical ability was genetic, and a child was passed a musical ability trait, than the child would most likely have musically inclined parents. Their parents then would provide them with the genes

Explication on “Living in Sin” by Adrienne Rich Essay

The poem tells the story of the lovers that starts just after the fairytale of their lives has ended. Actually, it reveals the continuation of relationship where fairytale usually cuts the story at the kisses and declaration of love followed by â€Å"The End† (a story of a Princess which has to wash dishes on a day after a romantic ball). It is important to point out that the speaker is not actually the woman spoken of in the poem. The narrator here depicts the events in this couple’s daily life. Yet, it is obviously a woman, due to the tone of the poem: how she sees the careless husband and notices household disorder. Being in variance with many modern text analysts, I must say that the poem ‘Living in Sin’ is completely autobiographic. It has been written by Adrienne Rich during the first months of her own marriage and conveys her own disappointment in what is left after the romantic prelude.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   To understand the poem one must notice that it is wholly built on the contrasts the author uses from sentence to sentence. The most evident contrast resides in the mood of the heroes: the indifferent, careless husband (‘he, with a yawn†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢) who seems not to notice the miserable surroundings and only shrugs his shoulders at the mirror admitting the piano out of tune, and the pensive and sad wife who is distressed   with the routine circle of everyday cleaning and watching the back of her lover leaving each morning for the trivial   cigarettes: â€Å" [he] rubbed at his beard, went out for cigarettes; while she, jeered by the minor demons, pulled back the sheets and made the bed and found a towel to dust the table-top†¦Ã¢â‚¬  . Adrienne Rich has been influenced by the popular image contrast of artist and his woman (generally, a family). Their married life goes in the studio, a huge room without walls or borders, without anything to confirm one’s privacy. Here we obviously see a family of artists where the woman has to play the subordinate role imposed by the society. As means to manipulate women into submitting to housekeeping roles, society promotes a male-dominant view. Most traditional societies expect all women to feign fulfillment in this biological role of a domestic apparatus. Therefore, like the woman in the poem, many women in society accept (although, quite reluctantly) this role of a home caretaker.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The images of dusted furniture, dried cheese and empty bottles, overboiled pot etc. produce low, pessimistic tones of the poem – all these trifle seems to be powerful enough to spoil woman’s life and even to kill love: â€Å"By evening she was back in love again, though not so wholly but throughout the night she woke sometimes to feel the daylight coming like a relentless milkman up the stairs†. Here appears another pair of contrasting images: Day and Night that are parallel to Reality and Dream. This woman actually lives double life, enjoying night demonstrations of love and being not able to change the obtrusive tedium of the day which comes like the â€Å"relentless milkman† upon the creaking stair and ruins the fragile dreams of the romantic supper. The piano (summoned by him) seems to be out of tune just like their love. The grime at their window panes is as hard to remove as to bring back the brightness and romantics to the life. Comparatively, each of the household items is dingy. Everything illuminated by the day is out of this light in a paradoxical way – on the contrary, it strives for the night unconsciousness and inempiricalness.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   So, now it is possible to explain the name of the poem. â€Å"Living in Sin† means to face the day and not to do anything about it, just to see the things go on and to be afraid to make any changes. The woman submits to this role of absolute responsibility without resistance, keeping her resentment and anger to herself. Her constant expenditure of energy with no satisfactory results leads to disappointment. The heroine of the poem is completely unsatisfied but what with she is not quite sure†¦ We, as a reader, can only guess what exactly bothers her: a bunch of disappointing details or the whole picture of their relationship. I think that the last thing does. Everyday dusting, which she has to take around the studio, symolizes the ‘dusting’ of the relationship that is also needed to keep the love alive. Undoubtedly, family life needs refreshment not to be sepulchered by the lay of ‘dust’ and similar days. The woman’s futile efforts result in her â€Å"living in sin†. She sinfully accepts what society dictates and does not try to escape and improve her circumstances. By lettig this miserable life to continue, she denies herself and her individuality. And such self-sacrifice is the biggest sin for an artistic and thoughtful woman.

How might you strategically plan and implement an e-commerce venture that could make a dramatic difference in your business success?

Every time there is a shift in technology, businesses position themselves strategically to establish strategies that integrate new technologies so that the process of doing business can be more efficient in an attempt to maximize profits. Technologies that preceded the internet like the telegraph and the catalog revolutionized the way marketing campaigns were conducted, but it is the internet that has brought the most profound changes to the business world.The internet has enabled swift transfer of information from one point to another, and its application has extended to include e-commerce, a mode of transaction that had not been witnessed before. E-commerce has the potential to make a tremendous impact on business success, but to put into operation a successful venture needs a lot of strategizing since a strategy that has worked for one firm may not work in another. In establishing an e-commerce venture, first I would have to weigh the cost and all the risks involved.It will be a c ostly mistake to establish a system that does not congregate all the resources and processes of my business to increase efficiency and profitability. The system would have to fit in the traditional business model so that the operations are not disrupted at the onset of implementation. Secondly, I would tailor the system to be especially applicable in bringing the business and the products we offer to the customers in an effective way. An effective e-commerce model should advertise the business’s products in a vivid manner, communicating our variety and quality as well as the price of each product.This will eliminate the costs associated with sending salesmen to create product awareness in the market. Finally, I would tailor the e-commerce venture to include getting consumer information from the market so that I can monitor customer preferences. This can be done by making provisions for obtaining feedback from the clients who access the business’s site. Preferences may include the demand for door delivery and a variety of other business parameters. In these ways, the venture could make a dramatic difference in terms of contributing to the success of the business.