Why Marching Band Should Be Considered a Sport Essay Example for Free

Why Marching Band Should Be Considered a Sport Essay There may be as many as 500+ members in a marching band, each having their own part that inter-locks with the 499 others. I believe marching band should be considered a sport. Everyone must be incredibly coordinated and precise. The band as a whole, and individually must practice. Then theres all the physical stresses that you have to overcome. Coordination plays a key roll in marching. A lot of teamwork goes into it as well. All the musicians have to play in the right key, stay in step, and stay musically in time or else the entire show could be compromised. Memorizing game plays is a large roll in football and other team sports, same with band. You must remember the basic notes, key signatures, and various other musical symbols. Then there are the hundreds of sets, or where and when you have to be on the field during the show. Just one person off can throw off the entire form or melody. Athletes selected for the Olympics have trained for almost all their lives for their event. In Bellevue Wests marching training, we have a two week period of living hell, aka band camp. You basically do nothing but eat, sleep, and think band during the two hottest weeks of the entire summer. Mr. Haugen, our band director, pushes hard and some break down and quit, but in the end, the majority of the group is remaining. All thats left now is a well oiled machine, just like any sports team. I only hinted how physically demanding this â€Å"extra-curricular activity† actually is. You must carry an instrument exactly level while marching, and all your body wants to do is bounce up and down like loose luggage. Then if youre a sousaphone, like me, you have around 45-50 lb. ushing down on your shoulder as you try to elevate yourself as high as possible, as to follow correct marching form. Then you must remember that half your air as you march down the field, goes to playing your instrument. If thats not enough, youre also trapped in a dark, thick fabric uniform, squeezing the last whistles of your breath from your lungs. It may be only for 15 minutes, but even track athletes get breaks in-between events. In those god-forsaken uniforms, that quarter hour feels like centuries. For some odd reason, people have the idea that its easy to play in motion, its anything but! You must have incredible music-making skills, especially considering your bouncing up and down as you sometimes run to get to your spot. Sports are very physically strenuous and demanding, so is marching. Sports teams practice all year long to get ready to compete, we only the summer and a few weeks into school. Each individual plays such a key role in the tone and appearance of the band, its unreal. Marching band isnt just a bunch of nerds and fat guys playing tubas. Its a tight-knit brotherhood of strength and skill. Like football, if you are not in the right spot, you arent scoring the touchdown.

The Era of New Technology Essay -- Business, Sony Products

::: INTRODUCTION ::: Many people cannot visualise the period of time when technology begin to develop incredibly fast day by day. By innovating products which never have place before people started to purchase the novelty as well as enjoy the revolution. The era of new technology also increase the market research as more people wanted to expand and invent different ideas to become competition. In addition the modernisation started to bring huge amount of profits so people begin to formulate more and more companies to come up with better inspiration as well as to beat the competition. In 1946, Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita establish company called Sony. The company created and launched the first magnetic tape recorder called the G-TYPE recorder in Japan. From that day he expands and invents new ideologies to his company as this was the first profitable product to the company. Next stage of Sony was receiving licensing rights to transition in 1953 from Western Electric. Furthermore, the release of the world’s first pocket transistor radio in 1955 which ascertain a market leadership position for the company. Sony was one of the first companies which arise on global market. As Christophe Catesson states â€Å"Since Sony does arise, it has been noted for manufacturing some of the best in-house standards for new storage and recording technologies as a substitute of adopting those products manufactured by other companies.† (2008) The establishment of Sony Corporations in United States occur in 1960. The creation of the company name â€Å"Sony† was inspired by merging two words. The first one is â€Å"sonus† in Latin, which means â€Å"sound† and the other is â€Å"sonny† which means little son. â€Å"The words were used to show that Sony is a very small group of... ...many profits as until now. As Sony has in plans to invent the multi device which be combined of phone, console and notebook. Another creation which has to bring on the market is Bright Era projectors. New invention like that will keep the Sony brand on the top of the list as well as getting the bigger profits. In 1955, Morita prediction to the Sony Company states â€Å"that Sony would be famous around the world within 50 years† For instance it develop more rapidly as he thought. The impact of Sony on the marketplace worldwide is very strong as well as has many followers in their innovations. Finally summarise the all undertakings that Sony have made by these days is â€Å"company culture and widely acclaimed by customers of all ages and in all parts of the world.† (2011) Sony creators should be proud of themselves and feel the satisfaction of the benefits to the future.

Family Law Reflecting Moral and Ethical Issues

The legal system continuously endeavours and reforms to provide effective legislative remedies and modify existing legislation to reflect the changing nature of the Australian family structure. Family law has always been a colossal aspect of Australian society with many effective measures in place for family matters. Numerous values and their effectiveness have been debated through various features of family law, and these debates continue to the present day. Divorce is the legal dissolution of a marriage by an official court decision and was once frowned upon within society, and prior to 1974, married couples who wished to divorce had to apply under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1959 (Cth) on the ground of â€Å"fault† – that is, on the basis that one or both spouses admitted to acting in a way that undermined their marriage (for example, adultery, cruelty, insanity and desertion). However, the first major change to family law in Australia occurred when the law took reform in this aspect with the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth), which states that the only ground for divorce is the â€Å"irretrievable breakdown of the marriage†, such as the case in the marriage of Todd (1976), one or two of the spouses must consent for divorce. The declining influence of religion and the idea that marriage does not always â€Å"last for life† were social factors that influenced this change. The erosion of the concept of fault and the establishment of a single ground for divorce thus demonstrates changing societal values and how law is changed over time. Australian society believes that it is important to protect the disadvantaged, or those who cannot act to preserve their own rights – particularly children. After a marriage has been dissolved, it is the responsibility of both parents to provide financial support for their children as the case of Campbell and Campbell (1998) established that it is in the best interests of the child to maintain the lifestyle to which they have grown accustomed. The Australian Bureau of Statistics Marriages and Divorces 2011 Media release indicates there are 44,000 children under 18 affected by divorce. As such, the Child Support (Assessment) Act 1989 (Cth) requires that children receive a proper level of financial support from their parents and the Child Support (Registration and Collection) Act 1988 (Cth) ensures that periodic amounts payable by parents towards the maintenance of their children are paid on a regular and timely basis. Prior to the Acts, only 40% of claims for child maintenance were being met, whereas after the Acts were passed, approximately 70% of claims are being met. The new emphasis on children’s rights and parental responsibility reflects the social perception that children are vulnerable members of our society and thus require greater legal protection. Another important change in social attitudes has been the increasing acceptance of same-sex relationships, and recent law reforms have centred on providing same-sex couples with the same rights as de facto heterosexual relationships, and removing discrimination based on sexuality. At the State level, the De Facto Relationships Act 1984 (NSW) was amended to the Property (Relationships) Act 1984 (NSW), for the growing acceptance of heterosexual and homosexual relationships highlighted by news article ‘Partners who just can’t wait (2010)‘ which states the growth in unmarried couples living together. It now recognises same-sex relationships as having the same legal standing as heterosexual de facto relationships, and thus provides protection to people in same-sex de facto relationships in property division, inheritance and decision-making in illness and after death. The Miscellaneous Acts Amendment (Same Sex Relationships) Bill 2008 (NSW) creates amendments to 57 pieces of state legislation to ensure de facto couples (including same-sex couples) are treated equally with married couples. This Act also creates amendments to the Anti-discrimination Act 1977 (NSW) to ensure that same-sex couples are protected from discrimination on the basis of their â€Å"marital or domestic status† in employment, accommodation and access to goods and services, articulated in the Daily Telegraph ‘Gay couple win foster care case (2008)’, after a gay couple won $10,000 in damages when their application to become foster carers was refused. However in terms of federal laws at present, same-sex couples are unable to marry. The Marriage Act 1961 (Cth) defines marriage as â€Å"the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others voluntarily entered into for life†, a definition established by the case of Hyde v Hyde and Woodmansee (1866) and repeated in the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth). In 2004, the Commonwealth Government reconfirmed the traditional concept of marriage as the â€Å"union of a man and a woman† when it passed the Marriage Amendment Act 2004 (Cth) meaning same-sex marriage is automatically void in Australia, ncluding overseas marriages. Over time, both State and federal governments in Australia have enacted legislation to encourage and enforce practices which are not only in the public interest, but also reflect the moral and ethical standards of society. While legislative mechanisms have been reasonably successful in achieving this goal with regard to the introduction of â€Å"no-fault† divorce and the protection of children, there is the need for further review and reform of legislation concerning same-sex couples.

The Truth Behind Those Megalodon Documentaries

What can you say about a TV documentary in which the suspiciously good-looking lead protagonist--marine biologist Collin Drake—comes up empty in a Google search? Or, for that matter, his equally attractive marine biologist pal Madelyn Joubert, who joins him halfway through the show, and whom a cursory web search easily demonstrates not to exist? And, not to belabor the point, a TV show that starts with suspiciously staged-looking video footage of a charter boat capsizing off the coast of South Africa, and no references can be found about this accident (in which three passengers were supposedly killed) from reliable online news sources? I dont know much about charter boats, but I do know that people whose ship is in the process of sinking do not take the trouble to center their subjects on frame. (See also 10 Things Megalodon Could Swallow Whole, a review of Megalodon: The New Evidence, and an article explaining why there are no giant sharks alive today.) Welcome to the world of the Discovery Channel and its inaugural Shark Week special, Megalodon - The Monster Shark Lives, which first aired on Sunday, August 4, 2013.  I usually steer well clear of Discovery programming, but since I know more about Megalodon than the average person (see my articles 10 Facts About Megalodon and Megalodon vs. Leviathan - Who Wins?) I felt compelled to tune in. Im shocked that a major TV channel with a supposedly educational purview can get away with this drivel, in which Collin Drake (whoever he is in real life) pursues his theory that that charter boat was rammed by a living Megalodon. Were taken through various pieces of evidence--sonar sightings, Nazi-era photographs, whale carcasses washed up on the beach--but if Discovery is brazen enough to manufacture its talking heads out of whole cloth, what is the point of assessing the reliability of these details? I dont want to get into a debate about whether real, live Megalodon sharks are prowling the shores of southern Africa--after all, its impossible to prove a negative, and people will believe what they want to believe. On first airing, I was also willing to entertain the teensiest bit of doubt that Collin Drake and Madelyn Joubert were who they said they were (though they certainly looked, acted and talked unlike any scientists Ive ever met in real life, a judgment confirmed when it was later revealed that Collin Drake was actually played by a third-string Australian soap actor.) But I am saddened by the prospect that millions of unsuspecting people allow themselves to be educated by the Discovery Channel, which apparently cant stoop low enough to procure its ratings, and doesnt care how many schoolkids it misinforms in the process. Say what you will about Megalodon, but it couldnt help being a soulless, uncaring killing machine--youd think someone at the supposedly more evolved Discov ery Channel would have a conscience! (Apparently unashamed by the critical backlash against Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives, Discovery aired an even more egregious sequel, Megalodon: The New Evidence, in July 2014, about which you can read in Megalodon: The New Evidence - Dont Believe Everything You See.)