Magic, Superstition, and Fetishism in the Movie The Natural Essay

Magic, Superstition, and Fetishism in the Movie The Natural - Essay Example The researcher states that fetishism is clearly depicted right from the start of the movie. As such, this character has a craze for success in baseball. This is evidenced by Hobbs designing a wooden bat and naming it â€Å"WonderBoy†. He ensures that he carries it with him to the city. Despite the mysterious shooting by the woman, Hobbs goes under and according to the events; he re-emerges, from baseball leagues unknown to anyone, and surprisingly, appear in the lineup of a fictional baseball team in the name New York Knights. It happens that he turns up with his boyhood â€Å"Wonderboy† This is a clear evidence of fetishism and as such, it is undeniable. Furthermore, he has an obsession with women. This starts from the point where he decided to pursue his dreams. He first fell for a mysterious woman, Harriet Bird, who sidetracks his dream. A further manifestation of the craze for women is where, after becoming a star player, he is attracted to a beautiful woman called Memo Paris, and a niece to the manager of the team he plays for. He is aware that, the woman is a mistress to a character acting as a gambler. Once again, the crave attempts to destroy his career. This introduces another character of whom we come to know that he had a relationship with since his boyhood. There are events entailed in this movie that a critic can consider as superstitious. For instance, Hobbs falls in love with Memo. As such, he puts more concentration on this woman in an effort to solidify and further this relationship. In response to this, Memo’s Uncle, guided by an aspect of superstition, issues a warning statement to Hobbs that, Memo imparts a bad luck on any person who seems to associate with her. In reality, a belief is a subject to superstition and if taken into account, it is deemed to happen. This is evident as this belief by Pop resulted in a slump hit. As such, after ignoring this warning, he tried to resolve this slump and no matter how many instanc es he tried to do so, none of his efforts succeeded.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) Research Paper

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) - Research Paper Example FARC has waged war against the Colombian government for roughly four decades. At the start of the insurgency, the group had merely more or less 350 soldiers. Majority of these soldiers were the disgruntled and peasants, and they did not have the necessary advanced weaponry (Corrales & Romero 98-99). From this humble beginning, the group’s military capability has risen to roughly 18,000 combatants (Martin 214). Besides its assaults on Colombian economic, political, and military institutions, FARC has been deeply engaged in murder, extortion, kidnapping for ransom, drug trafficking, and other crimes (Hough 386). In fact, the organization becomes more popular for its deep involvement in illegal narcotics businesses than for its rebellious operations. However, its leaders remain devoted to its social revolutionary objectives and use terrorist methods to terrorize or pressure its political enemies. Even though FARC has been successful in taking over massive portions of Colombian territory, the group has been unsuccessful until now to overpower the Colombian armed forces in open combat (Lee 29). This paper discusses current efforts to combat FARC and speculates as to why they are still successfully active. The United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, headed by Carlo Castano, is a conservative paramilitary organization created in 1984 to fight guerilla soldiers or insurgent groups in Colombia, like FARC. Its exercise of terrorism to abolish the support base of these guerilla militias has made it a dominant and feared army in Colombia (Martin 214). The country’s government since the 1960s has been combatting a number of radical terrorist organizations; the two biggest are the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the FARC (Hough 381). The operations and activities of FARC, alongside the narcotics industry, have given Colombia a quite infamous and perilous reputation. The Colombian army  The Colombian army raided a campsite owned by the FARC on the 26th of March 2012, taking the lives of 36 members of the organization and arresting three more.