Confessions of a Second-Rate Mind Essay - 1492 Words

Confessions of a Second-Rate Mind Recently, I found myself drawn to Woody Allen’s essay, â€Å"Random Reflections of a Second-Rate Mind.† I liked the title; I can relate to random thoughts, but I hated the idea of relating to Allen himself. I dislike him on a personal level. I have trouble condoning the behavior of a grown man who refuses to ignore his animalistic urges and sleeps with his teenage step-child. But perhaps Allen had some clue as to what he was doing considering that the latest Hollywood tabloid reports that he and his step-daughter/wife have just had a child together, and are doing well. I won’t speculate, but I have put aside my issues with his personal life, and have found common ground. I too, have random thoughts, and†¦show more content†¦As Allen resumed his random thoughts on growing up Jewish in New York, and his struggles in later life dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, no doubt inspired by his encounter with the Holocaust survivor, I began to recall si milar experiences in my own life. I have a good friend who lived abroad in Scotland last fall. We both have the uncanny knack of meeting someone for the first time and inevitably end up knowing their entire life history within a fifteen-minute conversation. He and I communicated over e-mail, sharing daily stories. One in particular began, â€Å"†¦and over Big Mac’s and fries, the Doctor told me, some random curly-haired kid, his story of the one that got away.† As it turns out, my friend met a retired doctor who had been in the service during World War II, and had been stationed in Scotland. While there, the doctor met â€Å"the one,† a Scottish girl, but never told her how he truly felt. Before he shipped out to return to the US, he debated finding her, and asking her to go with him, but he just couldn’t get up enough nerve. And so there he was, over fifty years later, returning to Scotland to see if he could find her. My friend met this man on the last leg of his trip. He had travel ed all over looking for his lost love, and he was now returning home; He hadn’t found her. He said he knew it was a shot in the dark, but something he just had to do before he died. The doctorShow MoreRelatedTrue Crimes False Confessions1566 Words   |  6 PagesHispanic-American boys were arrested and charged with the crime based solely on the confessions obtained by the police. There was no physical evidence tying any of the boys to the crime. Four of the confessions were videotaped and were later used in court to incriminate the boys. The boys described the crime in gruesome detail and the role that each of them played in the crime. After the arrests, the boys all recanted their confessions, and said that the reason that they felt compelled to confess was becauseRead MoreThe Importance Of Interrogating A Suspect Before He Or She Is Arrested1572 Words   |  7 Pagessilent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an att orney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you? With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me?† (Melvin, 2011). A case that changed the world was Miranda v. Arizona 384 U.S. 436 (1966). Ernest Miranda was a suspect in a violent knifepoint rape of a young eighteen year old girl. Ernest was also accused of robberyRead MoreThe Practical Application of the Age of Criminal Responsibilities1497 Words   |  6 Pagesanswers given in these interviews (Farmer, 2011). 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According to the innocence project (2013), since 2011, there have been 272 exonerations due to DNA. (p. 8) On theRead MoreIslam And The Muslim Religious Experience1365 Words   |  6 PagesAbraham. Muslims trust that the Quran is the last and finish disclosure of God to all individual The focal reality of the Muslim religious experience is Allah. The God of the Quran is one and otherworldly, inventor and sustainer of the universe, and the mind-boggling worry of the adherent. Islam signifies accommodation; a Muslim is one who submits to God, one who is a worker of God. This is not a simple lack of involvement; rather, it is accommodation to the Divine Will, an obligation to acknowledgeRead MoreThe Reid Vs. Reid Essay2054 Words   |  9 Pagesit does happen, and the prevalence of such confessions occurs at a much higher rate in juvenile populations. Aggressive interrogation methods, like those used in the Reid Technique, lead to a greater probability of false confessions among juvenile subjects than if those techniques had not been used. In a study completed by University of San Francisco law professor and renowned false confession researcher, Richard Leo, 35% of the 125 proven false confession cases he sampled included confessors who wereRead MoreFalse Confessions : Fear Of Being Alone And Social Susceptibility5526 Words   |  23 Pages False Confessions: Fear of being alone and social susceptibility BreAnn Lindsey University of Central Oklahoma Author Note BreAnn M. Lindsey, Department of Psychology, University of Central Oklahoma Correspondence concerning this proposal should be addressed to BreAnn M. Lindsey, College of Education and Professional Studies. Department of Psychology, University of Central Oklahoma, 100 North University Drive, Edmond OK, 73034. Email: blindsey5@uco.edu Abstract The project replicates and extendsRead MoreSicko - Analysis981 Words   |  4 Pagesprocedures or retrospectively denied coverage for pre-existing conditions they never knew about . It includes confessions from former insurance industry workers who are guilty or angry about their roles in denying drugs or treatments and describe cost-cutting initiatives that encourage bonuses for insurance company physicians to deny medical treatments for policyholders1, . In the second half of the movie, Moore goes on to different countries that offer socialized medicine like Canada, the UnitedRead MoreFalse Confessions and the Norfolk Four Case Essay2723 Words   |  11 Pages``In criminal law, confession evidence is a prosecutor’s most potent weapon’’ (Kassin, 1997)—â€Å"the ‘queen of proofs’ in the law† (Brooks, 2000). Regardless of when in the legal process they occur, statements of confession often provide the most incriminating form of evidence and have been shown to significantly increase the rate of conviction. Legal scholars even argue that a defendant’s confession may be the sole piece of evidence considered during a trial and often guides jurors’ perception ofRead MoreThe Actions Of The Police Force1358 Words   |  6 Pagesthe ways of the police enforcement, the community has hate growing because of the lives taken away from the loved ones. In the community, it isn’t noticed, but the way of the Law Enforcement is corrupt. It is a proven fact that power corrupts the minds of the ones with power. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men. (John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton). There are certain ways you could tell that a system is in a state of corruption, just