I don't know who Amanda Knox is and don't care. Most Europeans I know wouldn't know or care, either.
To be honest, if you had asked me this question a week ago, I would have said that I simply don't understand Americans' fascination with media-fueled "crime stories." But now I've been stuck in my hotel room for extended periods of time waiting for conference calls with only my TV and remote control to amuse me, and I understand better. The programming on American TV is so bad that the crime stories on the news are often more entertain- ing. :-) The worst so far is "Bad Girls Club," which seems to be what they call a "reality show" in which they pit seven or eight megabitches against each other for several days to see who can dirty-trick the others out of the running for Big Bitch. Horrific. I must admit to not having discovered anything I wasn't watching already that I feel like continuing to watch. I did watch a few more old episodes of "Bones," and have come to like Zooey Deschanel's sister Emily. Not enough to keep watching the series, but she seems to be a better actress than Zooey. And they could easily both be TM meditators, so that may even reduces my "anti-TM quotient." Since my friends here can't get together with me until 10:00 tonight, I'm looking forward to watching the resuming series "Fastforward" to see whether they'll be able to come up with anything interesting. But I haven't been able to make it through more than 2 or 3 minutes of *any* news show. Enough to realize that FOX is even more over-the-top than I thought it was, and that sadly most of the others aren't that far behind. So I'm really not the person to ask about some news story personality. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "ShempMcGurk" <shempmcg...@...> wrote: > > The following is from amazon.com's product description of the book "Angel > Face: the true story of student killer Amanda Knox": > > " Despite all the airtime devoted to Amanda Knox, it's still hard to > reconcile the fresh-faced honor student from Seattle with the sexually > rapacious killer convicted of the November 2007 murder of her British > roommate. Few Americans have heard all of the powerful evidence that > convinced a jury that Knox was one of three people to sexually assault > Meredith Kercher, brutalize her body, and cut her throat. In Angel Face, > Rome-based Daily Beast senior writer Barbie Latza Nadeau who cultivated > personal relationships with the key figures in both the prosecution and the > defense describes how the Knox family's heavy-handed efforts to control > media coverage distorted the facts, inflamed an American audience, and > painted an offensive, inaccurate picture of Italy's justice system. An > eye-opener for any parent considering sending a child away to study, Angel > Face reveals what really went on in this incomprehensible crime." > > I certainly was hoodwinked by several American news magazine stories (like > 20/20 and Dateline) into believing that Knox was innocent. But after reading > several blogs to the contrary, I believe she's quite guilty. > > Barry, are you aware of this case and, if so, can you give us Europe's > reaction to it? >