Amanda Knox verdict is in

[AlphaDog]

$tevie wrote:
I have no idea who this person is, and I fail to understand what it has to do with any of us. Unless we are all planning to go drink and do drugs in Italy, what is the point of getting worked up about this? There are undoubtedly plenty of miscarriages of justice in our very own country should we want to have a hobby of wringing our hands over them.

Guitarist and I haven't been able to totally ignore the story, although I've done a reasonably good job for over two years. Amanda Knox is a University of Washington student, whose entire family lives in Seattle. She went to Italy as part of her studies about two years ago, and, as you can tell, used some rather poor judgment and got herself into a bit of a pickle. Since she's a local, it has definitely made news regularly around here. That's just an FYI since you failed to understand what it had to do with anyone in the U. S. Most of you can continue on completely oblivious to it, which is probably what I'll do for another two or three years, until the verdict is announced from her appeal. If there is anything relevant to others, I'd say it would be for parents of kids who want to study abroad!

[JoeH]

Not from Washington State, but working at a university with a fairly extensive study abroad program does tend to bring stories like this to the fore around the campus. So heard and read bits and pieces about her over the last couple year. What happened to her is part of the reasons the programs insist on students thinking about taking a semester abroad go through an orientation program first. They hope to head off some incidents that way.