Steubenville: will there be a book deal or two?

http://bellejarblog.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/i-am-not-your-wife-sister-or-daughter/


I have been too busy to do much blogging lately and also kind of rethinking the whole idea of keeping a blog. I've got other projects in mind.

In case you care, Italy's Supreme Court will rule next week on the acquittal of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito for their role in the murder of Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy, in November of 2007. Knox and Sollecito were convicted in the "first instance" trial and then, against the backdrop of a zero integrity, PR-driven media campaign, they were acquitted, though the calunnia conviction against Knox for falsely accusing an innocent man of the crime (placing herself at the scene) was upheld. This entire charade left a lot of people scratching their heads.

After the acquittal, which came in October 2011, both Knox and Sollecito and their various handlers got busy hammering out the book deals. Knox is much more high-profile, of course, and will be interviewed in an exclusive by Diane Sawyer in late April. I don't expect any truth-telling or hard questions; this is part of the book promotion. According to the twitter feed, Sawyer was recently in Perugia doing some background research (which amounted to asking young American women if they felt safe over there?!).

I'm reposting this blog post about Steubenville as a reminder that violence against women is distressingly common and that it will continue to be for as long as we reward perps, feel sorry for them, excuse their behavior, blame victims and so on. All the stuff we do so well.

Knox allegedly got a 4 million dollar advance for her co-written book. As for Sollecito, he faces defamation charges in Italy for some of the absolute nonsense he and his "co-writer" (read: the journalist who wrote the book for him) came up with. Even his own father felt compelled to go on television in Italy and deny the worst of it.

What a world, eh?