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Pickton jury selection underway
Anarchy, unplugged
Rising above disability
Classic illiteracy?

Pickton jury selection underway
The selection of jurors is now underway for the Robert Pickton murder trial, which begins in January and is expected to take as long as a year. SFU psychology lecturer Gordon Rose studies juries, jury selection and such issues as pre-trial publicity and can comment.

Gordon Rose, vgrose@sfu.ca (checks email regularly)

Anarchy, unplugged
Anarchism is resurfacing in popular culture, from Broadway to Vancouver, notes SFU historian Mark Leier. The father of anarchism, Michael Bakunin, is a central figure in Tom Stoppard’s play, Coast of Utopia: Voyage, which opened in New York starring Ethan Hawke as the young anarchist. Meanwhile, in Vancouver, Stuart Townsend is filming The Battle in Seattle, in which anarchists played a crucial role in the protests against the WTO. Political protest and anarchism fill out the plot of a new Canadian movie, Monkey Warfare.

Leier examines the continuing popularity of anarchism, its political relevance today, and its historical roots in his book, Bakunin: The Creative Passion. Starting with the Battle in Seattle, he shows that anarchism is a rational political theory that has little to do with the violence often associated with it.

Mark Leier, 604.291.5827; mark_leier@sfu.ca

Rising above disability
Glenda Watson Hyatt was born with cerebral palsy but always considered it a challenge rather than a disability. Watson Hyatt, who earned a bachelor-of-arts degree in psychology at SFU (1995), has just written her autobiography, I’ll Do It Myself. She says the book, launched this week, shows how cerebral palsy is “not a death sentence, but rather a life sentence.” Watson Hyatt, from 100 Mile House, was integrated into a regular classroom long before mainstream was a buzzword and later worked to change attitudes about disabilities during her seven years at SFU.

Marianne Meadahl, PAMR, 605.291.4323, or
Glenda Watson Hyatt, Glenda@webaccessibility.biz

Classic illiteracy?
First the Narnia chronicles got the star treatment, and now E.B. White's beloved children's book Charlotte's Web is about to be released as a feature film. In this electronic age, when many parents are already concerned about their children's reluctance to read, the question must be asked: does it help or hurt a child's literacy skills when the classics are co-opted by Hollywood? Do such films help drive children back to the stories they were based upon? Or do they doom the book to live the rest of its days on the shelf? SFU education professor Roz Stooke, a long-time fan of Charlotte and Wilbur, can expand on the answer: it depends.

Roz Stooke, 604.291.4303, rstooke@sfu.ca