The Toronto Sun, February 27, 1998:

A criminal who went on to murder three men after being paroled was released in part because board members didn't think his history of armed robberies counted as violence.

Corrections Canada commissioner Ole Ingstrup told the Commons justice committee yesterday that two board members who granted day parole to Michael Hector, and two who gave him full parole, felt he did not qualify as violent because he never fired his gun during the robberies.

The laws and sentencing statutes all define armed robbery as a serious crime of violence, and Ingstrup said parole board members have now been "instructed" on this point.

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Jo Ann Bass, owner of Joe's Stone Crab restaurant in Miami Beach, was stunned to receive a letter from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charging her with employment discrimination. A locally prominent women's advocate, Bass employs women in most of the restaurant's management positions, has served and employed blacks at a time when others wouldn't, and always boasted that her staff of 280 was so diverse it looked like a "mini United Nations."

But the EEOC charged that while the restaurant is owned by a woman and managed mostly by women, it had a tradition of hiring only men as waiters. The agency said that between 1986 and 1991 the restaurant hired 108 male waiters, and no women, a record that may have discouraged women from even applying. A federal judge agreed with the EEOC, finding the restaurant guilty of "unintentional" sex discrimination, and is set to hear testimony on potential damages of up to $1 million. The case, however, was not initiated in response to any woman's complaint, but rather as a "commissioner's charge," a device that allows the EEOC itself to accuse a business of discrimination.

Bass does not dispute the fact that the vast majority of waiters have been men, but she claims that was simply because most of the qualified applicants turned out to be men. "I didn't think it was my responsibility to beat the bushes looking for female servers," Bass said. "We hired who was qualified and came through the door." According to Bass, food servers are required to be deft in carrying trays that could weigh as much as 40 pounds, and that in the first year servers could work only a lunch shift, which may have discouraged women from applying.

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Indiana University's Residential Programs and Services department sponsored a panel of bondage practitioners and advocates, led by student organizer Keith Potter, also known by his campus nickname, "Bondage Boy." Imploring the public to "give it a chance," Potter told the Indiana Daily Student, "After a while sex can get old. Rather than cut off the relationship, you might as well try new things." The panel introduced 150 students to practices such as burning a partner with hot wax, branding or puncturing skin with needles, using rope, chains, or leather to subdue or tease, and enhancing sexual arousal with whips or biting.

John Robinson, president of Headspace, a student group that promotes sadomasochism and bondage, touted S&M's religious benefits, contending that pain serves "as a method of transcendentalism" and allows participants "to either become a god or to become closer to their god." He added, "It is a tool that, properly used, can build trust." Potter maintained the workshop was "educational" and redressed historical discrimination against bondage practitioners, an assessment shared by the university's assistant chancellor for residential programs and services, Bruce Jacobs. Potter admitted Headspace often sponsors off-campus "dungeon parties" in which students are initiated into S&M or invited to watch, but stressed that parties always occur at non-alcoholic venues.

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