Declarations

Head Games: That’s Our Stand

“We are pleased with the response to this offer and look forward to digging into the data.”

—Tom Warden, assistant vice president of Allstate Research and Planning Center, which is working to determine whether brain fitness exercise software could be deployed to improve driver safety. An initial six month offer of brain fitness software to some policyholders has been extended to include another 25,000 customers aged 50 and older in Pennsylvania.

Rating the Bailout

“The net result here is that up to $400 million in fees will be showered on the same ratings agencies whose mistaken ratings and inflated ratings led to the economic crisis. It is another reward for failure.”

—Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who says he is investigating why up to $400 million in federal bailout money will go to the big three credit rating agencies that he says helped create the economic meltdown. Blumenthal also said the bailout steers money to Moody’s, Fitch and Standard & Poor’s but shuts out six other competitors.

Mine Fatalities

“Although the news may be a sad reminder for the loved ones of those who have died, with this study we have been able to identify work exposures that can explain all of the deaths in the area around the mine.”

—Vermont Health Commissioner Wendy Davis, commenting on a report that found five people who died of an asbestos-related lung disease were exposed to the material at their jobs and not because they lived near a now-closed asbestos mine in northern Vermont. Three of the five who died of asbestosis had worked at the mine; the other two already had it before moving to the area. The report expanded on an earlier study that found residents who lived near the mine had higher-than-normal rates of asbestosis.

En-Gender-ing Discussion

“Look at me … I don’t want to get hurt by some woman who thinks I’m in the ladies’ room for the wrong reasons. I mean, clearly I don’t belong there.”

—Ethan St. Pierre, who was born a woman but is now a transgender man with a beard and short hair. St. Pierre, of Haverhill, Massachusetts was one of hundreds of advocates at a rally supporting a bill that would add “gender identity and expression” to Massachusetts’ discrimination and hate crimes laws. He said having this legislation would have protected him from being fired in 2003 from his job as a security supervisor because he became a man.