TEXT OF LETTERS SEGMENT

KAI RYSSDAL: First in our letters segment this week, some office politics. Not our office, though. The offices of the clothing maker American Apparel. We told you yesterday company founder Dov Chaney is facing a sexual harrassment case. Among other things, he’s accused of attending meetings in his underwear. We quoted a retail consultant who had this to say:

RETAIL CONSULTANT PATTI PAO: When you go work for a company, you have to fit with their culture. The culture doesn’t fit with you.

That attitude didn’t sit well with listener Carla Simmons of Pittsburgh, Pa.

Carla Simmons: It gives people a license, if you’re running a company, to do anything you want — including sexual harassment. And I don’t think anybody, man or woman, working for a company needs to put up with that.

From an American office to an Iraqi one now. A couple weeks ago, we reported on a team of soldiers in Iraq whose job it is to tally up the damages. They then pay Iraqis for property and lives lost in the course of coalition battles and searches. Nina Robertson of Stanford, Calif., wrote to tell us the skeptical take on Iraqis disturbed her a bit.

NINA ROBERTSON: The general take-away message was that the vast majority of the people asking for compensation were being dishonest and that therefore maybe somehow there was some overcompensation of Iraqis going on. Whereas, I don’t think we’re compensating them enough for their hardships.

Fred Thompson dropped out of the Republican presidental race today. He never really did seem to catch on. Some say he only stayed in through South Carolina to help out his friend John McCain by taking votes from Mike Huckabee. We aired a commentary about the former Arkansas governor’s tax plan a week or so ago. It’s being called the fair tax. Some of you — Warren Stiles of Sammamish, Wash., for instance — wrote to say that our commentary was anything but fair.

WARREN STILES: His commentary completely ignored the point that by eliminating income tax a vast swath of income currently diverted to government coffers will remain in the pockets of tax-paying companies and hard-working Americans.

Clearly, Marketplace listeners like to write about taxes. There were a couple of dozen letters about that commentary. But you love to write about television. We asked you last week if the screenwriters’ strike is affecting your viewing habits — it sure is mine. And we got a flood of of responses. Some of you welcome the game shows and gladiators who’ve taken over your TVs. But more of you seem to have just tuned out.

Like Rene Riley of Meridian, Idaho:

Rene Riley: We’d already become bored with and cut out many of the shows we’d been “DESPERATE” to watch and had seriously examined the “ANATOMY” of our viewing habits.

If you’re looking for a way to fill your empty evenings until the writers go back to work, write to us. Our website is Marketplace.org. Click on the link that says contact.