Re sale of Life Insurance policies:
What societal economic benefit is created by this? If you were a buyer of these policies, would you vote for Health Care reform?

Why pay any attention to gibberish from the New York Post, even if it’s in a story about toys.

I find it interesting that negative comments about Gwen the American Girl Doll are being made now in October considering that the character was introduced in January via an American Girl Movie on HBO and as a doll earlier this year.
Unlike the book, which seems to merely discuss homelessness, in the film Gwen is living in a homeless shelter, but her mother finds a job and an apartment by the end of the film.
I would assume that Patricia-Nix-Hodes, who said she wished American Girl encouraged children to do more about homelessness, has seen the film. She must have forgotten that the movie features children helping the homeless by helping create ceramic bowls for a fundraiser.
I’m not a huge proponent of commercial toys for kids, but have consistently found the American Girl messages to be strong and educational ones for young girls.

Re: Letterman

I find it very odd that we are focusing on Letterman’s conduct, which was perfectly legal, not especially ethical, but also not especially uncommon. And why are we talking about it in the first place? Because of a man whose actions were entirely illegal, menacing and immoral. Where is the outrage about a man who thought he could do this and get away with it? Lacking that, what does it say about our culture that this aspect of the incident, a felony, has been given only cursory mention?

Re David Letterman… It’s pretty obvious that Letterman erred, or as the Catholic Church says, sinned.
My concern is for the women (if they were all women) who were most likely coerced to some degree into a sexual relationship with their employer. Isn’t this a violation of Federal Law?

More importantly, why is NPR spending time on this? If you have to cover it, could you please raise everyone’s consciousness about the law and that one is protected from retribution by the law?

I expect something better from NPR.

Re: “Viatical” purchases of life ins. of AIDS victims
I will try to used a measured tone in this comment, but it is difficult given the sheer ignorance and absolutely unsupported statements by the interviewee Ms. Anderson and by your reporter.
“viatical settlements in the 80s [purchases of life insurance policy of AIDS victims] had a very unfortunate end: It was very good for people but very bad for investors”
WHERE IS THE BACK-UP FOR THIS STATEMENT?
The combination therapies discussed became available only in 1995! There were no such therapies in the 1980s! AZT was the ONLY palliative drug and its use as such began in 1989!
As for these viatical sales being “good for people” [with AIDS], they were another method of stripping the dying of all their assets. Without doing so, they could not qualify for MEDICAID. Even on Medicaid, DRUG costs were NOT COVERED! The only hope for those with little or no money and living on MEDICAID and SS disability payments was to try to get into a drug test — where instead of the drug, they might receive a placebo. Moreover, when the combination therapies became available in the mid-nineties, the cost was approximately $25,000 PER YEAR, a staggering amount for those without health insurance or with a program (Medicaid) that did not cover drugs.
What the handling of the AIDS epidemic during the 1980s and most of the 1990s in the U.S. (not to mention globally) showed was a complete failure of the so-called “social safety net”. It didn’t matter to most Americans, because, hey, it was only “the gays” — and why not have “investors” pick them clean!
So, in addition to a completely inhumane, “business” oriented (do we regard Auschwitz as a “business”?), crass, and thoroughly disgusting statement, it is based on NO FACTS! This level of “reporting” should be an embarassment, at least, to all of you.
I might add that the underlying assumption is that: this was good for the GAY AIDS victims, because, of course, they had no families, no one for whom they might have wanted to provide by means of life insurance, no aged parents, no needful siblings, and, certainly, no lovers or significant others that society should have to pay any heed to. I have no printable words to describe this attitude. And it continues to this day. Shameful is the least I can say.

Col. David Brostrum is the interview about his son being killed in Afghanistan stated the we should not pull out of Afghanistan because he would not have wanted his son to die in vain. What about all those who died in Viet Nam? We finally realized that it was an unwinable, and in my opinion unjust war, and we withdrew. Should we just sacrifice more live and spend more money just to pull out at some later date? We are loosing because we are considered a “foreign” invader, no matter what we think our motives are, and we can’t win because people are willing to sacrifice their lives to drive a foreign invader out, just like we would.