Letters to the editor.

To the editor:

Regarding "The 10 Worst Corporations of 2004:"

What about Microsoft?

What about Sony and Walt Disney?

Does it matter that they have engaged in predatory practices, but continue to use their monopoly to push so called "digital rights management"

I never heard of McWane, Merck, Riggs. And Hardee's is not the international success that McDonald's or Wal-Mart is.

What scares me most about Wal-Mart isn't that they have abysmal labor practices. That's just icing on the cake. What scares me is the extent that they represent off-shoring to China.

Michael Richardson

Ottawa, Ontario

To the editor:

Okay--"The 10 Worst Corporations of 2004" is a great piece, but you're losing credibility attacking a food chain about selling a monster burger (which appear to make no apologies or excuses about it) that is, by all accounts, decadent and full of calories. I'm assuming this part of the list was not tongue-in-cheek.

I would have a problem with it if they tried pawning it off as some "health-burger" or an alternative to a healthy meal. Doesn't sound like they're doing that.

Maybe you should go after the dairy industry.... Certainly I get terrible gas from drinking milk. (Oh wait--I don't do that anymore.)

Unless Hardee's is involved with nefarious acts along the lines of Halliburton, Enron or, say, Home Depot, I think it weakens the whole of your article.

Michael Wold

Seattle

To the editor:

I always find your Top 10 List most informative. But you left off what I consider the Poster Child of bad corporate behavior--a company that should remain on the list year after year--United Fruit Company a/k/a Chiquita Banana. From the company's complicity with the CIA in overthrowing the Arbenz government in Guatemala in the 1950s to today's alleged poisoning of Central American banana workers, this company is one of the worst.

Bruce Edwards

Rutland, Vermont

The writer is business editor of the Rutland Herald