but Anita Roddick and The Body Shop were outright frauds. Former ABC News Prime Time Live producer Jon Entine blew their cover in 1994. The company that claimed to be enviromentally-friendly, third-world-friendly, customer-friendly and employee-friendly, was in fact the opposite on all counts.

Franchisees were promised big profits from pristine products. What they got was tainted merchandise manufactured in violation of EPA and FDA regulations, and, not surprisingly, plummeting sales. Here's how one Chicago franchisee put it: "The Body Shop is built on lies. Anita runs a mean-spirited company that contradicts everything she claims to be about."

The Body Shop lied and skirted the truth in its promotional and advertising literature. Tiffany Haworth, graphic designer for the company complained: "I was forced to print things that weren't true. I've never seen a company treat its employees so badly." TBS claimed it never tested its products on animals. That was true; it tested its ingredients on animals and purchased ingredients that had been as well.

Roddick claimed in company brochures that an "inordinately high percentage of profits" were given to charities. That was a demonstrable lie. Public records showed TBS gave nothing at all to charity during the first eleven years of its existence and far below the industry average after that, despite high profits.

One of Roddick's prize claims was that you could bring containers back to the company for recycling. That was another lie. Company employees admitted that all that plastic was dumped into landfills.

As to TBS's employees, product manager Marilyn Gettinger said "It's a sweat-shop. Pay is 75% of what other cosmetic companies offer and we work sixty to eighty hours a week. Workers are fired on Anita's whim with no severance." Again, that was a company making huge profits.

Roddick stole the entire Body Shop concept from a small chain of stores in California in the early 1970s. She had to pay them $2.5 million for copyright infringement. One of them now refers to her as "a fraud."

Because Roddick cut corners in the manufacturing process by refusing to do normal testing of products headed for market, TBS products often were tainted with bacteria far in excess of FDA limits. When disgruntled employees contacted the FDA, the agency forced a recall of Banana Shampoo that tested 1000 times the acceptable level of three bacteria including e coli.

Claims of fraud came from franchisees around the world, enough to activate an investigation of TBS by the Federal Trade Commission.

David Brook, former TBS director of environmental affairs and an attorney with the EPA said "I can tell you, their environmental programs are just window dressing." TBS factories in New Jersey routinely flushed nonbiodegradable chemicals into the city sewer system in violation of state law.

Quality control employee Scott Tackach at a TBS plant in North Carolina said, "We flush toxic chemicals all the time. Surfactants we spill into a nearby creek."

Consumer Reports and a similar magazine in Germany slammed TBS for including formaldehyde, a known carcinogen, in many of its products.

Many TBS products were manufactured in third-world countries to take advantage of the low-wage labor. Once, when one factory asked for a slight increase in pay, Roddick threatened to shutter the plant and move to India.

Roddick was a great self-promoter, but that's all she was. The truth about The Body Shop is totally at odds with its and her public image. As Tiffany Haworth said, "It's an ugly story."

I don't know who he works for now. He's British, if that helps. But I fail to see how independently verifiable facts like FTC investigations, payoffs to those whose copyrights Roddick infringed, EPA findings of tainted products, lawsuits by dozens of franchisees, lies about animal testing, lies about recycling, etc. depend on who the messenger is. Maybe you can explain it, but there's an ocean of difference between Roddick's words and her actions and a great many people back that, not just one.

Boxing causes permanent brain injury. No one sustains the number of blows to the head that any boxer suffers without permanent injury to the brain. Ask any neurologist. Boxing regulators could correct that instantly by prohibiitng blows to the head the same way blows below the belt are prohibited, but needless to say they won't. It'd kill the sport.

To those who say that no one has to get into the ring in the first place, I say "stop being so naive." We hear all the time about the fabulous amounts of money made by the cream of the boxing crop. Tough kids with no way out of dead-end lives see that and it looks pretty good, so they step into the ring and get their brains beaten out for $50 a fight. Few die, but they don't have to for boxing to be the unconscionable enterprise it is.

Don't get me wrong. A good boxing match is one of the best pure sports events you can see. But the sport is terminally compromised. It should change its rules and join the 21st century.