From The Morning News (AR), we learn that our efforts to change Wal-Mart are having a real effect:

Wal-Mart's brief honeymoon from its critics after the Bentonville-based retailer went above and beyond in helping with the Hurricane Katrina recovery effort seems to be over.

Just days after President and CEO Lee Scott announced a more affordable health-care plan for employees and also a "bold" new environmental program, a Wal-Mart internal memo was leaked to the media that caused a new firestorm of criticism.

The memo outlined different tactics the company could use to reduce health-care costs, among them hiring "healthier workers."

U.S. Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro, D-Conn., called the memo a "smoking gun" that revealed Wal-Mart's employee benefits strategy to be "both hostile and anti-worker."

Wal-Mart's most persistent critics, Washington-based Wal-Mart Watch and Wake-Up Wal-Mart, also jumped on the bandwagon, saying the memo "shattered the myth" of the company's benevolence.

It seems that for every few steps Wal-Mart takes toward improving its image, it receives another whack for falling short. Doug McMillon, newly appointed head of Wal-Mart's Sam's Club division, told a business luncheon Thursday that the recent publicity "felt like a reality show."

"When you read a memo in the New York Times before you (got to see it) ... you almost feel like pulling down the shades. It seems that every little chink in (Wal-Mart's) armor is put in the news," he said. "They pick up a draft of a memo that means nothing to us and hit us over the head with it."