The Miami Herald from Miami, Florida • 186

TROPICALLIFE FAMILY VALUES SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 2004 EDITOR: TERESA MEARS 305-376-3674 or 954-764-7026 ext. 3674 THE HERALD ND IN MY OPINION Whose fault is it that we're flabby fatsos? Like much of explained. The rest of the world, America, however, suspects the move McDonald's is was more public relations than going on a diet. desire for simplicity. Those calCutting back.

orie-laden meals were garnering Trimming down. too much interest from lawANA VECIANA- Holding off. yers, the food police and conSUAREZ Some might say sumers themselves. aveciana that darn it, Ron- McDonald's announcement ald, it's about was followed by the federal govtime. The fast- ernment's State of the Waistline, food behemoth's menu choices a report that should plump up had gotten way too expansive.

the sales of even the most Earlier this month the com- obscure diet book. I can 1 best pany announced it was down- sum up its findings this way: We sizing its supersize choices by are a nation of fatsos. Blubberthe end of the year. "Menu simplification," a spokesman TO ANA, 6E LARRY THE HERALD UNCOMMON SIGHT: A wroght-iron menorah decorates the lobby of the El Rancho Hotel outside of Port-au-Prince. RELIGION Haiti's few Jews hold on to history BY LARRY LUXNER PETIONVILLE, Haiti At the once-elegant El Rancho Hotel in the hills above Port-auPrince, aggressive young men peddle exotic African sculptures next to the taxi stand, and colorful Haitian paintings decorate the reception area.

Yet it's hard not to notice the black, wrought-iron menorah in the middle of the lobby. "My father was Jewish," manager Elizabeth Silvera explains as she sips coffee in the hotel's near-empty restaurant. Like many members of Haiti's mulatto elite, Silvera a practicing Catholic proudly claims ties to Judaism in a country dominated by Catholicism and Vodou beliefs. Haiti has no more than 50 BOB STAFF STAYING IN TOUCH: 'It seems you hear so much of things happening to says Camille Mehter, whose son Rakeeb keeps in touch with a walkie-talkie when he rides bike. PROTECTIVE PARENTS BY ANA VECIANA-SUAREZ Mothers and fathers who fear Camille Mehter remembers fondly her carefree childhood playing hide and seek in the cane fields of Trinidad.

She remembers walking to school with her friends, going where she pleased with nary a worry. Now, ever vigilant, she won't allow her only son, Rakeeb, a sixth -grader, to catch the bus to Seminole Middle School in Plantation. Instead, the nurse works the night shift at Broward General she so can take him and pick him up. His bike rides are limited to around the block, and even when he goes to a neighbor's house to play, he must take the two-way radio. "Who knows who might be passing by?" muses Mehter.

"It seems you hear so much of things happening to children." Mehter's over-protectiveness is not unusual. Frightened by the news of child abductions, worried about crime in neighborhoods and schools, hundreds of parents do what they can to make sure their TURN TO CHILDREN, 8E TURN TO HAITI, 7E ETHICS Cheating: It's not just for evil CEOs anymore BY JOHN JURGENSEN Hartford Courant When fallen Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling recently entered a federal courthouse in Houston, handcuffed and flanked by federal marshals, it may have seemed to the casual observer like the beginning of the end in a sordid corporate episode. At long last, this bogeyman of white-collar crime had been flushed from his mansion to Enchanted a de a (, 111 ARSON I LINI face three dozen counts of fraud and other crimes. Yet, as difficult as it may be to fathom the billions of dollars spirited away by the larcenists within Enron, WorldCom and Tyco, perhaps it's just a matter of scale. When it comes to cutting ethical corners, there is no "us and them." We, from the upper echelons TURN TO CHEATING, 4E child abductions may be worrying about the wrong thing.

Statistics indicate it has never been safer to be a child. JARED STAFF WAITING FOR A RIDE: Students mill around after classes at St. Michael the Archangel school in Miami. INSIDE KIDS' BOOKS: Author Gail Carson Levine comes to town to promote the movie version of her best-seller, Ella Enchanted, 3E. WHAT'S NEW: Nike cashes in on March Madness with a fully customized sneaker, 4E.

PARENT TO PARENT: It's not a democracy. Parenting is an authoritarian responsibility, 5E..