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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (593354)	11/13/2010 7:20:58 PM
From: steve harris	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1577920

This is awesome... news.yahoo.com

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (593354)	11/13/2010 8:57:33 PM
From: bentway	Respond to of 1577920

Sand people multi-vote for Palin on Dancing With the Stars!

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (593354)	11/14/2010 2:17:59 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1577920

Arab-Americans: Detroit's Unlikely Saviors By Bobby Ghosh / Dearborn Saturday, Nov. 13, 2010 To disprove the charge that Detroit is in terminal decline, Nafa Khalaf offers himself as Exhibit A. In 1999, when he co-founded his business, which builds water systems and other public works, "people were saying the city was dying," Khalaf recalls. "They said, 'You shouldn't be doing business here.'" But since then, his firm, Detroit Contracting, has thrived and expanded. Employing 23 people, the company brings in more than $20 million a year in revenue. "And 90% of my business is in Detroit," he says triumphantly. "Does that sound like a dying city to you?" When I remind Khalaf that his optimism flies in the face of the city's litany of problems — a shrinking population, chronic unemployment and overstretched services — my skepticism only encourages him to press on. What others see as an urban disaster zone, Khalaf views as a land of opportunity. The Motor City, he says, gave him chances that would have been inconceivable in his native Iraq. Khalaf went to Detroit's Wayne State University in 1986 to study engineering and was so impressed with the city that he never returned to his homeland. "You want to know if Detroit has a future? Ask us Arabs," Khalaf says. "We believe in this place." (See TIME's photo-essay "30 Mosques in 30 Days: An American Trip.") Remarkably, that sentiment is shared even by those who never saw Detroit in its glory years — people like Sami, an Iraqi refugee who arrived this summer during the height of the nationwide furor over the proposed Muslim community center near Ground Zero. (Unsure of how candid he should be in his new home, he gave his first name only.) Although troubled by the controversy, Sami has no doubt he's picked the right place to start his new life. So what if he hasn't yet found a job. It's just a matter of time before one of the restaurants or stores on Warren Avenue, which connects Detroit to the nearby city of Dearborn, needs another busboy or odd-job man. The path from there is already paved in his mind: "I will save up for a couple of years and open a kebab shop ... then another one, and another one. If McDonald's can have restaurants all over the Arab world, then why can't I have kebab shops all over America?" As we walk down the street, he points to the brightly lit stores, many of them run by Arab Americans. "All of them got a chance to start something in this city," he says. "My turn is next." Khalaf and Sami speak for a community that is growing and prospering alongside Detroit's decay, one of the largest concentrations of Arabs outside the Middle East. The four-county region of southeastern Michigan has a population of at least 200,000 of Middle Eastern origin; some estimates put that number far higher. In Dearborn, home to Ford Motor Co., one-third of the citizens have Middle Eastern ancestry — including Rima Fakih, the first Miss USA of Arab descent. (See the top 10 beauty pageant scandals.) For Detroit, a city in critical condition, this new blood could make a difference. The impact is twofold: a desperately needed infusion of new citizens at a time when an exodus has drained metro Detroit of its middle class, both white and black; and an economic boost from a culture that likes to start new businesses. The Arab-American community in metro Detroit produces as much as $7.7 billion annually in salaries and earnings, according to a 2007 Wayne State University study. (That amounts to more than twice Detroit's annual budget.) The controversial question, though, is whether Arab-American prosperity will remain at the edges of the city, at arm's length from the predominantly poor African-American population, or produce jobs and other benefits for the whole of Detroit. On the street, the question is often put more divisively: Are Arab merchants profiteers or pioneers? Read more: time.com