I hadn't noticed before, but the only languages announcements are made in at detroit are english, japanese, and chinese. I think it used to be just english and japanese. Indicative, perhaps, of where this city's interests lie. Given that this is the motor city (and given that chrystler (sp) now sports a daimler in its name, I wonder what this says about this airport's opinion of the future of european autos. The fact that no european languages (nor spanish, interestingly) are spoken seems a bad sign...

I am surprised by the lack of Spanish announcements, too, considering the large increase in the Spanish speaking community in the Detroit area. Of course, with Spanish, people get upset because they feel Spanish-speaking individuals should "just learn English." What really surprises me, is that there are no Arabic announcements... of course, that might upset people--wouldn't want that. It's amazing that our propoganda and sensitivities to terrorism and immigration have caused such an apathetic country to get so wrongfully empassioned over the most trivial of details--like language. I guess it's the Cold War for a new millenium; and is really perpetuated by the triviality in the administration: let's get people upset over something like immigrants speaking their native language so they don't notice we are building a wall over here with armed guards.

Somehow, I submitted before I was done... apparently, not yet enough coffee. As far as the automotive industry is concerned, I think they are really getting on the whole immigration and terrorism bandwagon, and seem to be very anti-Mexico, since so many jobs have gone there. My view comes from the propoganda I get from family and friends who are UAW--it seems the autos are very much driving these issues among their employees as well.