Here at The Seminal we try to stay distinctive among online publications and within the media world generally. A blog we are, certainly - but also a professional-quality journal in the sense that we:

1. Exhibit professionalism in our respectful treatment of all persons and viewpoints, including those our authors disagree with vehemently.
2. Maintain impeccable standards of spelling and grammar (except through the deliberate use of slang to better communicate meaning).
3. Use sources responsibly.
4. Not only report current events to our readership, but also reflect on the meaning and historical context of these events.

Through our professionalism, we’re trying to hold the media to a higher standard. You’ll find no hysteria here, nor Bush-bashing, nor hype and propaganda. Rather, you’ll find authors thinking through issues and presenting their analyses in a clear, well-reasoned, and informative manner.

In that spirit, we bring you, tomorrow, our debut issue for 2007.

Revolving around the theme of the “spiritual left” - the idea that religion and morality are just as much the province of liberals as conservatives - the articles in our February issue explore themes such as organizations and changing constituencies, politics of consumption, and the religious issues involved with the spread of American consumer culture throughout the world. Finally, a related article addresses the frightening power of “corporate personhood,” a legal fiction that underlies the power of large corporations in American public and private life. All in all, the February issue offers food for thought not just on ‘what is going on’ in American politics today, but also on the structures and cultural shifts that lie just beneath the surface of American politics.

We hope you enjoy our February issue and find the articles informative and provocative. Frequent posting on a variety of topics will continue throughout the month, and we’ll see you for our next issue in March.

Linguists have an idea that when a word that used to have multiple meanings acquires a specific and taboo meaning, that meaning drives out all the others. For example, “gay” is now rarely used for any purpose other than referring to homosexuals.

A similar process is going on with the word “madrasa” in the American media. Madrasa, which derives from the Arabic root d-r-s, is part of a whole family of words that mean study, teach, learn, etc. “Madrasa,” in its original context, means a school below the university level. Grammar schools in the Arab world are sometimes called madrasas regardless of whether they include religious instruction or not.

When the media (or anyone else) use the word madrasa to refer specifically to the radically ideological madrasas in Afghanistan and Pakistan, they are driving out the word’s more general and non-ideological connotations. This threatens to short-circuit the viewer’s/reader’s understanding by suggesting that all Islamic education - or all education in the Muslim world generally - is radical, anti-western, and produces terrorists.

Don’t be hoodwinked.

The New York Times is reporting on the accusations and following media circus that surround the inital report that Barack Obama attended a madrassa as a boy. Click here to read the full article (free sign up required).

With unnamed sources, non-professional Internet-based news outlets, and freelance writers paid per article, it’s easy to see how these false stories can appear real. However, my point still stands in that a thoughtful reader would make his or her own decisions on the truthfulness of these reports, and then ask the right questions: Even if Obama attended a madrassa for a brief period when he was 6 years old, what does that have anything to do with his presidential candidacy? (Madrassas don’t really produce terrorists, so some say.)

The cover story of Newsweek this week, “Black Hawk Down: The True Cost of Iraq War,” reminds us of the war’s human cost - a reality which, after four numbing years of war and endless political maneuvers surrounding “exit strategies” and other euphemisms, we seem to have forgotten.

At first it was difficult not to feel overwhelmed by the number of deaths. After four years, it is now difficult not to feel numb. In a nation without a draft, the emotional connection between the front and the home front is the weakest it has been in a major conflict in recent memory. There are so many news accounts of troops killed in combat that the details blur. The death of one soldier, or 20, loses its power to shock, except to the families of the fallen.

Recent posts have addressed the legacies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and the relevance of recent history to the current American political situation.

To really understand Bush, however, we need to understand Ronald Reagan. Bush policies like the War on Terror and tax rebates are copied directly from the Reagan playbook (the “tough guy” approach to the Cold War and Reaganomics respectively). One underlying justification for Bush’s policies is the belief that Reagan was a great president.

According to the neoconservative view, Reagan took over from a wimp Democrat, reversed American economic decline, and won the Cold War.

The Internet is changing the way people find and digest the news. Traditional newspaper readership is down (to under 50% from over 80% in the 1960’s according to the Newspaper Association of America) and more people are getting their news and commentary from a variety of sources (newspaper websites, television, and blogs to name a few). Because people are using more sources to get their information, and many of these sources are non-professional (Wikipedia, most blogs, etc…), a media echo chamber has been created. And it works like this:

Barack Obama has recently announced his ambitions towards the presidency. Buzz and excitement have ensued. Amongst the many signs that this was a candidate to be reckoned with were the defections of prominent cash-cows James Torrey and George Soros from Team Clinton. Their financial bulk will now be thrown behind the swelling Obama camp. These additions add Finances to Obama’s laundry list of strengths, which have been trumpeted nationwide in a steady crescendo since his 2004 Democratic Keynote Address. The press has also subtly pointed out some of his most poignant political weaknesses; his lack of experience, his age, and his admittedly rebellious youth.

There has been undue attention paid to more superficial matters; his last name is similar to Osama, his middle name is Hussein, his daily routine includes several cigarettes. One disappointing piece on CNN placed his picture aside bin Laden’s, making clear their similarities in name. A comparison to Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was then made on the grounds that they both have been known to go tie-less.

Senegal, a nation of 11 million people about the size of South Dakota, is nonetheless home to a thriving hip hop scene. Senegalese hip hop represents the intersection of many cultures and languages - within individual songs one often hears French (the colonial language), English (the American influence), Wolof (the unofficial national tongue), and occasionally a sprinkling of Arabic (the religious reference).

Benny Herson, an American producer, recorded a number of Senegalese MCs and released the resulting compilation African Underground Vol. 1 in 2001. Herson says that

In Senegal, rap lyrics have become highly politicized. In the year 2000, the rappers of Senegal literally changed the political landscape by contributing to the ouster of the Diouf regime in the first successful democratic election in Senegal’s history . . . All over Africa, hip-hop is sparking debate about poverty, war, corrupt government and the threats of globalization.

While the political content of Senegalese hip hop will not be accessible to many Americans because of language barriers, the quality and passion of the music is. Thus for your listening pleasure and edification, check out “Kaadu Xaleyi” by pre-eminent Senegalese MC Duggy Tee, former member of Positive Black Soul, Senegal’s most famous rap group.

J-Ro, webmaster here. I’d like to be the first to welcome everyone to our new website.

As you can see, we’ve moved over to a blog format. We think this gives us a better way to present our ideas and a whole new way to start communicating with our readers. A quick outline of the new features:

• Comments: Readers can now comment on any post by any author. We’re hoping to foster some nice discussion here. Drop us a comment and the authors on our end will return the favor.
• Easy bookmarking: At the end of every post are links to social bookmarking services. If you like what you just read and want to share it with the world, please use these services to post it up for all to see!
• Tagging: Every post is tagged according to rough categories that describe its content. These tags are then represented in our sidebar as a tag cloud. The bigger and darker the text, the more times we’ve used that tag in our posts. Click on the tags to see all posts in that category.
• RSS and Email subscriptions: We are now offering full RSS feeds and an option to subscribe and receive new posts once a day via email. Sign up for email in our sidebar. Or check out our feed.
• New issue based organization: We will strive to bring out posts around a central topic. These “issues” will be linked in the header and in the categories section of the sidebar, for easy reading.
• Search: We’ve finally added a search bar. Enjoy!

That’s about it for the basics. There is lots here to read and enjoy. If you find any bugs, please use the contact form at the bottom of the page to let us know. And if you’d like to write for use, again, please get in touch via the contact page.

We’re looking forward to expanded posting, lively discussion, and good things ahead. Help make this successful! Read, comment, share, and write!

The Seminal would like to formally congratulate eight-time NBA All-Star Dikembe Mutombo for his seemingly arbitrary entry into the U.S. political spotlight last night. The efforts he has undertaken on behalf of his native Congo have proven many times over his intelligence, generosity, and benevolence. While the decision to seat him next to the first-lady, and present him as the first in a veritable parade of feel-good stories, seemed an awkward intrusion into a speech designed to address and inform the nation’s populace of its many problems, he is nonetheless a man who deserves our praise and admiration. Cheers Dikembe!