Duck Dynasty's ratings decline...

...even though Phil Robertson's suspension was temporary, and he did not miss any filming of the new season:

"There were high expectations for season premiere on January 15th after the weeks of free publicity the show received due to Robertson’s comments about homosexuality and the subsequent, short-lived “suspension” he was given by A&E. But the notion that an even larger Christian conservative audience would flock to the show in support of Robertson was dispelled after the first episode of the season on Wednesday, January 15th drew 8.5 million viewers, a 28% drop from the fourth season premiere last August, which had 11.8 million. It was more on par with the third season premiere in February 2013, which had 8.6 million.

This week’s episode, with 6.6 million viewers, marked another large drop from the second episode of the fourth season, which had 8.5 million viewers. In the 18-49 demographic that is particularly attractive the advertisers, the show also saw a decline. While last season’s premiere had a 5.0 rating, this week’s episode was just 2.9. That put it below network competition like American Idol (4.5) and Modern Family(3.4)."

This is puzzling. Even if the number of viewers didn't increase, such a drastic drop means many loyal viewers aren't watching. Any guesses as to why? I have a notion but I'd like to hear yours first. 

Orwell On Speech

Rabel linked to a piece by Jason Lee Steorts called "Steyn On Speech:"

I admire Mark Steyn’s gallantry in defending freedom of speech and thought, but his weekend column is less than illuminating. It seems to have been 200 percent felt and half thought. Sorting through and categorizing the jumble of quite different examples that provoked Mark’s dudgeon was nonetheless a useful exercise. Here are my undoubtedly boring conclusions. 

When it comes to the legal restriction of speech, or the legal coercion of dissenters, I’ll storm the barricade with Mark. It amazes me that any soi-disant free people tolerate that sort of thing. 

The use of speech to criticize other speech is something else, and the distinction between state coercion and cultural coercion is one that Mark typically doesn’t acknowledge, to the detriment of his arguments. That distinction can get pretty blurry in our present legal arrangements, but in principle the people have every right to make pariahs of whom they will, and to slug it out among themselves, so to speak, when they disagree. 

Still, Mark has a point, and we should ask ourselves what sort of culture we’d like to live in. The readiness to ostracize those who offend our sensibilities is stifling and unhealthy. Except in very extreme cases, we should criticize speech rather than condemn speakers. This is also prudent. Martyrs are popular; better to make an argument. 

On the other hand, I can’t agree with Mark that anything of value is lost when derogatory epithets go out of bounds in polite society. They tend to be bad even for humor, substituting stereotype and cliché for originality. People who used them in different times need not be regarded as monstrous, nor must the canon be censored; we could instead feel good about having awoken to a greater civility and make generous allowances for human fallibility. 

By way of criticizing speech, I’ll say that I found the derogatory language in this column, and especially the slur in its borrowed concluding joke, both puerile in its own right and disappointing coming from a writer of such talent.

I boldfaced the Anglo-Saxon (A-S) nouns and underlined the A-S verbs to emphasize why I think this is a particularly poor piece of writing. Out of the whole piece, only the most vague terms come from Anglo-Saxon: freedom, speech, thought, time, slur, blurry; only two verbs, "slug" and "storm" are Anglo-Saxon, and "storm the barricade" is terribly worn metaphor.

George Orwell wrote in his wellspring of wisdom, Politics And The English Language:

The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as "keeping out of politics." All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. I should expect to find -- this is a guess which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify -- that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years, as a result of dictatorship.

Don't Get Mad...Get GLAAD!

GLAAD started the whole mess:

A&E EXECUTIVES SUSPENDED DUCK DYNASTY PATRIARCH AFTER CALL WITH GLAAD

'Duck Dynasty' Family Raises the Ante

"We want to thank all of you for your prayers and support. The family has spent much time in prayer since learning of A&E's decision. We want you to know that first and foremost we are a family rooted in our faith in God and our belief that the Bible is His word. While some of Phil’s unfiltered comments to the reporter were coarse, his beliefs are grounded in the teachings of the Bible," reads a statement posted on the family's Duck Commander website. "Phil is a Godly man who follows what the Bible says are the greatest commandments: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart' and 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' Phil would never incite or encourage hate. We are disappointed that Phil has been placed on hiatus for expressing his faith, which is his constitutionally protected right. We have had a successful working relationship with A&E but, as a family, we cannot imagine the show going forward without our patriarch at the helm. We are in discussions with A&E to see what that means for the future of Duck Dynasty. Again, thank you for your continued support of our family."

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.

Once more we are met on a great battlefield of that war.

Who thinks freedom is a pretty darn good thing?

"Jindal: 'Messed Up Situation When Miley Cyrus Gets a Laugh, and Phil Robertson Gets Suspended'"

"Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal criticized the suspension of Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson by network A&E."

“Phil Robertson and his family are great citizens of the State of Louisiana. The politically correct crowd is tolerant of all viewpoints, except those they disagree with. I don’t agree with quite a bit of stuff I read in magazine interviews or see on TV. In fact, come to think of it, I find a good bit of it offensive. But I also acknowledge that this is a free country and everyone is entitled to express their views. In fact, I remember when TV networks believed in the First Amendment. It is a messed up situation when Miley Cyrus gets a laugh, and Phil Robertson gets suspended," said Jindal in a prepared statement.

Over a Daily Caller, Matt K Lewis also sees it in terms of a divided "two Americas".

When you consider the more effete, cosmopolitan America that “Pajama Boy” represents, you’ll get a sense for why the Duck Dynasty folks are out of touch with today’s acceptable norms. There is a huge schism between red state America and blue state America, and these two stories seem to symbolize the yawning chasm. 

We (by We, I mean those paying attention to this) seem to be caught up in a version of what the Wikipedia "tit for tat" page describes as a "death spiral." That's my impression, for whatever is worth. I don't want to stick my neck out too far on this. I wanted to carefully consider it before posting\copying and pasting about it.

While Axelrod has empirically shown that the strategy is optimal in some cases, two agents playing tit for tat remain vulnerable. A one-time, single-bit error in either player's interpretation of events can lead to an unending "death spiral". In this symmetric situation, each side perceives itself as preferring to cooperate, if only the other side would. But each is forced by the strategy into repeatedly punishing an opponent who continues to attack despite being punished in every game cycle. Both sides come to think of themselves as innocent and acting in self-defense, and their opponent as either evil or too stupid to learn to cooperate.

As a Christian, I want to promote love, understanding and cooperation.

"Why don’t you just run it and say what we say?”

"In an interview with Sports Spectrum TV earlier this year that’s only recently gone viral, Phil Robertson (Duck Dynasty) admitted that fake bleeps were inserted into the show even though there was no cursing happening."

“The inserted fake bleeps … like somebody had used profanity, but no one had used profanity,” Robertson said. “I ask those guys that produce the show … ‘What’s the point of the fake bleeps?’”
Robertson admitted that there are up to 20 editors who are “arranging the scenes” on the show so they might think that’s where cursing likely happened.

“Of course these people probably thought that there was some profanity going on which there was zero,” Robertson stated.

CBS Houston - (video after "read more")