notbob wrote:
> On 2006-05-03, The Ranger > wrote:
>
>> Why is it so difficult to imagine a man marrying an out-spoken,
>> strong-willed woman during the reenactment period of ranch house?
>
> It's not. I'm sure it was done then as well as now. But, one doesn't
> bring private disputes to the marketplace. Parents don't argue
> discipline in front of the kids, officers don't chastise junior
> officers in front of enlisted men, yada ya

You should have told that to the guy who was my boss when I worked for a
vending machine service company as the route accounting supervisor. He was
a former Army guy who yelled at anyone and everyone in front of every person
in the office.

On 2006-05-03, jmcquown > wrote:

> You should have told that to the guy who was my boss when I worked for a
> vending machine service company as the route accounting supervisor. He was
> a former Army guy who yelled at anyone and everyone in front of every person
> in the office.

Well, the military is a unique world unto itself. During basic
training TI/DI's were supposed to humiliate you in front of others. It
was part of the plan to break your will and independent spirit so as
to remold you into a team. This is also true for officers during
their training. Later, after basic and secondary training, it was my
experience a good superior, officer or NCO, would take you aside or
call you into his office for reprimand or disciplinary action. This
should also be true with civilian bosses. Sounds like your boss was
just a plain ol' run of the mill jerk.

nb

On 2006-05-03, notbob > wrote:


> their training. Later, after basic and secondary training, it was my
> experience a good superior, officer or NCO, would take you aside or
> call you into his office for reprimand or disciplinary action. This
> should also be true with civilian bosses....

Oh yeah, forgot to mention, Bill seems to uderstand this concept. He
practices it with the hands and tries to with his wife ("I wish we
could do this off the mike"). Perhaps that is why Lisa keeps putting
these disagreements out in the open, knowing Bill is not likely to
pull rank in public.

nb

AC wrote:
>
> selective editing? everyone on the entire ranch says that bill has no
> balls
> and lisa rules. i see it that way too. i'm sure editing plays a part but
> it's
> pretty evident who has the ball sack in that family. the only reason
> lisa
> doesn't completely rule bill's life is because she doesn't go to work
> with
> him in real life.

As I indicated in my first posting, the production crew set out from
the onset to actively create "fireworks" between the participants. Lisa
and the "girl of all work" caught on and chose not to cooperate.
Rather than sit back and simply chronicle the ranch activities and
everyday conversations, crew members flitted back and forth between
cast members whispering incendiary, made up "gossip" into peoples ears
as a means of creating "drama" for their series. Wouldn't be at all
surprised if all of the personal issues we saw last night hadn't been
orchestrated and edited to fit a script the producers had in mind from
the get-go.

Am afraid the Texas Ranch is degenerating into some kind of a trashy
period soap opera & I'm sorry to see that happen. As I recall, the
producer this time around came from MTV's Real World. I'm disappointed
to see PBS moving away from "living history," which was the aspect that
drew me to the the programming to begin with.

>just because lisa is the dominant figure in the family
> doesn't mean they have a bad or odd family. i'm sure lisa raised those
> kids well while bill was at work. i've noticed that the girls will defy
> bill passively but when lisa says something, it's done without question.
> besides, i'm sure lisa lets bill borrow her ball sack for a few hours
> when the guys come over to watch the game or something ;-)

I'll admit that if I didn't know Lisa & Bill Cooke personally, I'd
probably have made the same assumptions about them after watching last
night that you did. It's easy to be flip and judgemental about people
who are effectively just characters in a TV show, but I DO know the
Cookes and I've gotta tell ya, your comments are way off the mark.

Both Bill and Lisa are very involved, committed, caring parents. Both
have strong, if different, personalities, but mesh amazingly well,
communicating better than most couples I know - and they really work at
it. In my experience, they talk things through and try to reach
consensus, but it's Bill who makes the final decisions. Not my cup of
tea, but it works for them. What we are watching is only a small,
manufactured "slice of life," filmed under adverse conditions,
manipulated for entertainment purposes by a production company with a
jawdropping disregard for the impact these "scenes" might have upon the
lives of the participants... After seeing the hatchet job they're doing
on my friends, I'm becoming very suspicious of the show in general.

Couple of thoughts -

They made a point of telling us that Bill Cooke was the first employer
"empowered" to fire employees in any of these series - then, lo and
behold, 2 very well screened people who've enthusiastically applied to
commit months to this project and received extensive background
training screw up so badly that both have to be sent packing almost
immediately. (Who will get sent home this week? Do I see shades of
Survivor?)

Wonder how the fired cook & foreman felt about their future real life
job prospects when they watched their episodes? Funny, how the
producers chose to show us endless posthole digging, but couldn't find
time to show us anything that led up to the participants altercation?
(maybe because it related to the crew's incitement of the whole
brooha?) You can insert anything in a voice over... Those story lines
had set up written all over 'em. Ask yourself, would a trained food
professional willingly serve spoiled food made from rotten ingredients?
I hardly think he'd have happily and so publically put his real life
career in that kind of jeopardy. The PITA attitude we saw may have
evolved when he realized he had little or no control over his
situation. Maybe he was reticent to talk to Bill & Lisa was because
the producers had sabotaged him to the point that he just wanted out.

The producers involvement may explain the cowboys strangely sullen
demeanor when they were invited to eat meals with the Cookes (think
about the crew's penchant for planting ugly seeds of untrue gossip), or
the maid's desire to ride with the cowboys (maybe a little birdie
suggested it when they couldn't get her to fight with Lisa?)

I'm thinking now that most of the situations that have provided drama,
tension, or suspense on the ranch have been orchestrated by the
producers - just like the horses were lost to imaginary rustlers and
the army unit just "happened by" to buy their imaginary cattle - and I
think that's too bad.

At any rate, there's so little quality history programming on the tube,
I hate to see the living history genre "dumbed down" and "soaped up" to
pander to the masses who don't watch PBS anyway.

Nancy T (who needs to go cook up a batch of meatballs & whip up some
sauce - it's a spaghetti kind of day)

"ntantiques" > wrote

> Am afraid the Texas Ranch is degenerating into some kind of a trashy
> period soap opera & I'm sorry to see that happen. As I recall, the
> producer this time around came from MTV's Real World.

And from everyone's description, Real World is exactly
what came to my mind, with the producers instigating trouble to
get a show out of a group of people who might create a yawn
of a show left to their own devices.

nancy