Planet Valenti

By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY, OCT. 1, 2012) — Once again, THE PLANET caught “Them” with “Their” hand in the cookie jar. We can call it our reason for being or an occupational hazard. Take your pick. C’mon down, Frank Cote, assistant superintendent of schools, Pittsfield School Department! […]

By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, FRIDAY, SEPT. 28, 2012) — This story bears watching. On Tuesday this week, the city council entertained an unusual communication, listed on the agenda as No. 8: A communication from Frank K. Cote, Assistant Superintendent, Pittsfield Public Schools, submitting an Order authorizing the City […]

By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THURSDAY, SEPT. 27, 2012) — The United States of Snooky and Honey Boo Boo, now in the midst of a presidential election, can offer any large number of cases in point to prove the vacuous country’s lack of values and priorities. The most important issue of […]

By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 26, 2012) — “Everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the mouth” — Mike Tyson. “You don’t get to see the actual report itself, of course, even though you’ve paid for the ships and the contractors — twice — who phoned in […]

By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, TUESDAY, SEPT. 25, 2012) — THE PLANET has nothing to say about the silly speculations and wild-eyed canards about our supposed work for the Scott Brown campaign. As always, our client list remains proprietary. We only bring this up because of a funny thing that […]

By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY, SEPT. 24, 2012) — The First Amendment has been coming up a lot in our life of late. The most recent example came on Friday, when, on a radio/TV appearance with Shawn Serre of PCTV on “Good Morning, Pittsfield.” Serre asked THE PLANET […]

By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, FRIDAY, SEPT. 21, 2012) — Hey, is it fall yet, or do polished metals on the fingers of a rake need more convincing? We might ask, along these same lines, who hijacked summer. Wasn’t it yesterday that April arrived, not at all as the […]

By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THURSDAY, SEPT. 20, 2012) — Scott Brown vs. Elizabeth Warren: the race is one of the most closely watched in the nation outside of the battle for the presidency. You don’t think President Barack Obama and the Democratic brain trust had Warren delivering a prime […]

By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 19, 2012) — In the long litany of tipping points, where Pittsfield zigged when it should have zagged, we have a kind of connect-the-dots game. When the lines are drawn, a picture emerges of municipal failure. The meltdown from success and vitality […]

By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, TUESDAY, SEPT. 18, 2012) — It’s been 14 years the creation of the Pittsfield Economic Development Authority (PEDA). Progress, once the most important product for PEDA’s illustrious successor — General Electric Co. — has been painfully slow. That’s an understatement of the order that […]

By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY, SEPT. 17, 2012) — “So many people have come and gone. Their faces fade as the years go by.”  That song, by the band Boston, came to mind while reflecting on the magic afternoon and evening spent with friends one week and a […]

By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, FRIDAY, SEPT. 14, 2012) — After all being quiet on the “western front” of the Nilan-Moore Case, new information has emerged that purports to provide a more complete, though not definitive picture, of what happened on the fateful evening of Dec. 8, 2011, and […]

By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 12, 2012) — THE PLANET received this e-mail from Linda Tyer, Pittsfield’s city clerk. It illustrates how Tyer has made that office her own, which is to say, one of the offices on city side that operates more or less at full […]

By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, TUESDAY, SEPT. 11, 2012) — Here are some comments from various FB pages on the Legends of the Lighthouse concert held on Sunday, 9/9/12. — my oh my..the stars all aligned sunday sept 9th..everything rocked~ RICK FETRIDGE — We owe a huge thank you to Bill […]

By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER, 10, 2012) — Just a quick word on the Legends of the Lighthouse reunion concert at the Pittsfield Boys and Girls Club: fabulous! THE PLANET doesn’t know the official attendance figure, but we eyeballed maybe 1,500. We ran into so many friends […]

By DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, FRIDAY, SEPT. 7, 2012) — Congratulations are in order for the campaigns of Patsy Harris and Richard Neal. Respectively, they won the Democratic primary races for register of deeds in middle Berkshire County and 1st District U.S. representative to Congress. Barring an act of […]