BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THE WEEKEND EDITION, OCT. 30-Nov. 2, 2015) — Last night on PLANET VALENTI TELEVISION, we hosted a debate between mayoral candidates mayor Dan Bianchi and challenger Linda Tyer. After we left the studio, we retreated to our farm in Essex to keep bees and get away from, […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THURSDAY, OCT. 29, 2015) — There’s a scene in Woody Allen‘s Take the Money and Run where with his character, Virgil, is caught up in a bank robbery and sentenced to time in a Southern work camp straight out of redneck hell. You know the […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY, OCT. 28, 2015) — Less than a week before the fateful day on Nov. 3, allow THE PLANET to share some pre-Election Day observations. These are not leanings. These are not endorsements. WARD COUNCIL RACES Ward 1: Lisa Tully (incumbent) versus Tammy Ives — […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, TUESDAY, OCT. 27, 2015) — THE PLANET has learned more about Gungate. It is, as we say in the business, a story “with legs.” Our probe is ongoing, and we must do more digging before we can report on information that, if it bears out, […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY-TUESDAY, OCT. 26-27, 2015) — It’s finally happened. The citizens of Pittsfield have seen the true face of its $200,000-a-year superintendent of schools. That’s the silver lining of Gungate, wherein a 13-year-old boy brought a loaded handgun to South Junior High School, an asylum […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEEKEND EDITION, OCT. 23-25, 2015) — Last night on PLANET VALENTI TELEVISION, Supercitizen Terry Kinnas helped relieve some of the wearisome monotony of the campaign season by declaring his write-in candidacy in Ward 4, opposing the incumbent Chris Connell. Kinnas and Connell came on […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THURSDAY, OCT. 22, 2015) — Great guns. That’s what Dr. Watson has titled his tale about the loaded-not loaded gun found this week at South Junior High School. Pittsfield, welcome to Gungate. Herberg Middle School, as we all know, simply doesn’t exist, except as […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY Second of Two Parts (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY, OCT. 21, 2015) — Pittsfield’s appreciation and stewardship of its important buildings and architectural treasures too often means (a) tearing them down (Union Station, the Palace Theater, the Peace House, and too many others to list) or (b) letting […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY First of Two Parts (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, TUESDAY, OCT. 20, 2015) — It sits on a hill. It’s haunted. The ghosts inhabit vaults containing the surviving fraction of the past’s clutter — a sign from 1958 advertising dog-sled racing on Pontoosuc Lake; a target with arrow holes […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY, OCT. 19, 2015) — Jaci Conry is a freelance writer who takes on such heavyweight topics as “i can do that Christmas” — tips on creating that oh-so-upscale perfect holiday wreath, mantle, and decor — and the benefits of “slow parenting.” That’s a […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEEKEND EDITION, OCT. 16-18, 2015) — Politics is confrontation as much as it is compromise, especially today, where compromise consists of two heads yelling at each other. Taking Pittsfield’s mayoral campaign out of the coma ward, the candidates have raised the volume with a […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THURSDAY, OCT. 15, 2015) — The news of Sabic’s exit has knocked the 2015 election out of the news and into next Tuesday — into Tuesday, Nov. 3. Not that this snoozefest has generated enough interest to warrant Bodoni Bold in neon on the marquee. […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY EDITOR’S NOTE: Tomorrow evening at the school committee meeting, supercitizen and PLANET VALENTI TV guest host Terry Kinnas will invite any candidates for that board — incumbents and challengers — to join him on PVTV. The show begins at 7 p.m. Thursday and runs for the hour. […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, TUESDAY, OCT. 13, 2015) — Even under the most harmonious of scenarios for a city strapped with debt, a shrinking tax base, a falling and aging population, $5 million lost each year through school choice, and a government addicted to spending, the timing for […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEEKEND EDITION, OCT. 9-11, 2015) — The news is as dour as it gets but only as consoling as the writing on the wall has indicated for at least a year, that is, such time as when THE PLANET first talked about the exit more […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THURSDAY, OCT. 8, 2015) — Picking up on yesterday’s topic of “revitalization,” mayoral candidate Linda Tyer held a moveable campaign event Tuesday. Cue Sammy Vincent and the orchestra: “A little traveling music, Sam!” The Lovely Linda, the press release goes, “began a walk of Pittsfield’s downtown. […]
