BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY JUNE 24, 2024) — As you might guess, THE PLANET receives a bunch of private queries. Most we answer privately, but some are worth sharing. With that, let’s attack a mailbag’s quartet.

By the way, the DEAR PLANET salutation is house style. The letters have been edited lightly and slightly only as needed for mechanics and clarity.

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Dear PLANET,

What happens to comments that go to trash?

Thanks,

Herbie

DEAR HERBIE,

Trashed comments get emptied into cybernetic nonexistence.

Actually, THE PLANET recently tweaked the filters that patrol content. We’ll skip the technical mumbo. Our Army of Robots, who patrol all incoming, now place certain comments into, to borrow from 1984, a “memory hole.”

On a popular blog such as this, a huge, almost indescribable amount of “stuff” gets sent to us besides your comments. This includes:

• Blocked IPs
• Messages from foreign countries
• Failed log-in attempts
• spam and other junk
• advertisers wanting to place ads
• grifts, come-ons, and scams.

Contributors on the “flag list” get thrown into the memory hole. They range from a person’s obsession with Adolph Hitler t0 propaganda from Iraq.

Solid contributors — irrespective of political persuasion or any other delimiter — can feel confident that THE PLANET still remains committed to free speech, free of both ads and subscription costs.

THE PLANET alone remains the Voice of the Little Guy in The Berkshires.

We are the genuine article. Accept no other.

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Dear PLANET

Why [do you] not attend council meeting[s] any more?

Love what you do and hope you keep on doping it [doing it]. You’re all we got.

Bartender

DEAR BARTENDER

The simple answer is time. Don’t have the time to waste. We do have our spies, of course, who attend and report back on every meeting. Most of the time our Right Honorable Good Friends on the dais they remain below our radar. Too predictable, too vanilla, too vacuous, too “nothing,” too rubber stamping, and too “meh.”

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DEAR PLANET

Love your local stuff, but would you [consider] more national and intl [content]? Takes me away from the mess that Pete and Pete have made of Pittsfield. Thanks,

FITZIE

DEAR FITZIE

While the thrust of THE PLANET is local and regional, as you know, we do take on national and international topics. With the presidential campaign heating up and the conventions nearing, we’ll be doing more national columns. Global comes into play as well. There are enough hot spots (and still heating up) to warrant the occasional trip abroad — Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Muslims, the recent Russia-North Korea pact, the headlong, dazzling advance of China. The presidential election and international issues are deeply intertwined. Under Biden’s watch, China is eating our lunch, Russia is acting like it’s a superpower again, Israel takes our money but defies our wishes, and North Korea’s talk is increasingly belligerent. Under Trump, China and the U.S. were on equal footing, Russia knew not to mess with us, and with North Korea, the U.S. had face-to-face dialogue and diplomacy. In short, to your question, yes.

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DEAR PLANET

You called it man. Remember last October? You told me the Celtics would go coast-to-coast and [hang up] Banner #18. I said Miami had their number and the Celts would choke in the semis or Finals. They didn’t, and I owe you a dinner!

oRIoN

DEAR oRIoN

The Boston Celtics are once more The Boston Celtics! World Champs for the 18th time, and, for a blip in time, all is right with the world. Cousy to Russell to Heinson, Havlicek to Cowens to White, Bird to McHale to Parish, Brown to Tatum to Porzingis — the beat goes on, the baton gets passed. Oh, and I’ll make sure I order large when we meet for chow.

I won’t rub it in, but I will enjoy the swill. Let’s see. Think I’ll go for the Chateau Latour. Fullbottle.

“And that’s the way it is, Monday, June 24, 2024. This is Walter Cronkite, CBS News. Good night.”

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“Achievement is the fruit of determination” — Sir Donald Turpentine, Knight of the Bath.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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