SPELLING BEE BRINGS HOME A WINNER, SOME GOOD MEMORIES, AND A BELLY LAUGH AT THE JUDGES
BY DAN VALENTI
PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY
(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY JAN. 27, 2025) — THE PLANET extends congratulations to Emily Escalon-Brizuela from Reid Middle School for winning this year’s Jonathan Levine Middle School Spelling Bee. Same to second-placed Averi Olds from Herberg and all the young scholars who competed.
Spelling bees were standard fare back in the day. At Mt. Carmel School, our beloved K-8 alma mater, they became monthly classroom exercises, boys vs. girls. In the battle of the sexes, the girls usually came out on top, although Yours Truly would often be the last boy standing. That’s when I got to know how Custer felt after he rode to the Little Big Horn stating, “Injuns?! Why, there ain’t no Injuns in these here parts.”
Our spelling highlight came in 6th grade, when we are one of three Mt. Carmel spellers chosen to represent the school at the citywide bee. Back then, with so many parochial schools having been so well taught by drill-instructors masquerading as nuns, the Catholic kids were the major leaguers. One year, a kid from Plunkett School managed to make the finals, and we thought he was the living answer to the Third Secret of Fatima.
———- ooo ———-
Emily’s triumph this year gave THE PLANET pause to remember Jonathan Levine, publisher, editor, and one-man band for many years of the redoubtable Pittsfield Gazette. The beloved weekly pulled no punches and made a living beating the Boring Broadsheet on many stories. Jonathan had more scoops than Baskin-Robbins.
In fact, this franchise, PLANET VALENTI, began in the Gazette. Each week, the tabloid would run our latest infuriation guaranteed to piss off the right people. Jonathan’s support was unwavering, even when local thin-skinned hotheads threatened the paper because THE PLANET had, you know, told the truth about them. Of course, Jonathan was used to the drill, having tightened the underwear of many a phony official. No journalist in town worked harder or attended more meetings than Jonathan Levine. The Gazette was his life, and deadlines and technical glitches never stopped his paper making newsstands and into the mail on time.
We can give Jonathan our highest compliment: He was an Individual.
———- ooo ———-
THE PLANET had a scream-laugh that even a bushel full of canker sores couldn’t narrow down to a polite chuckle when we read in iBerkshires the names of the judges: Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier, mayor Peter Marchetti, asst. supt. for school transformation and accountability Jennifer Stokes, and school committee member Diana Belair. This quartet couldn’t spell “scandal” if you spotted them the first six letters. Or don’t you remember the street painting in front of Drug and Sex High School, otherwise known as PHS?
Socohl.
Scoohl.
Slocho.
Something like that.
Asking these bums to judge a spelling contest is like asking Anton LaVey to concelebrate Midnight Mass with the Pope.
And we bet you didn’t know Bitchfield had an ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT FOR SCHOOL TRANSFORMATION AND ACCOUNTABILITY, didja. Another fake, six-figure, boiling waste poured on the heads of Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski.
Accountability.
Yeah. We’re still waiting, Mayor Lumpy.
“It was amazing to watch, and I am really proud of all of the students who participated in the spelling bee,” said Lumpy.
As one wag from the crowd remarked, surprised at seeing Hizzoner at this event: “I thought they slapped a restraining order on him keeping him away from little children.”
Such is life these days in the Big City.
———————————————————————
“Politics is made up of irrelevancies and irrelevants” — Sir Donald Turpentine, Knight of the Bath.
“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”
LOVE TO ALL.
Copyright (c) 2024 By Dan Valenti, PLANET VALENTI and EUROPOLIS MANAGEMENT. All rights reserved. The views and opinions expressed in the comment section or in the text other than those of PLANET VALENTI are not necessarily endorsed by the operators of this website. PLANET VALENTI assumes no responsibility for such views and opinions, and it reserves the right to remove or edit any comment, including but not limited to those that violate the website’s Rules of Conduct and its editorial policies. Those who leave comments own all the responsibilities that are or can be attached to those comments, be they rhetorical, semantic, or legal. Such commentators remain solely responsible for what they post and shall be and remain solely accountable for their words. PLANET VALENTI shall not be held responsible for the consequences that may result from any posted comment or outside opinion or commentary as provided in, but not limited to, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and this website’s terms of service. We serve as a marketplace of ideas, without prejudice and available to all. All users of this site — including readers, commentators, contributors, or anyone else — hereby agree to these conditions by virtue of this notice and their use of/participation in this site. When PLANET VALENTI ends with the words “The Usual Disclaimer,” that phrase shall be understood to refer to the full text of this disclaimer.
It was/is ‘scohol’, as in alcohol. Humour amplified.
That new deanship was just the ticket to puffing the tax bill. They add a position, with complimentary SUV, then make the spending permanent. Always planning for the future.
I doubt Custer said that. Sounds like that guy, Custard.
I miss the late great Jonathan Levine &:The Pittsfield Gazette weekly newspaper.
I enjoy reading The Planet Valenti blog. It provides truth over the usual propaganda & lies about Pittsfield politics (& beyond).
The Dirty Bird (Berkshire Eagle) rag blacklisted me for a little less than 21 years. So much for transparency & democracy.
*Sarcasm* How do you spell Pittsfield? Answers: RETRIBUTION & DISSERVICES & LIES….
Funny column.
Yeah Jennifer Stokes who had a hand in the paraprofessional scandal, promoted upwards. A few years back the white male principal of Herberg who successfully raised mcas scores for that school, was mysteriously forced to resign. The scandals in PPS never end, do they?
Still no word on the current PHS principal’s staff who were put on paid leave.
Where’s the transparency?
Parents, homeschool your kids! Show up at school committee meetings and demand info.
Or do what Pittsfield teachers and school administrators do and choice your kids out of Pittsfield. There are obviously things they do not want you to know and you don’t want to find out what they are the hard way. They are already telling you there will be some things they cannot or will not tell you. You should be seeing bright red flags in those statements.
If they do not have the best interests of the taxpayers who elected them in their minds what makes anyone think they truly have the best interests of their children in mind? Watch what the do and not what they say and you will have a much more reliable perspective.
“There are obviously things they do not want you to know” — That’s the key insight here, PAN. It’s how the entire “leadership” of government operates in Bitchfield: Lumpy, the PSD, Voltron the Porkchop, councilors. The many decent people who work in government must operate in an atmosphere of fear and retaliation.
Seems like parents are sick of the education system everywhere.
https://redstate.com/beckynoble/2025/01/27/bad-news-for-teachers-unions-new-poll-says-majority-of-voters-not-happy-with-education-system-n2184862
God Bless Mr. Levine. I miss his informative little paper. Amazing how one man could out do the Eagle staff. RIP.
2nd that sentiment for blogger and the Berkshires’ best journalist: Dan Valenti.
Pittsfield prides itself on everything being equal, but not when it comes to income. Pittsfield has the majority of school students living below the poverty line. The schools create ridiculous do-nothing positions with high salaries and perks, but none of these positions are helping students to break out of the cycle of poverty. Only a select group of people in Pittsfield benefit from the excessive amount of money spent on the schools. Pittsfield has been spending outrageous amounts of money on the schools for at least 20 years, but poverty for families continues to increase.
I 2nd that sentiment. The public school district should be seeing a decline in poverty in its student population. The a little over 70 percent poverty number makes Pittsfield a Group 11 public school district, which translates to millions of dollars in additional state administered federal aid for the overpaid bureaucrats who “no’s nuttin'” about all of the controversial scandals. The ghost of Camp Counselor Carmen still haunts PHS.
The bureaucrats are getting rich from keeping these kids poor. Why am I not shocked? They make sure the kids are not learning enough to pull themselves out of poverty so the poverty becomes generational. Instead it’s all about teaching them to be activists and lots of emphasis on gender.
Sharp
It is actually quite lucrative for Pittsfield to classify so many kids as living in poverty. Try finding out how much, in total, feeding the kids costs. Ginormous dollars and some folk make a pretty penny from this operation would you not think?
So really there is no incentive to get these families out of poverty.
That’s the sad discovery of sociology. Social Work Policy is about maintaining status quo.
Off-topic with good cause –
If you are a Catholic, read the article below. Biden (who should be excommunicated) granted Catholic non-governmental organizations $2.9B in immigration-related funding over the past 4 years. Catholic Charities is the top recipient of federal funding (your tax dollars) followed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops which reaped $1.6B in immigration related funding.
Your communist Pope is criticizing Trump for expelling illegal aliens when the papacy has surrounded their headquarters with huge walls and tight security. Send the illegals to Rome!
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/01/2-9-billion-reasons-us-bishops-loved-biden/
These same people from those organizations, charities, churches preach to all from the gospel that “Money is the root of all evil “. They proved it true with how they are enriching themselves.
There must be an absolute ban on government agency’s just freely giving our tax money to NGO’s , non government agency’s. The dem’s have made this the mother of all scams in that the NGO’s then give the funds back to the dem’s as campaign donations.
Florida principal & teacher hosted alcohol-fueled house party for students in FL.
What is happening in YOUR schools?
Where are the investigative journalists? Oh wait, the Berkshire Eagle has no one……
https://www.breitbart.com/crime/2025/01/26/video-police-florida-principal-teacher-charged-after-alcoholic-house-party-with-100-juveniles/
Since you felt like Custer did you wear an arrow shirt on spelling bee days? And why are they called spelling BEES? # Scohol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelling_bee
It would have been great if the moderators turned towards Tricia Farley-Country Buffet (d-illegal aliens), and asked her to spell “accountable,” using that word in the sentence for her definition, like this:
**You, (TFCB) were elected by your constituents to be ACCOUNTABLE to them and not to be ACCOUNTABLE to your Boston masters and illegal aliens.
Next the moderator turns to Lumpy and tells him his word is “APPEARANCE.” The moderator then proceeds to use that word in a sentence like this:
**You (Lumpy) were elected Mayor of Pittsfield by the people. You are the face of the city, so how about caring for your APPEARANCE when making it to public photo-ops. With no tie, an unbuttoned shirt, and a suit that appears to be busting at the seams it’s too tight, your APPEARANCE is akin to a pile of sh!t.
In my spelling bee contest, I would add Wimpy White and Lavante Wiggins, for diversity purposes.
Next up, Wimpy White. Wimpy is given the word MATURITY. The moderator then uses that word in a sentence like this:
**Being a 40-something y/o man, who plays with toy action figures, and does not have any children, screams to people you (Wimpy) have not, nor will ever, reach the level of MATURITY of an adult man.
And our final contestant, fresh out of federal lockup, the Dancin’ Dean, the Lady’ z Man, none other than Lavante Wiggins.
For Lavante’s spelling word, the moderators looked deep into the bowels of the dictionary to come up with this plum: QUALIFICATION.
The Dancin’ Dean’s word was used in a sentence like this:
**Your (Lavante) educational and work history lacked any basic QUALIFICATION to afford you the position of Dean of Students at PHS. Being a black man is not a QUALIFICATION for any legitimate job, when it’s your only QUALIFICATION.
Gosh, thanks for reminding us how useless they all are.
Well on wiggy. The qualification was dance specialist of some sort. That would fall whom ever hired him as the legitimate qualification.
Seems these days everyone get a trophy
E-L-G-S-E-S
Philadelphia mayor introduces new way to spell Eagles after NFC championship game
“S-L-O-O-C-H, school”
You either have a beautiful painted spelled wrong word or a faded word and crosswalk marking. Or you might have a fence costing tens of thousands around pontusuck lake,and have to redo it, or you want to build a ball field stadium on a swamp with laser Sun pointing you.in the face,or you can take a million dollar donation from a former resident and muck that up, you can……
What might your guess be as to the total debt the city of Pittsfield is carrying and how much interest did the taxpayers pay on it in 2024? Also, which lending institutions are holding this debt and is all this information really being held in a lock box and not for public consumption because taxpayers are too stupid to understand such things?
MORE
Great question. HOW MUCH DEBT IS BITCHFIELD CARRYING?
still waiting to hear what happened to the 10000 grand from PHS
Why. They wouldn’t be prosecuted in Bitchfield.
That and the child on Plunkett St. death.
Inside job + DEI principal – accountability = corruption, unabated, DAVE.
Maybe Cameron can get a Cracker Jack law firm to investigate.
According to Pittsfield city school Cori check guidelines that individual is eligible to be a dean of students or vice principle.
January 27, 2025
Hello blogger Dan Valenti,
I Google’d: maura healey 7.4 percent spending increase 2026 state budget
Please ask state lawmakers, especially the career politicians who comprise the Berkshire delegation: State Senator Paul Mark, State Representatives John Barrett III, Tricia Farley-Bouvier, and Leigh Davis, if they support the Governor of Massachusetts’ high-level tax and spending increases for fiscal year 2026 (July 01, 2025 – June 30, 2026).
Please ask them if they have any proposals to reduce the Governor’s spending spree. Do they think that a 5-percent spending increase would be more reasonable than 7.4-percent?
Please note: The 2-Pete’s Pittsfield politics increased property taxes by 7.17-percent in the current fiscal year 2025 that will end on June 30, 2025.
Jonathan A. Melle
P.S. The otherwise lucky number 7 is no longer lucky for the fictional Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski family.
I wanted to pass along another feel-good story I found on Twitter (X) this morning.
In addition to President Trump putting an end to taxpayer funded gender changing surgery for US Military members, more and more racist federal DEI hires are losing their federal employment and are upset because they CAN’T FIND EMPLOYMENT.
Now, I don’t normally celebrate a person’s misery of unemployment, but these DEI hires are truly RACIST people against me for simply being an older white male and not buying into their BS. Ever attended one of these “social justice” or “environmental justice” classes? They NEVER address black on black violence, but I digress.
I knew that a BA degree like “gender studies,” “Afro-American studies,” and/or “Dance studies,” wasn’t worth the weight of the paper it was printed on over 40 years ago.
Those current useless degrees were basically a “Theatre Arts Degree,” from my days. Good if you plan to pursue a career in academia, but a dismal future for job seeking believing that Theatre BA degree will open many doors.
Do college students not have faculty “class advisor” to help guide them from making these types of mistakes, by asking questions about their plans after college with that degree? Or, has college simply become a liberal indoctrination center?
With that being said, I was thinking we could compile a list of jobs for former DEI employees who lost their RACIST jobs:
*Cultural Competency Coach (only in Pedofield Pubic Scohols)
*Wal-Mart Door Greeter
*Call Center-Call Taker
*Basic Janitorial Work (clean toilets, sweep floors, etc)
Jesse Watters on X: “Moments ago, @realDonaldTrump announced that the military’s getting a makeover. Trump’s building an iron dome around America, soldiers fired for not getting the vaccine are returning with back pay and trans troops are out. The @DeptVetAffairs is cleaning house too, sending 60 https://t.co/nI9d2kxLgL” / X
Superb, MARK!
And Toter deliverer on back of u hauls. Hope Deb is at shitty goals council meeting tonight.
.
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Dan. As a constituent of ward six I’m am in disbelief of the actions of that councilor walking out with four or five others while a taxpayer from her ( Lampiasi ) Ward was speaking at open Mike? Is this even legal? Was there a violation because of a non request to President White? This had to be talked about before this childish walkout. Way to obvious. i was very happy to see Earl Persip dismiss the Kumbaya proposal of support for the school committee concerning the dancing Dean situation and support for the school committee going forward.
That “time of the month,” maybe?
Was extra disrespectful. They could have made up for the insult by just going home and not coming back. Not ever.
Those hens really detract from the group; how that’s possible is a wonder.
The hens are useless.
Trump will shut down everything Massachusetts including child care Medicaid,disability programs,including SSDI.
D e I is dead. Anything ma. Wants will be funded by taxpayers in ma. And there goes the votes for these assclowns. Lumpy must address tonight’s c c meeting he’s cutting d e I .
Turnabout being fair play, and all!
Truth be told, doesn’t matter a bit what you study in college. Everyone lands on square ZERO on grad day. As a professional, your career is only just conceived on your first job.
Someone needs to inform Alisa Costa, the community organizer and councilwoman, that DEI is dead. She held an open meeting last night with the local head of DEI for the city, Mr. O.
Well it’s not dead if Lumpy funds it.
And Joe K pays for it. NOT.
The prez and his executive orders fist day, Elon’s nazi salute, deportations, farm workers not showing up to the fields.
You all said project 2025 was leftie lies. Good luck, we’re all along for the ride.
D u g where you been man? Brien?BMC emergency room? Your funding iS D O N E……
The U.S.A. was founded on Human Rights, NOT Adolf Hitler’s minions.
… and your point IS?
Natural rights. Those are the Rights granted by G-d, not men.
Human Rights is a modernization that is used for political purposes, most often for materiality.
14 min agoWhite House can’t immediately say whether Medicaid will be affected by funding freeze From CNN’s Michael Williams
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt could not immediately answer whether Medicaid will be affected by the sweeping federal funding freeze announced by President Donald Trump on Monday.
Leavitt said during the first press briefing of Trump’s second term on Tuesday that the funding freeze on all federal grants and loans, which was announced in a memo Monday and may impact trillions in government spending and halt public programs that affect millions of Americans, was to “ensure that all of the money going out from Washington, DC, is in line with the president’s agenda.”
The memo says the freeze will not affect Social Security or Medicare benefits, nor does it include “assistance provided directly to individuals.” But it does not address Medicaid, the program providing health insurance for the poor that is administered by states but mostly funded by the federal government.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump can nix the empowerment act and get back to a r p a money they went the wrong way, esspecially here in Pittsfield
How many people in Bitchfield have been deported so far. Isn’t that the job of The media job to report this, Homan is coming for every undocumented illegal.
Msnbullshit c is stating all day trauma and anxiety for illegals. What about the sojourn getting away from their Pervious situations ? What about taxpayer citizens anxiety not being able to pay bills or heating or medication?
It’s not the federal government’s job to use my tax dollars to pay for other people’s heat. That old coot Richie Neal needs to be told that, along with that idiot Chuckie!
Mass will be hard hit. Go to city manger form of government save on c c pay. Refute the school committee stipend for starters. Head start programs for instance will be affected. Grants done.
“ensure that all of the money going out from Washington, DC, is in line with the president’s agenda.”
And that is reasonable. Generations of jerks were piling onto the spending. The only way to clean it up is to freeze and rebuild. For reference, MA has a huge reserve from overtaxation – I recommend your legislators and governor not waste a dime.
Unbelievable, with all the crap going on in Bitchfied isn’t it amazing that our useless City Councilors met for only 8 friggin minutes and then laughed with elated enjoyment because the meeting was adjourned. They all make me sick, how much are we paying them to represent the taxpayers? They might as well abolish the City Council, they have done absolutely nothing to help out taxpayers.