WHAT’S IN A NAME? WHITHER, ‘BITCHFIELD’
BY DAN VALENTI
PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY
(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY APRIL 1, 2026) — Do you ever get the feeling that the 2026 version of Bitchfield is a giant April Fool’s joke?
THE PLANET recently fielded a query from someone who wondered about the origin of the term “Bitchfield,” our loving moniker for the city of Pittsfield. We explained the derivation, with the bread crumbs leading back to the corner office, that hallowed, halitoxic chamber that provides a combination safe room, padded cell, and sleeping nook for the city’s mayor.
SANITY MADE SIMPLE: Aphorisms, Epigrams, and Other Parsed Phrases, is available now at amazon.com or at any Barnes & Noble Booksellers. Just $14.95 for the paperback, $4.95 for the e-book. Your purchase will help support a Pittsfield-based small business.
Peter Marchetti, better known these days as Mayor Lumpy, occupies that office. We’ve known him for almost 30 years, a full generation of telemetry that could fill a chapter in the “Abnormal Psychology” text. Of course, all of us rate at least a footnote in that same book, so we do not fault Peter for being human, all too human. As for THE PLANET‘s psychiatric credentials, we have been there and back, and for many years played a head-shrink on the radio and TV. Calling Doctor Howard, Doctor Fine, Doctor Howard.
Our diagnosis of the mayor shows a hurt, sad man self-caught in a web of comparisons to others and as a consequence not sure of who he really is and what he’s really about. In politics, character flaws hide handily behind the false fronts of policy, optics, ribbon cuttings, photo-ops, and empty speechifying. When one faces the mirror late in the evening, the ablutions take a dark turn. The accusatory tone prompts a circular, mental discussion fixated on self-sabotage. There’s no escaping your Self.
———- ooo ———-
What are Peter’s core principles, those bedrock bricks of character? The evidence suggests there’s not “there” there. Why else would he think, upon being elected mayor, that the most important for citizens to know is that he’s “openly gay.” He could very well have done the same by saying, “I haven’t a clue who I am, except that I am full insecurity.”
“Openly gay.”
Who cares? That confession said it all, an assertion of identity masquerading an apology for a predilection. His openly gay took the baton from his predecessor’s “vibrant and dynamic.”
It was as if Peter announced to all that he was running away from himself, pegging identity — political identity, at that — to his sexuality. This brand of identity politics, as we have seen since the arrival of “woke,” leads only to a supremely ironic litmus-test of uniformity, inequity, and exclusion. One ends up not only preaching to the choir but joining it as first tenor.
Peter will never believe this, but THE PLANET has loved him as a person and still does. Our Right Honorable Good Friend has rejected our many attempts at rapprochement. Our door is always open.
We first met during his initial run for office. He lost that council race. After the show, we took him aside and expressed our admiration for becoming a candidate in the first place and how we thought he had a good future in politics. The next time he ran, he won. In those two years and the years after, he had cracked the code of winning office in Bitchfield: Play ball. Look out for the special interests. Don’t make waves. Shut up. Say and do what you’re told. Follow form, and The Suits will take care of you.
We shake our head, seeing another in a long line who may have gotten in for the right reasons, but made a career out of for all the wrong ones.
———- ooo ———-
As for Bitchfield? That seemed the perfect description after Teresa May filed her lawsuit against the clubby trio of then-executives at the Pittsfield Co-Op bank. Marchetti is included in that triumvirate.
Marchetti is included in the counts for sex discrimination, creating a hostile work environment, aiding and abetting discriminatory acts, unlawful interference with plaintiff’s rights, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Marchetti is accused of being “allowed to denigrate, harass, and demean (May) both in meetings with others and alone.” May alleges that the treatment she received from Marchetti and the other defendants led to the loss of her job.
Judge Mark G. Mastroianni has issued the date for a jury trial beginning at 9 a.m. May 18 in Hampden County District Court.
May’s lawsuit, filed in October 2023, says during a meeting on Oct. 22, 2022,“Marchetti flew off the handle, irrationally upset that the plaintiff received the role [of E-business manager] over him. He began yelling, red-faced and sweating, pointing in plaintiff’s face, calling her a bitch and other derogatory names, told her to shut up and told her she did not know how to do things.”
“Bitch.” Thus the city of “Bitchfield” was born. The name received confirmation of sorts in the mayor’s recent battle as school committee chair with committeewoman Ciara Batory over a dubious procedural matter related to Batory’s attempt to spur release of the “independent” report on school scandals. Peter again demonstrated that, when it comes to strong women, he gets tied in a knot.
For all that, though, we wish our good friend the best going forward.
What’s in a name, The Great Bard asked?
Plenty.
————————————————————–
“Never interrupt an opponent when he’s in the middle of making a mistake” — Napoleon Bonaparte.
“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”
LOVE TO ALL.
Copyright (c) 2026 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.
Napoleon once stated that in politics, stupidity is not a handicap…..
At Waterloo “They are 300,000 men; we have 60,000. Plus me, and that makes 100,000”
He shouldn’t have traded Josephine for the Austrian princess. That was a stupid politclouding.
Everything else was admirable including Waterloo which he lost by only one cavalry unit and his miserable imprisonment on St. Helena with his prison in the perpetual cold fog of the cloudline where even then he still punished and humiliated his captors when they visited.
I wonder if he would have invaded Iran after firing all the generals that knew anything about forever wars in the mid-east.
He had Marshall’s. Napoleon was the general.
Glad to that imposter Milley kicked to the curb to enjoy his blueberry muffins. They were minting a general a day for patronage.
Maybe Miile’s playing house with Richard, er “Rachael”, Levine in woke DEI utopia……..
Probably going to cocktail parties in his MacArthur ripoff uniform (with a deck of flags for each of his Congressional testimonies).
It all goes back to the Hamilton-Jefferson divide. The first was for big banks, expansion/imperialism, centralized control … J was the humanist, who preached that we maintain good relations with all nations, intervene nowhere, allow decentralized power. The H side prevailed. The Bigness (mainly corporate control of politics) assured it. We The People are at heart Jeffersonians, but we no long have the power. We are RULED.
Jefferson was for some intervention and lobbied for us to support France in its war against England. Washington said no way.
TWO
I refer to overall tendencies in making the broad Jefferson-Hamilton divide. There was room for variations that proved to be exceptional.
The Louisiana Purchase and the naval assault on the Barbary sheikhs’ navy in its home port, far from American shores and no European support was robust and bold. The Congress nearly impeached him too. How little things change.
Agree with you about Hamilton: big government and the wrecked Electoral College won.
Jefferson was a national treasure.
What a deal on Louisiana purchase, then had the foresight to outfit Louis and Clark expedition.
Also first US POTUS to spank the Muslim Barbarians for their treatment of US citizens.
They have video evidence of the lump kicking a citizen out of a city Clowncil meeting and sending him to jail for not signing in at open mike and would have been the only speaker that night.
Who’s “they”?
Do you have a date, time or any information to research this claim? This is not a argument in any way. Honestly, I am trying to create a file of documents, hearings, council meetings, etc. as evidence to support some allegaand claims for future litigation
Tapes of Clowncil meetings should be public domain. Get the date.
April 01, 2026
Re: April Fool’s Day Pittsfield politics edition
Hello blogger Dan Valenti,
Pittsfield Mayor Peter Marchetti plays the I’m Openly Gay card in politics. He also plays the I’m a financial (pseudo-)genius card in City Hall. He also plays the “BITCH” card against professional women who oppose his management.
Nobody is perfect. I am imperfect,too. Peter Marchetti’s character is one of PRIDE, MONEY, and anger towards professional women who oppose his management. (I call them SMART women!)
Pittsfield will soon see the Mayor’s fiscal year 2027 municipal operating budget proposal. It will be yet another record-breaking spending plan that will reinforce the mostly alliterative saying….
“Earl and the 2-Pete’s Pittsfield politics predictably pounds, pummels, pulverizes, punishes people’s purses”!
Pittsfield has the 2nd highest Commercial tax rate – Holyoke is 1st – out of the 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts.
Pittsfield spends tens of millions of dollars per fiscal year more than its similarly sized peer small cities. To illustrate, Pittsfield is spending over $62 million more than Westfield in the current fiscal year 2026. Pittsfield and Westfield are 2 similarly sized small cities in Western Massachusetts.
Pittsfield’s struggling public school district is looking at a $4.3 million fiscal year 2027 budget deficit. In the current 2026 academic year, 679 students chose to choice out to neighboring public school districts. Many of Pittsfield’s public schools are rated Level 5 – at or close to ROCK BOTTOM.
If there was ever a time for Peter Marchetti to prove that he is not just another one of Pittsfield’s long list of failed Mayors, then the time is NOW. Please prove us wrong, Mayor Peter Marchetti.
Of course, I will NOT be holding my breath for positive change to happen in my native hometown of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Rather, I am waiting for the Mayor’s record-breaking budget proposal that he will put forward soon, and for the city’s failed schools to drop lower in their at or near ROCK BOTTOM Level 5 ratings.
Best wishes,
Jon Melle
P.S. Unlike Dan Valenti, I think that Peter Marchetti is a total JERK, despite the fact that he is my relative – we share the same great-grandparents who relocated from Italy to the USA and settled in Pittsfield (Mass.) well over 100 years ago.
Actually, I kind of liked him. I could work with him when he wasn’t trying to kill me.
I guess that I like him (my BIG beer belly relative) better than Luciforo, but killer clowns can be scary characters in Pittsfield politics and the movies alike.
It is a good thing that Dan Valenti lives in Stockbridge; you live in Vermont; and that I, Jon Melle, lives in New Hampshire. We are far enough away from Pittsfield’s circus and the clowns in City Hall.
The Kapanski’s however….are not laughing, but paying for Earl and the 2-Pete’s Pittsfield politics pounding people’s purses.
The Bitchfield politicians have no problem with taking more money from the taxpayers to waste on things like a new ball park, redoing N. St. again, creating six figure jobs that aren’t needed etc..as long as it isn’t their own. They don’t care how they get it from them as long as they get it. They fantasize that the money of the taxpayers will be never ending…
No mo fed subsidies Lumpy. Healy wants to pay for it taxpayers get slapped again.Try reducing costs Lumpy. Start with level funding on everything. 60/40 on co-pay, for one. Dump reset teachers and Mercer could be way downsized. No wahconah park….big dig……you. Ow have what looks to be a mega project COST. Over 160 million…joke…….and your o p e b is unsustainable. Empty out one fire station. Have a unit of volunteers to make up for it. Half the time the fire burns itself out anyway.
In some countries they are already rationing gasoline. Closing schools and shutting down bus lines to save fuel. Insiders saying those measures will eventually come here and sooner rather than later.
Today is the day to chop that city budget by two thirds. Check back with me on this in July to see if I am correct.
The City of Pittsfield, will never cut their budget. We are a Tax and Spend Community. Are Citizens keep voting for this, and deserve it. Enjoy.
They could fix that, you know.
I agree with you Chaz that they could fix it starting with using the 25th amendment and getting rid of the cancer. Still though, the damage is deep and will take at least one generation to overcome assuming it can be done at all.
America, when all is said and done after this mid-east debacle, is going to be truly third world. The economy is desolving before our eyes, the infrastructure is toast, the national debt is now 40 trillion and spiraling and that is all borrowed money. No country wants to lend us more money because they cannot see how we could pay it back given the historical mismanagement. While most of the world has been investing in green energy America has shunned it to protect coal and oil monopolies. Can you spell “beyond stupid”?
And America has no one else to blame but themselves. The billionaires will still be just fine as they move abroad to one of their other mansions but everyone else is going to live through a like 1929 depression. And it may take a lot longer if ever to recover.
MEAN
Russia and China will emerge as the “winners” of our latest Middle East adventure. As for green energy, actually China, India, and others are tripling down on coal and oil. “Green” has four problems: (1) High upfront costs (2) poor ROI (3) cannot meet current and future energy demands, especially as giga-big data centers for AI go online (3) “Green” energy sources rely on fossil fuel at some point in the generation process, either directly or indirectly.
But this from Forbes:
As a matter of fact, China has more wind and solar capacity than any other country in the world with twice as much capacity under construction than the rest of the world combined. According to the Global Wind Energy Council’s 2024 Global Wind Report the Jiuquan Wind Power Base, sometimes knows as Gansu, is the largest onshore aggregation of wind farms in the world. Gansu currently has over 7,000 wind turbines in operation generating over 10 gigawatts of power, which is sufficient to provide power to approximately 7.5 million homes. The National Energy Administration of China states that by the time it’s complete the Gansu project will generate over 20 GW of electricity, enough to power 15 million homes and cover thousands of square miles. China’s total wind generation capacity is 561 GW, which is more than three times more than the United States who comes in second behind China, and 48% of the world’s share of wind power generation.
China Does In Fact Have Wind Turbines, A Lot Of Them.
So why are they buying oil from Iran and can’t mine coal fast enough to burn?
They are in transition. Fifteen years ago Shanghai was covered with dark soot filled clouds so they had to do something. With the best engineers in the world they are building out wind, solar and gigantic dams to help get away from coal.
Go on youtube and just look at anything China and you will be astounded at how much more modern they are than America.
Do they spy on their citizens? Yes, and so does America, much more than you ever want to know about.
Do we have murder factories (concentration camps) where we torture dissidents to death, harvest organs from living people, and do we conduct an imperial foreign policy that is predicated that we own the entire planet and extort the corrupted third world governments to sell their citizens’ labor for nil in exchange for their riches, leaving their nation forever in debt to them?
If that is modern, I’m not interested. Looks very much like the old China of last century.
Dan, turns out investors are bailing on the big data centers and some of them are being abandoned outright. They need major parts, batteries included that are not made in America. China makes them though and are not happy with America right now.
Also, the energy to run them is not there. Keep a close eye on this especially if you are heavily invested with it.
And watch for the stock market to drop significantly as they are the only ones holding it together.
Americans got rid of the cancer/infestation Nov 2024, at the ballot box.
No matter how much Meanie cries TDS tears, POTUS Trump is still America’s president.
That said it will take decades to undo the damage done by the Autopen. Just finding and deporting all the CRIMINAL ALIENS will take many years.
The DC swamp is deep, Leftists hate America, but current GOP leadership Thune/Johnson are America last too. Why can’t they pass the SAFE Act that 83% of American Citizens approve of?
I’m glad many of the Barbarians that were running Iran are in Hades getting their 72 virgins. I’m glad Iran won’t have nuclear weapons or be able to fund global terrorism any more. I wish we didn’t have to go to war to do so.
Bring the troops home and take care of America. Let other countries of world deal with Middle East crazies, and get US Politicians out of Israel’s pocket.
I agree with bring the troops home…TODAY!!!
Not sure your president gives a shit about them though.
and when and if you ever see the true casualty counts already you will be shocked. Your government is lying to you AGAIN!
We borrow money from other countries? I accept typos, they are a rule in fast communication, but you actually read whatever it is that you write?
Ranked: The Top 20 Countries Holding the Most U.S. Debt
I agree that the policy of the last 30 years of selling bonds to our enemies did not serve our interests. This goes back to Make China Great Favored Trade Nation. All those swindlers in Congress and the White House saying once the Chinese Party men got a taste of capitalism, they’ll become like the Scottish Enlightened thinkers of the 18 century. That didn’t happen, instead they became very rich communists and built a navy to sink ours. The Corsicans had the greatest navy on the Mediterranean. Had, that is, until some poor Romans copied their boats and sank it. Rome still exists, and all her monuments, but only thing you can get from Corsica is cheap salt.
Learning from history means declining a blunder.
GL:
Insiders saying those measures will eventually come here and sooner rather
than later.
It’s a choice. Iranians eventually nuke a U.S. city or temporary high price of gasoline.
ES:
No mo fed subsidies Lumpy. Healy wants to pay for it taxpayers get slapped again. Try reducing costs Lumpy. Start with level funding on everything. 60/40 on co-pay.
Lumpy, Healey and our fellow Berkshire rep.
comrades still haven’t grown up to realize there is no Santa Claus because someone else is paying for all the “presents” and those paying for the presents are going broke or already have gone broke.
Speaking of pounding pummeling and pulverizing your pud who knew while daydreaming during chemistry class at phs you would think about clipping the bottoms off the front of your jeans pockets to allow for maximum pud play. This led to 2 state championships in varsity pocket pool.
I am a skilled master debater. It relieves the built up stress in me. I feel so happy with my efforts, too.
But nonetheless, Earl and the 2-Pete’s Pittsfield politics pounds people’s purses by an excess of tens of millions of dollars per fiscal year.
I have a happy ending, while the fictional Kapanski’s have a hard time from the pain in their….
I grab my…., while the Kapanski’s grab their ankles after they get off of their knees….
Pounds people’s….
“Master debater”. Is that a joke? If not, I’d choose different words.
“Mostly peaceful” Leftist from Gt Barrington is now in federal custody.
I wonder if he was at the “No Kings” rally last weekend….
Left Winged Parrot cover this one?
“A Massachusetts man is now in federal custody after allegedly posting multiple violent death threats against President Donald Trump on Facebook.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, 45-year-old Andrew D. Emerald of Great Barrington was indicted on eight federal counts of transmitting threatening communications after posting a series of messages between May and July 2025 calling for Trump’s death.
On July 3, 2025, Emerald wrote, “I plan to go to DC with my sword [sword emoji] and kill trump and as any of the domestic terrorist he emboldens as I can. If they are eliminated by September, I’m going to do it myself.” [sic]”
“He wrote in a separate post, “Which is why when I stick the sword through Trump’s fucking throat, I’ll have every fucking right pulse by creation and ethically actually legally, right!!! Anyone who is not in the same place that I am deserves to die with them!!!! . . .. You are an evil. I’m not going to allow to exit any longer. You piece of shit Trump. You think your position as president protects you it doesn’t I’m coming for you.”
“The situation escalated dramatically when federal agents arrived at Emerald’s residence in Great Barrington to execute the arrest warrant.According to the affidavit:
Emerald initially refused to come outAgents were forced to breach the doorEmerald then appeared armed with a long metallic swordHe reportedly told agents they would have to shoot himHe barricaded himself inside before eventually surrendering after negotiations”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/04/sword-weilding-massachusetts-man-arrested-after-posting-multiple/
Terminal case of TDS.