WELCOME TO POLITICALLY INCORRECT DAY!
By DAN VALENTI
PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary
(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY, OCT. 8, 2012) — It’s the celebration of Columbus Day, that politically incorrect memorial of that day in 1492 when the Bad White Male Europeans coming to the “New World” to corrupt the Good, Colored, Engendered, Native Americans, thereby creating The Welfare State.
What? You’re expecting the Gettysburg Address or other some such memorable verbiage? Even THE PLANET needs a break, and so we shall spend the remainder of our time today at our country house in Essex, where we shall keep bees. Words being our medium of exchange, however, permit a few observations.
Columbus, if we are to believe Flip Wilson, came to America to discover Ray Charles. That is as credible an account of the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria as we have come across. He obviously succeeded, or else from where and whence did “Hit the Road, Jack” emerge?
We fast forward these 520 years from 1492, and America finds itself drifting, Columbus and Ray Charles long gone. Today, we turn our lonely eyes to people like Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, and you wonder, “Was this once the land where buffalo and giants roamed?”
THE PLANET shall be back again fully charged tomorrow, when we will have continuing coverage of some of the amazing stories that are currently ongoing amid rough seas of the kind Columbus would have been familiar. Kevin Sherman and the city council face a historic meeting or sorts tomorrow night beginning at 7:30 p.m. It promises to be a long one.
Our Right Honorable Good Friends have two marquee issues before them. It’s interesting. After first issuing the agenda, city clerk Linda Tyer issues an amended agenda, one that included new back-up documents for agenda item 12:
12. A petition from Councilor Yon and Councilor Sherman requesting that the City Council take a vote of no confidence regarding the professional competence of City Solicitor Kathleen E. Degnan.
The next item will be nearly as interesting:
13. A communication from Gordon L. Noseworthy, Superintendent of Schools, submitting an Order authorizing the City of Pittsfield to enter into a contract for the construction of a home located at 29 Brickhouse Mountain Road for the purpose of promoting vocational education for students at Taconic High School.
Beautiful, the way it leaves out the most important piece of information. We would suggest a rewording, tacking on to the end of Item 13 the following:
… a home located at 29 Brickhouse Mountain Road on property owned by the secretary of the person who advertised for the bids, that is, the assistant superintendent of schools, for the purpose of receiving free slave labor to be provided by the vocational students in the carpentry program at Taconic High School.
For those interested, the agenda, as well as the entire packet of supporting information, is now being posted by the city of Pittsfield, online. THE PLANET loves this development, and we give full credit to those who sought to make this leap into the 21st century. We have a feeling ever-efficient and on-the-ball Linda Tyer had something to do with this. We can only advise the same for our good friends over on school side. The Pittsfield School Committee does not provide its materials online. They used Pony Express to deliver physical packets to the homes of the committee.
The link for the city council material is http://www.cityofpittsfield.org/docs/cc_packet_revised_10_9.pdf
—————————————————————
ENJOY “POLITICALLY INCORRECT DAY,” AND MAY THE SHINE OF THE BROANY BRINE TICKLE IN TIME TO THE WONDER OF YOU.
“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”
LOVE TO ALL.
Am I overlooking something, or do the invoices on this doc add up to well above the ~$16k requested to cover payments on said invoices?
The Bill to attorney Jeff Lynch dropped by $15,001. I don’t know why yet.
Barry
Dan Sorry I still think The “slave labor” term is wrong.
nothing forcing you to come here if you don’t like what you read.
Spectator. Sorry If I don’t agree with your opinion I didn’t know it was wrong to disagree with The Planets or you
Stop being a troll thou Tim. You’ve made your point about how you feel about the use of DV’s words and some agree with you and some don’t, period! So move on man, that’s not the BIGGER issue in this case..
It seems some people, HILLY, don’t want to focus to be on the bigger issue, for some mysterious reason.
Spectator, Have you ever voiced disagreement on this site – or do you simply keep silent (tempting to mention the implications of your name.)
Tim’s point, as I made on the other issue, is that there is a correct word to describe the students’s labor, ‘apprenticeship’, and an invidious one, ‘slave labor.’
Why attack the students? I don’t get that.
LEV
You “don’t get it” because you have identified the wrong entity being attacked.
THE PLANET is attacking the sleazy contract. Ms. Whitney and Cote are, in essence, the ones attacking the students by using their skills in an exploitive and improper way.
That being said, why don’t you just say what you mean?
TIMMY
Don’t be sorry.
Mr. Valenti,
Still no coverage given the Pittsfield School Department Cote/Whitney home building scandal in The Berkshire Eagle.
GMH
Yes. My, now THAT’s a surprise, eh? Watch how they cover the council meeting on that issue. It will be a joke.
People need to recognize most everyone is under some form of slavery. We are slaves to many things in various degrees. The foundation upon which world culture is based, encourages, promotes, and forces us into slavery. Government thrives on enslaving people!
Points well taken, TITO.
We’re all slaves to the oil companies, banks and hospitals. But with that said we do have a choice to not drive cars live a healthy life style and spend money within our our means.
Hey Dan,
I’m enjoying this politically incorrect day.
You know you will have to become a Slave to the politically correct movement in your journalism. The issue will continually be sidetracked to make YOU responsible for Slavery in America.
You will need to stand in Park Square and apologize to every citizen of Pittsfield for Slavery in America.
Did you know that if you become addicted to Heroin/Opium in Pittsfield, you can get a doctor to admit you to the new methadone clinic and make you a Slave to it? You can get free methadone thereafter for the rest of your life at taxpayer’s expense.
Do you know that if you smoke cigarettes, every time you buy a pack or a carton you become a Slave to them?
Is it possible that someone could hang a 55″ flat screen God in their living room and arrange the furniture around it as the focal point of the room and become a Slave to it?
FPR
Glad you’re having a good one. So am I.
Yes, I am preparing for the day, soon coming I am sure, where I will have to do what you say. I am working out feverishly to be in shape to personally apologize to 40,000 people for causing slavery in America. You discourse on “slavery” is well directed. Many thanks.
I thought I was the only one who thought like that good post!
Christopher Columbus and the topic of slavery, you can’t make it up!
Maybe Tim is right on this one there is a difference between free labor and slave labor, slaves were traded and sold or freed. The student labor is being used as free labor.