BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THE WEEKEND EDITION MARCH 22-25, 2018) — Much has been made about President Donald Trump‘s congratulatory call to Russian president-for-life Vlad “The Impaler” Putin. Even more of a non-story was the flash fire erupting after one of Trump’s national security staff leaked the bit […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY MARCH 21, 2018) — We made it. Another winter resides now only in the books, an abstraction devoutly wished by many but not THE PLANET. We have come to cherish snow season as part of the quadrennial Equinox. On a long, brisk walk in […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY MARCH 19, 2018) — Before we continue our series on Hoover, THE PLANET shares news of an important hearing on cable TV service in Pittsfield that takes place at 6 pm tonight at the Berkshire Atenaeum auditorium. The public hearing will be to examine […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY Second in a Series (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THE WEEKEND EDITION MARCH 16-18, 2018) — Herbert Clark Hoover, as we saw in part one, came to the White House already equipped with a prodigious record of accomplishment in both business (a mining engineer and private-sector entrepreneur) and public service […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY BULLETIN: This just in. Pittsfield mayor Linda Tyer has suffered her second major defeat. She announced today she’s killing the toter-garbage scheme. Her announcement, in which she spent the first two thirds saying why it was such a great idea, offered no other plan in its place. […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANT VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE MAARCH 12, 2018) — Before we can dispense with the stained-glass nonsense the mayor floated for Tyer Street — er, Tyler Street — allow THE PLANET to provide verse and chapter. Let’s call it a lesson in the oily workings of a city where the alleged […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THE WEEKEND EDITION MARCH 9-11, 2018) — While wondering why the airport runways have to be redone for the third time in a few years and why Clapp Park needs its third renovation, each time with work doled out to Favored contractors and consultants, THE […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY MARCH 7, 2018) — What is it about Tyler Street that draws the worst out of mayor Linda Tyer? Last year saw an alley covered by umbrellas and the infamous $6,000 trash cans. This year it looks like it will be … … […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY MARCH 5, 2018) — March Madness in Pittsfield involves the only issue that matters: the budget. In this annual folly, you can be sure — mathematically certain — of the following: 1. Spending will increase, despite a shrinking tax base. 2. Taxexs will […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THE WEEKEND EDITION MARCH 2-4, 2018) — In like a idiot, out like an imbecile. Not March, which — welcome — came in lamb-like, but the Tyer Administration‘s pursuit of an $80 million sewer facility upgrade. Our Right Honorable Good Friends on the city […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDES, WEDNESDAY FEB. 28, 2018) — THE PLANET thanks the young scholars at Taconic and Pittsfield high schools for winning us a free, fancy coffee. We wagered a friend that the lil’ geniuses who yesterday loaded their diapers on the sidewalks, plaza, and playing fields […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY FEB. 26, 2018) — Resolved: Any student in Pittsfield public schools who leaves class without permission for whatever reason, including a political protest, should be suspended for three days. If the city’s school superintendent, school committee, and mayor care at all about students […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THE WEEKEND EDITION FEB. 23-25, 2018) — Lazy. Peel to its core the rotten onion of the Berkshire Museum‘s auction of its soul in the form of its best works of art, and you find sloth worthy of its designation as a cardinal sin. The museum’s […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY FEB. 21, 2018) — Common sense would tell you if you ply your brain with an overdose of anything, the experience will begin to take hold. Research into the mind also confirms that repetitive exposure to an intake of an experience produces physical […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY FEB. 19. 2018) — “I was five, and you were six. / We rode on horses made of sticks. … / Bang, bang. You shot me down. / Bang, bang. I hit the ground. / Bang, bang. That awful sound. / Bang, bang, […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THE WEEKEND EDITION FEB. 16-18, 2018) — As an uninterested observer might expect, city council president Peter Marchetti came up small Tuesday night when the problematic water-sewer upgrade came before the august body of Our Right Honorable Good Friends. There are plenty of uninterested […]
