BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY SEPT. 20, 2017) — It’s come to this: ribbon cuttings for garbage cans. Cue the first three notes of “Taps.” Ba-Ba-Baaaaaa. What’s next as Mayor Linda “Trashcan” Tyer presides over the demise she has not only not addressed but has hurriedly hastened? Salutations for strip […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY Coming Wednesday: THE PLANET’s take on the Ribbon Cutting for … for … (we can hardly say it) … Tyler Street garbage cans … Wherein we find out if the mayor has (a) a sense of humor and/or (b) a thick skin. Either will suffice. TRUTH OUTSTRIPS […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THE WEEKEND EDITION SEPT. 15-17, 2017) — Once upon a time, a golden, flaming scroll descended from the heavens, and in its ashes one could read the words: How to Design Exasperating Traffic Patterns. And it came to pass that most cities rejected the sacred text, as […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY SEPT. 13, 2017) — Step into Mr. Peabody’s Time Machine for a journey back to 1982. In Pittsfield, a little company starts up with a couple-three employees. The company wants to build armored security vehicles for police, the military, governments, SWAT, and a […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY SEPT. 11, 2017) — Here’s a ripe piece of low-hanging fruit THE PLANET now makes available to any of our media colleagues. We think it especially relevant in light of yet another shooting, this one, ironically enough, near police HQ and not far […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THE WEEKEND EDITION SEPT. 8-10, 2017) — The Rosa Restaurant. The Busy Bee. Ida and John’s. The Highland. The Lantern — three once-seminal Pittsfield eateries now defunct, one still going, and one going, going, gone. The Lantern, a Pittsfield institution gracefully run by the […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY SEPT. 6, 2017) — Pittsfield Police Officer Chris Colello has now shot two suspects in the line of duty in the past seven years. The latest involves the fatal shooting of a man that the district attorney’s office says charged Colollo while carrying a knife. […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, LABOR DAY 2017) — THE PLANET takes the day off, but we have a big week in store. This week, we shall give you fresh perspectives and new information on the following hot stories: * A Pittsfield cop shoots and kills a citizen. Are we […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THE WEEKEND EDITION Sept. 1-3, 2017) — THE PLANET continues our grading of Pittsfield’s political cadre, today focusing on councilors at-large and the mayor. Before The Old Professor inroduces the politicians to their well-deserved destinies, allow one observation on the state of city politics. There are many forms of absolute […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANTVALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY AUG. 30, 2017) — Late August reminds us of the fleeting nature of things. People, places, and plants exist for the flash but in the next moment fade into the blessed, hibernative oblivion from whence they all came. Life begins to pull back, the energies flowing to […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY AUG. 28, 2017) — Last Christmas season, as you may recall, the city of Pittsfield draped each new parking kiosk with a red or green plastic hood. The city pretended that Santa Claus visited, but we all know there isn’t a Santa. There […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THE WEEKEND EDITION AUG. 25-27, 2017) — With both houses of Congress on “sleep mode” — out of town allegedly taking care of (ahem) “constituent business,” a euphemism meaning that the crooks are looking out for their own disgusting skins — the halls of […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY AUG. 23, 2017) — As a group and in the whole, the Pittsfield City Council has been an Enemy of the People going back to the early 1980s. That time, now a universe far away and long ago, saw the city in the […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY AUG. 21, 2017) — The solar eclipse? Been there, done that. THE PLANET has seen them come and go, and — while they are of marginal interest as celestial occurrences — they fail to ignite much interest beyond that. Don’t get us wrong. […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THE WEEKEND EDITION, AUG. 18-20, 1967) — Fifty years ago today (Aug. 18, 1967), one of major league baseball’s greatest tragedies occurred at Fenway Park in Boston. It came when a pitch from California Angels’ Jack Hamilton smacked into Tony Conigliaro‘s face near his […]
BY DAN VALENTI PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY AUG. 16, 2017) — It is democracy’s sad adjunct to give citizens the illusion of control. This comforting fiction arrives tidally, a strong impulse toward self-governance moved by the inherent gravitational pull of freedom. Drawn up on the flipchart, it sounds good. Reality shows otherwise. […]
