BY DAN VALENTI We started this modest enterprise at the tail end of September 2010. Why? Print is dying. Cyberspace is alive. The Planet recognizes that cyberspace is the dominant communications forum for pertinent issues and will remain so until a holocaust of some sort drives us all back to smoke signals and writing on […]
BY DAN VALENTI (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, April 1, 2011) — The Pittsfield Economic Development Authority has named Corydon “Cory” Thurston as its new executive director. Thurston succeeds William Hines, whose interim term expires this month. In making the announcement, the PEDA board go no information, either written or verbal in the open meeting, as to […]
BY DAN VALENTI (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MARCH 31, 2011) — “Thank God for The Planet.” So began an almost weepily grateful note we received this morning in connection with Conor Berry’s story in the Boring Broadsheet today headlined, “Police seek attack reports.” We shall keep the flowery content of the note’s remainder unto ourselves. In […]
BY DAN VALENTI Colonials Lived up to the Promises This Friday, the Pittsfield Colonials will have their second annual “pep rally” lunch for advertisers and sponsors at Blantyre in Lenox. The Planet shall be there as an invited guest. Team owner Buddy Lewis, meeting with The Planet yesterday, reports brisk sales of billboards, program ads, […]
BY DAN VALENTI (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, March 29, 2011) — Doesn’t SteroidsGate — the federal probe into the use of illegal steroids by police officers, including those in the Pittsfield Police Department — amount to one question? That question is: How extensive is the use of steroids in the PPD? By “use,” we mean buying, […]
BY DAN VALENTI (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, March 28, 2011) —Today, The Planet has some odds and ends to present, and then we will share the posts from two guest writers, up and down, on the United States’ recent adventurism in Libya. SteroidsGate, the Berry-Heller Chronicles & More SteroidsGate isn’t going away any time soon. There’s […]
BY DAN VALENTI (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, March 26, 2011) — For a day anyway, and we hope for much longer, the local daily once again became The Berkshire Eagle. It was not the Boring Broadsheet, and it shed that label for today the way Clark Kent shed his two-piece gabardine for a set of blue tights […]
BY DAN VALENTI Feds Swoop Down on PPD (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, March 25, 2011) — The Planet can now confirm the extensive involvement of the federal government into a drug investigation involving the Pittsfield Police Department. According to a high-ranking city hall source, “the feds (Postal Investigators) are heavily involved.” Prior to this, no city, […]
BY DAN VALENTI The Planet has confirmed, through two three independent sources, that at least one Pittsfield police officer was busted in connection with illegal use/possession/reception of anabolic steroids. The latest confirmation, from a PPD source formerly of senior leadership rank, told The Planet: “It is very true. It’s too bad for the [Department]. We […]
BY DAN VALENTI Last Call, Gents. (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, March 23, 2011) — First, the barkeep announces “Last call” for Peter Marchetti, Paul Capitanio, Uncle Gerry Lee, and Jonothan Lothrop for compliance on our Three Top Questions survey. Each has until midnight tonight to go on record stating their views on PCBs, Hill 78, and […]
BY DAN VALENTI (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, March 22, 2011) — Food. We need it to live. Many of us love it past the point of need. Food is the sun that had to shine on the planets. It’s a the soil that nurtured the seeds. Food is rain, wind, and weather. What we eat is a […]
BY DAN VALENTI In a corrected score to our recent poll of city councilors on three of the most important questions facing the city (PCBs and industrial toxins, Hill 78, and unfunded liabilities), The Planet stands at 7-4 as Ward 1 councilor Christine Yon posted the following on our website: 03/20 at 5:29 pm CHRISTINE […]
BY DAN VALENTI Today, we present the views of city councilors on the three “show stopping” questions that should, and will, if common sense and wise care have anything to do with it, become enormously important in municipal Campaign 2011. To recap and as a continuation of the discussions initiated on and by The Planet, […]
BY DAN VALENTI In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, and to move briefly away from the flotsam and jetsam of local perfidy, hostile takeovers, and the thumb-pumpkins of politics, The Planet asked our food consultant, Chef Pierre Francois De la Soda, to submit an appropriate recipe. The recipe is real (no joke), and tonight, in […]
BY DAN VALENTI (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MARCH 16, 2011) — The plot thickens like gobs of gorilla glue in the subarctic regarding the hostile annexing by The Machine of the Westside Farm Project (WFP) from the hands of grassroots gardeners. The move, which sources say is the brainchild of Department of Community Development Czarina Deanna […]
BY DAN VALENTI (FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, March 15, 2011) — The Boring Broadsheet is forever living up to its name, though once it a while it presents a story that actually would qualify as fitting for a real newspaper. The Planet refers to Dick Lindsay’s informative piece on the continuing riff-tiff between the Pittsfield School […]
