The Best Day To Bury Bad News . . .

. . . is Friday.

The Bloomberg Legacy Examined

The mayor’s aggressive approach to gun control reaps results:

In 2008, even as gun killings fell, the number of killings committed with knives or other “cutting instruments” rose 50 percent in New York City, the Police Department said: to 125 from 83. Some other large cities saw no such increase last year, and police officials and experts are at a loss to explain what is either a new trend or a spike.

“It is hard to say with certainty what accounts for the increase,” said Paul J. Browne, the chief spokesman for the New York Police Department.

It was possible, but hard to document, Mr. Browne said, that measures like undercover gun-trafficking investigations and interrogations, in which people arrested for lower level crimes are asked to provide information on gun cases, had led to the rise in knife killings and the drop in gun slayings.

In 2008, 292 people were shot to death in New York, down from 347 the year before, continuing a longtime slide in deaths by firearms.

Over all, homicides of all kinds rose slightly last year, to 523 from 496 in 2007, which was a 45-year low. So far in 2009, about a quarter of killings in the city have been committed with knives or other cutting instruments, about the same percentage as in 2008. But the overall homicide rate is down: 97 through April 16, the Police Department said, compared with 135 in the same period in 2008.

“We may have made it harder for killers to get their hands on guns,” said Mr. Browne. “Knives are still easily and legally acquired.”

Is that really the coordinated message?

The Unintended Consequences Of Film Industry Tax Credits

It’s changing how we see the world:

Erick Pulido, 29, who lives in a condominium three buildings down, said he measured his shock over the killing with the realities of city life. “Things happen all the time, it’s a big city,” Mr. Pulido said.

Mr. Pulido said that while on his way to work on Monday morning he noticed the police swarming around Ms. Lee’s building.

“I thought they might have been filming a movie so I just left,” he said.

When Howard Wolfson Says, “The Issue Of Jobs And The Economy Is One That We Want To Engage The Public With In A Conversation,” Expect Bad Stuff To Happen

Maybe you wondered why Bloomberg started a huge television campaign eight months before the election, a campaign featuring the mayor, “his trademark jacket and tie swapped for a casual button-down shirt, talking to ordinary New Yorkers about their financial woes.” Ads that focus on the mayor’s “plan to create or save 400,000 jobs, provide loans to small business and invest in infrastructure. ‘We do have a plan to get through this,’ Mr. Bloomberg says. ‘The city can’t do everything, but we can do a lot to make it easier for the people that live in this city.” Maybe you thought, wow, that’s early to be advertising, especially when likely opponents are basically silent. Hmm. Hmm:

Based on the amount of television time the mayor has purchased, the average New Yorker is likely to see the ads about 12 times.

Howard Wolfson, a spokesman for the campaign, said that New Yorkers “will certainly see the ad.” But, he added, “It will not saturate the airwaves.”

Asked about the timing, Mr. Wolfson said: “If it were up to me, we would have run ads a month earlier than today. This issue of jobs and the economy is one that we want to engage the public with in a conversation.”

So why burnish your middle class cred back in April? Is it because the Executive Budget is due in less than a week or so? Remember Chekhov’s Gun . . .

What Kind Of “Photo Shoot” Involves Air Force One Flying At A Low Altitude Over New York Harbor? Publicity For A Harrison Ford Sequel?

Which is to say, I don’t get it:

A low-flying commercial jetliner, followed by a pair of military planes, flew low over the lower New York Harbor on Monday morning, skirting close to the Jersey City coastline and prompting evacuations of office buildings in Lower Manhattan and Jersey City, N.J.

Perplexed officials at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey were inundated with calls from ferry passengers and residents in the area, but in fact there was nothing to be alarmed about. The large plane was a backup for Air Force One — a military version of a 747 commercial jetliner — and it was accompanied by two fighter jets, as part of a photo shoot, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.