On The Iconic Status Of Critical Infrastructure

Taller, higher, deadlier:

As of Aug. 31, the NYPD had responded to more than 600 reports of people jumping or threatening to jump from buildings or bridges. That number marked a 27 percent increase over the same period last year.

Earlier: The Story NYC & Company Doesn’t Want You To Read.

Yet Another Reason To Shut Down Dog Runs

Surveys show that animal owners live in a dreamland where their pets provide better companionship than humans:

New Yorkers said Monday that they can see why one in four Americans prefers spending Valentine’s Day with a pet rather than a partner, as a recent survey found.

. . .

“It’s different with a dog, more of an unconditional love,” [a 29-year-old dog owner] added after leaving a pet store with Valentine’s Day gifts — doggy treats and a toy — for her four-legged loved one.

“There is no love on this Earth like a dog’s love,” said [a 47-year-old dog owner] at the Union Square dog run.

Success Has A Thousand Fathers, Each Of Whom You’d Just As Soon Avoid On Father’s Day

Scary thought of the day: What if instead of mayoral control, the big New York City test score gains are due to George Bush’s No Child Left Behind, as studies seem to indicate?

Democratic candidate William Thompson can opt to pursue this line of argument as need be but maybe it’s safer at this point to rehabilitate Bush than it is to prop up Bloomberg’s juggernautical campaign . . .

[Eduwonk and Education Week links via.]

Summer Is Murder Around Here

No, literally! And there is data:

Still, the prime time for murder is clear: summertime. Indeed, it is close to a constant, one hammered home painfully from June to September across the decades. And the breakdown of deadly brutality can get even more specific. September Saturdays around 10 p.m. were the most likely moments for a murder in the city.

The summer spike in killings is just one of several findings unearthed in an analysis by The New York Times of multiyear homicide trends. The information — detailing homicides during the years 2003 to 2008 — was compiled mainly from open-records requests with the New York Police Department, and a searchable database of details on homicides in the city during those years is available online for readers to explore at nytimes.com/nyregion.

. . .

Summer is when people get together. More specifically, casual drinkers and drug users are more likely to go to bars or parties on weekends and evenings, as opposed to a Tuesday morning. These people in the social mix, flooding the city’s streets and neighborhood bars, feed the peak times for murder, experts say.

And the trend occurs in other cities, in places like Chicago, Boston and Newark, according to criminologists.

Some of the same trends are on display around Christmastime and are believed to be behind the slight increases in murder that occur then, criminologists say.

So Either Swine Flu Is Super Lame Or . . .

Super-scary figure of the day:

New York City officials on Wednesday reported the deaths of three more people with swine flu, and estimated that more than half a million New Yorkers may have become sick from the virus.