Lots of people are chatting about today’s decision by the Taxi and Limousine Commission to allow and enable taxi-sharing in New York City:

“One proposal would equip up to 1,000 yellow cabs with multiple-fare meters. Another would designate several taxi stands for group-ride pickups during the morning rush period. Those cabs would charge passengers a flat fare to be dropped off anywhere along that route. The TLC says the flat-fare plan could begin by the fall. Designated sharecabs would take longer to put into effect.” - Newsday

There’s a lot to like about this idea. And a few concerns...

Writing or reporting anything about Bruce Springsteen these days involves knowing more about his marriage and ticket brokers than it does his music. The latest story today concerned the New Jersey Attorney General suing three online brokers for selling tickets to Giants Stadium shows next Fall -- tickets that don’t even officially exist until they go on sale Monday. (The prices, in one case more than $2500 for a pair of seats, were entirely based on speculation. I guess not every bubble has popped in the bad economy.) While I like Bruce as much or more than the next guy, I tend to sit out concerts where ticket prices reach four figures. So, instead tonight, let’s look back at my favorite Bruce musical memories, and if they inspire you, you can share yours.

--Total number of Bruce concerts: I’ve seen him four times – 1977 in Knoxville, Tennessee (the Knoxville Civic Auditorium, if you’re keeping score at home); twice on the “Born in the USA” tour in 1984-85, in Cincinnati and Murfreesboro, Tennessee; and at Madison Square Garden in the late ‘90’s. They were all terrific, but the 1977 show is one I’m really proud of. Springsteen was still a few years away from being a household name, it was a smaller, more intimate venue, and it was a very interesting point in his career and musical journey, right after “Darkness On the Edge of Town” had come out.

When I was growing up, my parents had a pretty simple checklist for deciding if my brother or I should stay home sick from school:

- Were we breathing? If so, we went to school.

- Did we have any broken limbs? If it was just a simple fracture, we went to school. If it was a compound fracture and the bone was pushing out through the skin, we took a half-day.

- Did we have something that other kids might catch? Chicken pox and mumps, you stayed home. Everything else, we went to school.

I’m exaggerating, but only slightly. I should add it wasn’t just my parents setting these standards. Most people of my generation I talk to about this say they had a similar philosophy in their homes: that unless the youngster was obviously ill and incapacitated, every effort was made to pack the kid off to school. I also remember that was what the school system was urging, as well. You were expected to be in class unless you were really quite sick.

First of all, that’s not a news headline. That’s a prediction. Despite polling data out today showing the former New York City mayor closing the gap with Andrew Cuomo in a hypothetical 2010 matchup, despite the state Republican party’s desperate need for a savior, despite the fact that Rudy himself hasn’t ruled out a run—I predict it won’t happen. Here are some reasons why...

I’m thinking quite a bit about ATM’s today. I know, I know, I need to get a life. But at least it’s part of my job today, with the news story about the search for three men on Staten Island who rigged ATM’s to steal more than $500,000 from unsuspecting customers. Here’s the story from The Daily News. I’ll get back to this in a minute.

When we look at all the new technologies that have come our way in recent decades, it always leads to the question “what did we do before (fill in the blank).” What did we do before cell phones, before the internet, before vending machines that actually brew the coffee in individual servings? But I’ve got one that tops them all: What did we do before ATM’s?

It looks like the final chapter has been written in the parenting cautionary tale of Madlyn Primoff. She’s the Westchester County mom who, fed up with her daughters arguing in the car, kicked them out onto a White Plains street and drove away. By the time she drove around the block, the younger daughter, ten-years-old, was gone. She ended up, unhurt but distraught, at a police station where mom was arrested when she came to pick her up.

Today, Primoff got an early Mother’s Day present. A judge said child endangerment charges would likely be dropped if she stays out of trouble for six-months. Prosecutors said she was not a threat to her children, and her full parental rights have been restored. It seems like a reasonable resolution. Mrs. Primoff, an attorney, had never been in trouble before, and her actions that fateful day were actually viewed by many with a great deal of sympathy. What parent among us has never gotten fed up with out-of-control children in the back seat?

Connie Culp, after an injury to her face, left, and as she appears today. Culp's husband, Thomas, shot her in 2004. The blast shattered her nose, cheeks, the roof of her mouth and an eye. (AP Photo / May 5, 2009)

"When somebody has a disfigurement and don't look as pretty as you do, don't judge them, because you never know what happened to them," she said. "Don't judge people who don't look the same as you do. Because you never know. One day it might be all taken away." Connie Culp, Face Transplant Recipient

Being a news person, I see—and describe—many bad things that happen to people. Very often I’m asked if that gets me down. My answer is yes, it does. But it always picks me back up when I also witness what the human spirit can endure.

Connie Culp, for instance. Five years after taking a shotgun blast in the face, five months after undergoing the first face transplant in America, she presented herself publicly today for the first time, at the Cleveland Clinic where the operation was performed. One look will tell you she has much more healing to do before she begins to resemble a “typical” person (that’s the term used to describe non-special needs children in comparison to those with handicaps, so I’m borrowing it here.. seems better than “normal.”) But that’s also what impresses me about her.

People across the nation are still shaking their heads over the unfathomable decision someone made to photograph a presidential 747 on a low flight over the Statue of Liberty. It was as close to a 9/11 replay as you would ever dread, and city officials, including the mayor, were never told it was going to happen. Every person in the world, it seems, knew that this was a horrible idea--- except for the guy who ordered it. What was he thinking? Here are some possibilities...

***UPDATE ON BLOOMY'S THURSDAY MELTDOWN:

Mayor Bloomberg today made what sounded like a tepid apology to the reporter he chastised yesterday during a nationally televised news conference. Blogger Michael Harris, who’s disabled, talked with reporters about the experience today, saying Bloomberg approached him this morning about what happened. Harris described it as a “conditional” apology, with Bloomberg saying he regretted the incident “if” it offended Harris. But the reporter says he accepts the gesture, and is ready to get on with his work.

We’re reporting on our newscast tonight about a weird moment involving Mayor Mike Bloomberg today. He was at the news conference announcing Governor Paterson’s gay marriage bill, and during the mayor’s comments a reporter’s electronic device began playing music. Here’s video of the subsequent stare-down, which, by the way, was being broadcast live right here on Channel 11. Prepare to feel slightly uncomfortable...

Lolita Lopez and I anchored our newscast last night from outside Citi Field, where the New York Mets were playing their first-ever regular season game in the new stadium. Being a lifelong baseball fan, it was a real treat to be on the field for batting practice and the rest of the pre-game hoopla. You can enjoy major league sports from the stands or on television, but being down on that playing surface, looking up and around at the new stadium from the players’ point of view, talking with Dave Winfield and Tom Seaver, seeing Frank Robinson up close (I’m from Cincinnati and he was my first baseball hero, a few years back) … I was like a little kid on Christmas morning.

But there were a few lumps of coal in the stocking, as well. I’m not talking about Citi Field. I’m no architecture critic or stadium expert, but I think it’s a terrific place to watch a ballgame. I was very impressed. In fact, it was so gleaming and new and intimate (compared to Shea, certainly), and it was such a pretty, although chilly, evening, I would have thought all the fans at the game would be in a sort of blissful, happy trance.

Our 10 PM newscast Wednesday night included a piece on an April Fool’s joke by a local guerrilla theater group called Improv Everywhere. The joke, as we seemed to report it, was that the group was playing a prank, called “Best Funeral Ever,” on some unknowing folks at a sparsely attended graveside ceremony at Brooklyn’s Greenwood Cemetery. Check out IE’s description and photos of how they pulled off the prank:

“I knew this would be a very sensitive subject, but I thought that if Improv Everywhere could spread a little joy to the saddest place of all, it would be an amazing feat. The first step was picking the right funeral. It was critical that the funeral would be very sparsely attended. My biggest fear was showing up to do this and finding tons of friends and family already there. I started scanning through the obituaries to find short entries that mentioned very few surviving relatives.”

It’s pretty funny, in a sick way, the notion of people at a funeral stunned to discover dozens of complete strangers showing up to pay their respects to the dearly departed. So “PIX News at 10” ran a piece of video, narrated by yours truly, describing the funeral prank, and asking viewers if they thought it was funny or in bad taste.

I’m not saying I ever bought a pack of cigarettes when I was teenager. But let’s just say, hypothetically speaking, that I did… maybe. IF I did—and I’m not saying that I actually DID.. remember, this is hypothetical… that pack cost—would have cost—about 45-cents. (Geez, can you believe I’m still worried about my father reading this? When does the statute of limitations on this one run out?)

45-cents. Significantly less than the federal cigarette tax increase being ADDED ON to the price of a pack as of today. Cigarettes now cost 62-cents more per pack, bringing the price, at least in New York, up to anywhere between $9 and $11-a pack. That’s an increase of around 1200-percent since I was---I mean, since people were--- buying cigarettes back in the ‘70’s.

Many newscasts today included the story of the Newark, Ohio man arrested for drunk driving after wrecking his motorized bar stool on a public highway. He admitted downing 15-beers before crashing his bar stool, which he claimed could reach a top speed near 40-MPH. Most people hearing this story, I’m guessing, were asking two questions: how stupid does a person have to be to get drunk and zoom off on a motorized bar stool?; and, what the hell is a motorized bar stool? To save you some time, I’ve been doing some research on the second question for tonight’s blog. You’re welcome.

Let’s begin with the comments from the arresting officer:

“Some people have made a sport of racing barstools equipped with tires, a steering wheel and a small engine, Newark police Sergeant Barry Connell said. "There are hundreds of people racing these things," he said. "But they race on closed courses." The barstool was towed away.

The animal rights group PETA, never known for its subtlety, has been getting some extra attention this month for its stepped up efforts to bring more attention to what it claims is the mistreatment of animals, especially elephants, by the Ringling Brothers-Barnum and Bailey Circus. PETA activists have been dressing up in child-friendly animal outfits, and actually going to elementary schools to reach out directly to little kids as they come and go from school.

There are quite a few targets for the wrath of mass transit users tonight, after passage of a measure to raise subway and bus fares to $2.50. There’s the MTA, the General Assembly in general, outer borough state senators in particular, Governor Paterson, Sheldon Silver… Paul McCartney.

Yes, THAT Paul McCartney. In one of those “only in New York” scenarios, the ex-Beatle has actually had his name thrust into the debate over the MTA fare hike. If you keep up with local gossip columns, you have an inkling why that is. Sir Paul (and I won’t refer to him that way again—rock stars should NOT accept knighthoods, in at least a nod toward their long ago rebelliousness) is dating, very seriously by most accounts, a woman named Nancy Shevell. She’s a wealthy, old money, newly-divorced 49-year-old New Yorker… who just happens to serve on the board of the Metropolitan Transit Authority.

The MTA’s so-called doomsday budget, which will raise subway and bus fares to $2.50 and is all but assured of passing when the agency board meets Wednesday morning, has—to simplify the situation somewhat—created a classic New York City economic face off: subway/bus riders and their advocates versus drivers/bridge-crossers and their state senators. Neither group wants to pay drastically more than what they’re paying now to get around the city, especially into and out of Manhattan; both sides make excellent points in their arguments. Sounds like its time for a compromise party!

First, the straphanger perspective. Adding 50-cents to the cost of each ride, a 23-percent hike, with accompanying higher prices for monthly metro cards and commuter train tickets, is just too large right now. With so many people struggling, charging that much more is heavy-handed. The compromise plan being supported by Governor Paterson and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver would call for just an eight-percent increase. Let’s go a bit higher on that, make it 12.5-percent—a quarter more—and I think subway and bus riders will feel like they’ve done their part and paid their share.

The unexpected death of any apparently healthy, vitality-filled person, celebrity or not, is like an ice-cold splash of water; it snaps your thinking back to the ever-present reality that anyone’s life can be taken away in an instant. And with Ms. Richardson, who seems to shimmer with beauty and charisma in her photos and interviews, it feels like the world is losing an uncommonly lovely human being.

Much is being made of the fact that Ms. Richardson was not wearing a helmet when she took her fall taking a ski lesson on a beginner slope. Already, it’s ignited a debate among skiers, ski resort operators, and medical experts, about whether helmets should be required for all skiers and snowboarders.

It’s not very often these days you find an issue that unites virtually all the American people in full-throated agreement. But we have one today.

Thank you, AIG.

Can you believe this? Bernie Madoff was bad, and we all agree on that. But AIG is like a COMPANY of Bernie Madoff’s. Greed needed a coporate logo, and now it has one. If Gordon Gekko were a real person, I can imagine him—probably at his beachfront mansion enjoying his retirement years after brief stint at Allenwood—just standing back in awe of these AIG dudes.

As a news person—and as a blogger who has to come up with SOMETHING to write about—I’m always intrigued with the juxtaposition of certain stories which happen at the same time. This doesn’t make me unique; it’s been columnist and blogger fodder as long as there have been columnists and bloggers. (Frank Rich of the New York Times is really good at this. Check out his column last week linking the economic meltdown with the increasing number of revivals of the play “Our Town.”) Our juxtaposition to discuss today is the tale of two wildly wealthy New Yorkers who now find themselves on opposite ends of the societal spectrum: Bernard Madoff and Mike Bloomberg.

I can only imagine how thrilled the 10 of you must be. Coming at a time like this, when so many people are struggling; now it looks like you’ll be able to handle whatever the bad economy might throw your way, and then some. The winnings come to over $20-million each – before taxes, of course – and that’s enough to change your life in any number of ways. You have been blessed!

Bob Space, 60, of Toms River, N.J., talks during a news conference at Chubb Insurance Company in Whitehouse Station, N.J., Wednesday, March 4, 2009, about buying the winning $216 million Mega Millions lottery ticket. Space and nine co-workers at Chubb will share the jackpot. (AP Photo/Mike Derer)

Or maybe you’ve been cursed. I don’t want to bring you down from your euphoria, but it’s a good time for a reminder that many lottery winners’ dreams of vast, instant wealth have quickly turned into nightmares. A few of the most prominent examples...

Well, thank goodness THAT’S over. Or almost over. The recession/depression, I mean. When Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee today that the bad times will end this year and recovery will begin in 2010, I could have sworn I heard “Happy Days Are Here Again” playing in the background.

I exaggerate. But there has been a lot written in the last week or so about the “self-fulfilling prophecy” aspect of the free market economy: too much talk by our leaders and economists about how bad it is, and sure enough it gets worse; make more upbeat assessments, consumers start to come out of their bomb shelters, and things start to pick up. Perhaps Mr. Bernanke made a policy decision to try and scrape off at least one layer of gloom after these last few dismal weeks, to see what the effect would be. The stock market certainly shot way up, which is nice.. for a day.

I’m certain I will not be the only blogger/columnist/media blowhard to note the irony of A-Rod’s steroid confession coming on the same day “Miracle on the Hudson” pilot Chesley Sullenberger and his crew got the key to New York City. But it’s worth noting what different definitions of “hero” and “role model” you find when you look at the two situations.

By admitting he took steroids when he was a Texas Ranger, as Sports Illustrated reported over the weekend, Yankee Alex Rodriquez (sure are lots of Yankees with steroid issues.. what’s up with that, all you proud “pride” partisans who believe your team is as close to Godliness as a franchise could be? Might be time to retire that notion along with the old Stadium and all those famous uniform numbers soon to be posted on a shiny new outfield wall) made it something of a clean sweep: by my reckoning, it now means the greatest baseball sluggers of the post-strike era -- Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi (arguably) and maybe Rafael Palmeiro -- have ALL been connected with banned performance enhancing drugs. The Baseball Hall of Fame is going to have a build an entire new wing just to hold all the asterisks.

In the words of a certain former president, bring it on.

I’m talking about the snow storm on the way. I only moved out of Manhattan a little over a year ago, but already I’m a battle-tested snow-shoveling rock salt-scattering ANIMAL! BOO-YAH!!

That’s right. I have evolved into the species known as Suburbanus Snowshovelus. And I have to say, I didn’t see that coming. I grew up in a suburb of Cincinnati, and most of my memories of tasks like shoveling snow and mowing lawns are not especially fond ones. Of course, that’s because my brother and I only did those things when we were ORDERED to. I can’t remember a single instance of me saying, “Hey, Dad, the snow’s really coming down.. May I go shovel now, please?”

I’m a big fan of skill. To me, it’s so fascinating watching someone do their job/hobby/sport/art with top-notch, world-class ability, I don’t care if we’re talking about Lebron James on a fast break, or an excellent plumber finding and fixing a leak no one else could figure out. There’s just nothing cooler than being really good at something.

Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, 58, is the pilot responsible for safely crash-landing the US Airways flight onto New York's Hudson River January 15, 2009. On an online professional profile he describes himself as a 29-year employee of US Airways.

Which brings us, of course, to Sully. Captain Chesley Sullenberger the Third, the veteran U.S. Airways pilot who butterfly kissed that big metal bird down onto the frigid Hudson river with no engines, beating odds that even veteran aviators are finding difficult to calculate, and saving more than 150 human beings in the process. Sullenberger is Hero #1 in America right now, and deservedly so.

US Airways plane ditches into Hudson River. Image sent in to WPIX.com. (January 15, 2009)

Obviously not a lot of time to blog tonight, as we get our coverage of the Hudson River plane crash for the PIX News at 10. I only wanted to say what a joy and relief it is to be able to broadcast news of a happy ending after what looked to be shaping up as a terrible disaster. The fact that no one was killed or critically injured after a jetliner had to ditch in a frigid, rushing river is just what people are calling it: a miracle. So many times over the years, Kaity and I have rushed to the studio to anchor what we knew would be coverage of something very bad, that was going to, or had already, taken lives; 9/11, of course, but also the Staten Island Ferry accident, the City Hall shooting, the steam pipe explosion. To be on the air for three hours straight hours this afternoon, for something that could have been so tragic.. and then to wrap it up by saying everybody’s okay…. Well, it’s as good a feeling as I’ve had in a while, and I hope many of you are feeling as happy and energized and proud of our city as I am.

PHOTOS: INCREDIBLE WITNESS PIX: US Airways Jet Lands In Hudson River

Let me say first off, to quote the old Letterman sidekick, Larry “Bud” Mellman, I am not an attorney. That didn’t stop me from blogging last week about Bernard Madoff, confessed perpetrator of history’s largest fraud, and how the federal magistrate needed to immediately revoke his bail. I mean, you steal $50-billion, it seems to me like you need to head downtown. Justice, I (and many, many others) thought, doesn’t get more clear cut than that, right?

Wrong. I’m sure you’ve heard the news. Judge Roland Ellis today ruled against prosecutors who wanted Madoff’s bail revoked. Here’s the story from the Washington Post, which includes a link to the judge’s decision.

Let’s talk about the weather. With snow heading this way for the weekend, I’m guessing it’s a topic at or near the front of your minds. We have a great weather team here at PIX, with Mr. G, Linda Church, and Chris Knowles, plus a terrific group of producers. And over the last 12 or 13 years, what they and their colleagues at the other stations do has taken on a much larger role in news broadcasting. Weather stories now “lead” newscasts, and occupy more newsgathering resources, than they did before that time. Tonight, let’s talk about why that is.

I try to be positive. I really do. Well, sometimes I do. But it’s not easy to find silver linings behind the dark cloud of the economic mess. So I’ve put together a Top 10 list of things to emerge from the recession that could be seen as not-all-bad.

NOTE: First posted Tuesday January 6th

Came across this on the BusinessDay website today:

“(Bernard) Madoff was charged in December with securities fraud but freed after posting bail of $10 million. He remained free after Monday's hearing, pending a ruling by magistrate Ronald Ellis of the US District Court in Manhattan.”

Yes, we all know the story, but let’s just let it sink in for a moment. Bernard Madoff is home tonight. He’s home at his palatial Manhattan penthouse, in the exact same cushy environment he’s been in for many of the years that he was perpetrating what may well be the biggest property crime ever by a single human being. There’s something very, very wrong with this picture.

New York Giants' Plaxico Burress, right, arrives at Manhattan Supreme Court for arraignment with an unidentified man on Monday, Dec. 1, 2008 in New York. Burress accidentally shot himself at a Manhattan nightclub Friday evening and was treated at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. He was released Saturday. (AP Photo / December 1, 2008)

There’s something about the Plaxico Burress saga that’s not being told, or maybe can’t be told. I’m not just talking about the beyond-bizarre incident last weekend when the troubled Giants’ receiver had a gun accidentally go off in his pants at a crowded midtown nightclub. That’s just the latest chapter in what has been a slow-developing implosion of this extremely talented young athlete. As we said on PIX News last night, the gun incident came a mere ten months after Burress had caught the touchdown pass that won the Super Bowl for the Giants, an accomplishment that, by all rights, should gained him a measure of immortality in the minds of New York sports fans for generations to come. And, you’d figure, in his own mind.

So Mayor Bloomberg is going to try and knock down the city’s term limits law and run for a third term. Hmmm... Let’s kick this around for a minute.

Bloomberg’s justification for this is that he, being a super successful billionaire businessman, and all, is uniquely skilled to see New York City through the current financial crisis. Well, yes. And no. Yes, he’s certainly worked Wall Street to his clear advantage in the past. A man doesn’t pull down a sweet $10-billion just being lucky. So he knows the mechanics of it all, at least the mechanics as they once were. Read more after the jump.

Since moving my family out of Manhattan to the suburbs last year, I switched from being a subway rider to a Metro North customer. But I still felt a pang of disappointment Tuesday when I heard the MTA is going to propose yet another fare hike for subways and buses. The pang then went ping on the news that subway delays had increased by 24 percent over the past year ending in May. I don’t know who’s responsible for the MTA’s public information strategy, but I would suggest some lag time between poor performance reports and fare hike proposals. It leads one to the conclusion that people are being asked to pay more money for worse service.

Which, of course, is exactly what riders ARE being asked to do, and who can blame a single one of them for being angry about it. First of all, it’s 25-cents more. Sure, that’s not an enormous amount of money, but after a while, these “modest” hikes start nicking straphangers to death. A quarter more this year, a quarter more next year; before long, to paraphrase Senator Everett Dirksen, you’re starting to talk real money. In fact, as recently as 1986, it cost exactly $1 to ride the bus or subway. So in just over 20-years, according to my math, that’s a 100-percent increase. Take it up another quarter next year, and you’ve got an increase of….well, of OVER 100-percent in just over two decades.

And what have we gotten for it? As noted above, more trains run behind schedule than ever before. A heavy rainfall can lock up the entire system. Some stations have been improved, but most of them are, to put it kindly, decrepit. My “home” station when I lived in Manhattan, at 96th Street and Central Park West, was simply disgusting. Filthy, leaky, searing hot in the summertime, and freezing in the winter. And that was Central Park West! I’m guessing stations in more moderate income communities have it much worse.

As New Yorkers, we’re fond of saying we live in the greatest city in the world. But our subway system, while the biggest in the world, is far from the greatest. Pick any city with a subway system of any size, and it’s nicer than New York’s. Paris, London, Moscow… MOSCOW, for God’s sake! The city fathers who are always so concerned about New York’s image in the eyes of the world should spend a little more time underground. If nothing more than making it a matter of pride, it should be a top priority to overhaul everything and rebuild a world class public transportation system.

I know, I know.. it’ll cost billions and billions.. tax dollars are down, etc, etc. We’ve heard it for years. Funny, though, how the city can find the money to build not one but two new mega-baseball stadiums, with a complete overhaul of Madison Square Garden on the drawing board, as well. Sports are enormously important to New York and to the city’s reputation. But last time I looked, a lot more people were riding subways and buses each day than heading out to catch that night’s Yankees game.

Finally, a fare hike in this era of $4.50 per gallon gasoline is especially hard to swallow. What have we always heard we should do to wean us off America’s oil addiction? All together now: USE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION! Well, in enormous numbers, New Yorkers do just that. And look at the thanks we’re getting. Dig deeper, straphangers and bus riders. You’ll soon be paying more to use a public transportation system that seems to have no long term plan besides….more fare hikes. If this really is the greatest city in the world, we deserve better.