"Bicycles should be banned and bicyclists should all be thrown in prison."

UPDATE: I received an email from Andrew Neubauer, and after taking time to clarify some things and talk with him a little, it's my belief that he had no ill intentions and just made some very unfortunate choices, so I'm cutting him some slack. You can read more about it here.

I just love satire, that's why I read the Onion each week. But I especially love satire from college Journalism majors because they have such a broad perspective on the world, especially when they found a school newspaper, or invent the internet.

I wanted to write a funny response to this, but honestly I'm just tired of it. As if Zack Colman getting death threats and having his Passover Seder interrupted wasn't enough, the ignorance continues to propogate and the "funny" satire articles continue to be written. This time Andrew Neubauer is the latest Journalism major who attempts to try and increase the hits to his school newspaper by bashing cyclists. I'm sure Zack Colman's little piece brought the State News the most traffic it has ever seen.

http://www.kansan.com/stories/2009/apr/27/neubauer_ban_bike/

According to his profile on the Kansan, Andrew Neubauer has "extreme narcissism, irritability and chronic need for adulation", that is if I can read his chronic need for praise beyond what is merited correctly? Andrew Neubauer hopes to go to law school and claims to have "a wide variety of superpowers". Good luck with that one, here's a hint, prospective employers do Google searches when you apply. Do you really want crap like this tied to your name? What if your future manager is a cyclist? Take a guess on if you'll get the job...

It's Andrew Neubauer's desire to go to law school that I find most disturbing, especially when a person states, "Bicycles should be banned and bicyclists should all be thrown in prison." and "Maybe they should be subject to public flogging when they try to sneak a pleasant Sunday afternoon ride through the park."

A lawyer wanna be should not contradict himself by saying "Legally, in Lawrence, bicyclists are required to keep to the road." and then later saying "When those who have places to be honk or pass, they then yell things like, “I have a right to the road, too!” This isn’t even true. Roads were made for cars and totally rockin’ motorcycles."

Come on Andrew Neubauer, grow up, read the Onion if you want to see what true satire is. You are a senior now, prospective employees and possibly even prospective law schools are going to be looking at what you've put online when you apply. Hopefully you'll be stuck riding your bike everywhere when potential employers deny your application based on these articles and you have no money for gas. That would be prime material for satire. Not only that, but I doubt, being in Lawrence, Kansas, that you've ever personally seen a "Critical Mass" as you suggest. I'm just saying...

You can email Andrew Neubauer directly and fulfill his chronic need for praise beyond what is merited at aneub58@ku.edu or via a form here, but just remember that he has "a long-standing fear of bicycles (more specifically, people riding bicycles) that grew out of a harrowing experience from my childhood" and he sounds more than a little unstable.