Monday, April 27, 2009

"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.

18 comments:

Cyclin' Missy said...

You're right - it does feel like a downhill battle. I almost wrote a nasty comment to Mr. Neubauer's article, but registering at the site took forever. I decided he wasn't worth my time. Sigh.

Anonymous said...

You really need to calm down. Yes it's pointless, but that's the point. All the editorials in the KU paper are pointless, this guy was just smart enough not to take himself too seriously. I ask which is worse, a college kid writing a harmless fake opinion letter, or an idiot who took it serious and spent time writing a reply to it, thus making the new idiot (me) respond to your idiotic comments. This has overall been a waste of everyone's time. Also "wanna be" is wannabe... just though I'd throw that out there

Anonymous said...

Also, it's a cruel move to put the guy's personal e-mail address up on this. I'd say that's much worse than a satirical editorial. Maybe your boss should look at what you're doing with your time.

Bike Lemming said...

Harmless is a rather subjective analysis of his opinion letter. I don't consider calls for public beatings or imprisonment harmless regardless of their humorous intent. The opinion then escalates on the road where someone gets hurt. Would you find it offensive if someone jokingly (but kind of seriously) wanted to beat your family?

Thank you for the spelling correction, periods also go at the end of sentences and "thought" is spelled with a "t". Now we've both learned something.

St. Evil Can Evil said...

I deserve to be beaten. In fact, I look forward to it. I'm a scofflaw who needs to learn many lessons, spelling and punctuation included.

Anonymous said...

Have you ever been to Lawrence? We've got every kind of crazy imaginable here. Including the critical mass types.

Bike Lemming said...

I should visit if every kind of crazy is there...

Anonymous said...

Isn't it a little bit ironic that you reference what happened to Zack Coleman and then encourage your readers to contact Andrew, knowing that some will probably be saying some pretty hateful things as well?

You also speak mockingly of college journalism majors that 'have such a broad perspective on the world' but then make a completely blind generalization. "...I doubt, being in Lawrence, Kansas, that you've ever personally seen a 'Critical Mass' as you suggest. I'm just saying..."

Lighten up or you'll be in a permanent bike lane to douchebagery.

Bike Lemming said...

It is ironic, thanks for noticing.

Anonymous said...

I fell sorry for you. You're a pathetic dick who spends his time attacking college kids, but you have a blog so you're a big man. Do you honestly think that someone is going to take this seriously and run over a biker after reading it. Get over it. Instead of typing blogs, you could go on a nice bike ride.

Anonymous said...

Your "about me" say there's a lot us cyclists can laugh about. I'm a cyclist and I'm laughing at how pathetic your blog is. Also, if you hadn't posted this blog I would have never seen the original article so good job on giving the guy who wrote the article a bigger audience. It's one of the funniest things I've read in a long time.

Bike Lemming said...

"It's one of the funniest things I've read in a long time." You either don't read much or you wrote the article...

BikeLemming is an idiot said...

I'm not the writer and I have a degree in English. Compared to your blog anything looks like a masterpiece.

Bike Lemming said...

Come on man, I know you are frustrated and had to hastily register a user name since I shut off anonymous commenting after you posted over and over again. But I'm disappointed, "BikeLemming is an idiot" really isn't that great of a user name. I was hoping for much better, have some fun with it.

BikeLemming is an idiot said...

Ok I'll give you that. I'm disappointed in myself as well, but I was anxious to post. Also, only about half the anonymous posts are me. There's no point in continuing this pseudo-blog fight. We can both be doing better things with our time. My point (that admittedly got lost long ago) is just that it's a college kid, and nobody should take it serious. The words only have power if people choose to give it power, which you, by writing about it have done. You crossed a line by putting the guys personal e-mail address in the blog as well. That being said, I do understand your concern and bike safety is important to me as well. However, you seem more bothered by his writing than what he's actually saying. If this guy is graduating, then he has what, a month left? I doubt he really cared about this article in the first place evidenced by his lack of research and overall disinterest in the topic. Now, we've both said what we wanted to say. There will be no uprising or attack on bikers because of this. Let's call it a truce.

Sorry for the username. Again, I showed the creativity of a child with it.

Bike Lemming said...

That's actually a pretty cool response and I'll be glad to do better things with my time as well. Perhaps the personal email was over the top, it was linked right off his profile on the news story.

I was writing to a friend this morning that it's really easy to get caught in every little article where someone bashes cyclists rights, and then cyclists have to defend themselves. In the end that fight will be futile and most responses just make both sides unhappy and end up solving very little.

Taking a car for a day or hiking your favorite mountain bike trail is something every cyclist should do once in awhile. Sometimes people in cars have valid concerns, not every cyclist out there is courteous or abiding by the rules, just as every driver is not.

Laughing at ourselves, polite education, and tolerance of others is what the world needs. It may sound hypocritical reading my blog, except that most everything I poke fun of I've done at one time or another, when I write about it I'm laughing about my own experiences.

BikeLemming is an idiot said...

That's understandable and yes both cyclists and drivers do things they shouldn't, after all we're all human. Thanks for responding. I'm glad we could resolve this in such a nice manner. Best of luck to you and drive safe.

Bike Lemming said...

No problem, thanks for commenting. On the flip side of cyclists looking at things from the other side, I also think it would be very enlightening for drivers to take a bike to work once in awhile to see why cyclists get up in arms so quickly with certain opinion pieces. Having people pass you with a mirror six inches from your head, or throw full beer cans at you, isn't something people should have to deal with in a civilized society. Be safe out there!