Mercredi is the French word for the day Wednesday and is named after the Roman Deity Mercury.

First, I want to remind you that I'll be appearing absolutely nowhere anytime soon:

(Intergalactic supernova black hole space vacuum, where I might as well be for the foreseeable future as far as anybody's concerned.)

Maybe at some point if I get really bored and lonely I'll go hang out at a bridge somewhere and give copies of my book away (which I realize sounds like something you might do before actually jumping off of said bridge, which I don't plan to do, since no matter how bad things get at least I don't live in Cleveland) but otherwise you might as well forget that I have a corporeal existence.

I think I speak for everybody when I say that this is a tremendous relief.

Secondly, this:



Clearly, at least some members of the Hasidic community want to play up their endearingly comic Mel Brooksian image:


While simultaneously downplaying the bike-hating thug image that has been gaining momentum as of late:



I should stress that I am in no way implying that this man represents the entire Hasidic community, which I suppose is the point of the "Unite the Beards" video, but frankly some of this explanation is unnecessary.  For example, this:

Uh, nobody thinks they're different.  They're both insular groups who all dress the same, and whom the rest of the city mostly just sees as a bunch of nerds.  Whether it's in the name of "G-d" or in the name of artisanal cocktails is incidental.  I realize the hipsters and the Hasidim think their disagreements take on the ethno-nationalist proportions of "The Troubles" or the disputes over the West Bank, but I can assure them that to the rest of us it's basically like watching the kid from the chess club arguing with the kid in the "Star Trek" shirt over the technical specifications of the Millennium Falcon.

Nevertheless, they even had an "Ask A Jew!" segment:

Looks like we missed it, but given the mindset and background of the typical hipster I imagine the first and only inquiry was, "So, like, do you guys really have sex through a sheet?," after which everybody just shrugged because they didn't have any more questions and went home.

The other big news in Williamsburg is that the people who moved there two (2) years ago and think Jews have sex through a sheet don't like the people who hang out in Williamsburg now:

"The people who actually live on this block don't go to these places. I don't go to the Wythe, I don't go to Output," said Wythe Avenue resident Kate, 26, who declined to give her last name but said she'd lived on the stretch for the past two years and was dismayed by the changes.

Though to be honest, some of these complaints are warranted, since the neighborhood seems to be drawing European pedophiles:

Within a few minutes, young Italian and Belgian visitors passed by on Wythe Avenue on a recent afternoon.

"I read Williamsburg is one of the youngest parts of New York," said a 26-year-old Italian, David Barco, "so I came here."

Eew.

By the way, I apologize for my insensitive comments about Europeans, and indeed I'm already receiving complaints, although they're not exactly the kind of complaints I expected:

In any case, I'd say that Brooklyn officially became the most annoying place in New York sometime in 2010, and 2013 will officially be remembered as the year it eclipsed Portland, OR and became the most annoying place in the United States.

But when it comes to controversies that have been blown all out of proportion, you can't get more disproportionate than bike share, which is now officially trying to kill old people:

The Post eagerly reported this morning that a 92-year-old man very nearly lost his life after helpless emergency workers became lost in a labyrinth of Citi Bike racks as they tried to rescue the ailing nonagenarian from the 20th floor of his Greenwich Village co-op building.

“The ambulance couldn’t even come up to the building," Lee Liss, the victim's wife, told the tabloid. 
"The ambulance couldn’t get to him. These bike racks are a detriment.”

This would indeed be a serious problem if it wasn't absolute bullshit:

But a quick call to the fire department revealed that this simply wasn't the case—not by a long shot, said Frank Gribbon, an FDNY spokesperson.

"The fire units on scene had absolutely no problem accessing this building," he said. Well, surely paramedics have had trouble maneuvering around other Citi Bike kiosks?

"There have been no problems," Gribbon said, exasperated. "None."

Though the Fire Commissioner himself has a different story:

Contrary to a news report today, FDNY EMT’s had absolutely no problems responding to and providing medical care to a patient on Sunday on West 13th Street in Manhattan. The FDNY has been working closely with DOT on this initiative and we have not experienced any problems nor do we anticipate issues operating at or near bike racks that have been situated on city streets.

Oh, wait, no he doesn't.

It's hard to imagine why it would be more difficult to reach a building with a bike rack in front of it than it is to reach one with a bunch of cars, trucks, vans, and SUVs parked in front of it.  It seems to me that the worst case scenario would be just driving the fire truck right through the fucking bike rack, which would be pretty awesome to watch.

Still, it's important to remember that cyclists are the scum of the earth, and that when they're not trying to kill old people they're murdering ducklings, as forwarded by a reader:

If they would look up and notice the environment around them, maybe there would not be so many accidents or lights run, or the killing of little innocent ducklings trailing behind their mothers.

Actually, it's true, we do ride with our heads down so we don't ride into giant potholes.  However, as we do, it's tough not to notice all the fucking roadkill caused by cars!

Anyway, so what actually happened to the duck?

Ducks were crossing the road on the northwest side of the lake. My sister witnessed one of the riders run over one of the baby ducks and then heard the bicyclist utter a curse word.

The duckling was killed (smashed).

That's a shame.  I'm guessing the curse he uttered was, "Fuck a duck."

It's certainly telling that, on the occasion of a "Ride of Silence to honor those bicyclists who have been injured or killed by motorist[s]," this person's biggest concern is the death of a duck:

I wonder who will have a memorial ride, walk or any other observance for the baby ducks that are killed by cyclists?

Uh, five words, lady:

PORTLAND DEAD DUCK THEME RIDE!!!

And yeah, we'll get around to mourning all the baby ducks killed by cyclists just after we finish honoring all those squirrels:

How Rolf Deitrich and his paired spoke technology have managed to avoid the wrath of PETA for this long is beyond me.