New and Improved Bums
There are new bums in town: "freegans." Freegans scour trash dumpsters and eat leftover food as a political statement. According to a freegan interviewed in The Bergen Record (New Jersey), "It feels good when you watch all those people paying for food." Another said, "Being freegan is one way in which we are living a life that is consistent with the kind of world that we want to create. In terms of people having ownership of their lives and in terms of consuming in a way that is not destroying the planet."
In a Seinfeld episode, Kramer one time applauded the monastic life, "I like depriving myself of things." As Kramer sensed, asceticism is a higher calling. Unfortunately, it gets buried under layers of American stuff. The freegans, unfortunately, bury themselves in layers of American trash and call it a higher calling.
