The Irony of Dumpster Diving

(sorry for the delay.... several drafts of this disappeared... and then I got shy realizing this is not my best writing... and then I started teaching myself CSS & HTML and forgot to post this two weeks ago... thanks for your comment PC - it reminded me to blog!)



In the "comments" section of the last blog, I addressed Pasadena Cafe briefly on the topic; and, to some extend, PC pointed to one of the predominate frustrations I have with the act of dumpster diving in how it is received socially. I fancy myself a slightly skilled observer (given I must have gleaned something useful from my newly acquired Sociology degree), but I am not separate from the social expectations for behavior that clearly, if unspoken, do exist. One of them being that dumpster diving is unsafe, unsanitary, and an activity of the desperate (Forgive me if I sounded desperate in my last post - but, aside from curiosity, truly I thought of myself as being economic) and the other that it is "better."
I first found myself wondering where the line between desperate and economic really is. I wonder how many of us (particularly those who could in some capacity afford their B.A.) consider economy sub-par, or perhaps equate it with undesirable or at best, less-than-comfortable. I do not mean to insult the wisdom in avoiding eating things left in a bacteria-infested garbage bin; but, along side the easy-to-damn Man, I do intend to bring into question the collective judgment, in which I participated, that deemed this not just a reasonable activity, but an important, healthy, better one.
I understand these Houses choosing to live as Freegans because it is 1) economic, 2) offsets the waste created, 3) is a form of subversive consumerism, & 4) it creates a standard for the House where consumables were truly expropriated (no one could be mad at the person who grocery shopped because they didn't get the right granola bars, nor could someone defend their peanut butter against the rest of the House).


I began this article with the title and thought "The Irony of Dumpster Diving" because in my research to find out legal and safe practices (and during the event itself) some very interesting things came up.
While we were sloothing through the treasury of meat, eggs, and bread, I happened upon a box of Camel Reds (a brand I'm particularly fond if I do get the rare treat of sharing a smoke with someone). In the same fashion I happily retrieved a frozen, sealed package of rack of lamb, I reached for the carton. One of my friends said "oh don't take that! It's been opened, it's not safe!" And the absurdity of the statement hit me, "They can't possibly be any worse for you than they already are!" Together, we laughed at the truth in the statement; earlier in the night one of my compatriots had offered a round of cigarettes to the divers of their own, fresh purchase.
Over the next several days I ogled and feasted on my goodies. I noticed my bank account was not as drained as it generally is at week's end. I could not help but speculate on what I would do with the extra income (for the most part, I put it toward my Legends of the Hidden Temple graduation party). In the relief of dodging anxiety over a tight grocery budget, I immediately thought of the many wonderful ways I could entertain myself with the extra dollars for the month. The correlation between saving and recreation was not lost on me. It dawned on me that if I made smoking a regular, perhaps even just a weekly habit, I would quickly shell out what could be spent on rack of lamb.

What kind of consumer was I really becoming? It's a fallacy to consider my saved income from the dive as "free" or "unspent" money (I think, too, this is an attitude that pervades the self-righteous who look at people of privilege and think "hmm, they could be paying for so many meals if they weren't making car payments on a BMW..."; it's also foolish and untrue). For all intents and purposes, I was just as wealthy/poor as before I decided to feed my family from a dumpster (after all, I am a member of privilege - as we all are, more or less - and that is a difficult thing to exclude from wealth). But the question still remains: what do I do with those extra dollars? The only fair and real answer I could come up with is consume. Cigarettes, a completely superfluous, un-fulfilling and arguably damaging activity, are not outside the logical or moral confines of such subversive consumerism. Instead of existing only in privilege, I found myself walking a line I couldn't quite put my finger on - the better line....

The elitism I was edging my way towards was found roots in a quote from an essay called "Second-Hand Dresses and the Role of the Ragmarket" by Angela McRobbie:

Although there seems to be an evasion of the mainstream with it's mass-produced goods and marked-up prices, the "subversive consumerism" of the ragmarket is in practice highly selective in what is offered and what, in turn, is purchased. There is in this milieu an even more refined economy of taste at work. For every piece rescued and restored, a thousand are cosigned to oblivion. Indeed, it might also be claimed that in the midst of this there is a thinly veiled cultural elitism in the operation...

Forgive a rough landing to this blog - but, ultimately I realized that narrow line I walked was between economic & elitist/subversive & snobby. I was still consuming, even if I wasn't paying for it and my means of consumption were even empowered by dumpster diving - an activity, by the way, that comes at the cost of time and energy that many people more depraved than I simply cannot afford (i.e. I am young, have no children, don't commute to work, only have on job, etc). This is not to say that I "should" fully adapt an impoverished lifestyle - I don't mean to say that dumpster diving isn't truly helpful or the idea subversive economics requires a change of socioeconomic status to justify it. But I do have to reconcile my own privilege with a socially abnormal practice, lest it become a snobby hobby or a creative delusion of self righteousness.

At the end of day it is 1) not more economic - I could simply work more with my free time and afford the food I spent time diving for; 2) makes room for other waste as I am still capable (and do) consume; 3) subversive? yes - but better... not so sure; & 4) may find it's only and better purpose in expropriation - but only if expropriation is the philosophy of all involved and towards all property.

But like I said... this is a rough landing and that last thought is for another day.

What do you want to read next?
	My Small Rant about Community Houses (old and un-posted)
	The Pizza Martyr (a real person we met)
	Peti and Walker (an episode of historical fiction from childhood)
pollcode.com

Dumpster Diving

I wish I had written yesterday – when the event was still fresh in my mind but I had yet to relate the experience to anyone and I was still delusional from sleep deprivation. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I participated because we had run out of funds for the month (although, this is true) or because I had some moral convictions that were satisfied by it (although, this is true, too). The heaviest weighing factor was simply curiosity. I had seen the fruits (literally) of the previous week’s scavenging and I wanted to understand just how much edible waste was actually found in these excursions.

The night began with only two of us who left at midnight for the nearest Trader Joe’s. Initially, I was disappointed by what I saw. The dumpster smelled foul and it looked like most things had yogurt or orange juice dumped on them. It was only about a quarter of the way full which lead me to my 2-minute assessment that there was nothing to be salvaged. My more experienced partner had an eye for this thing, however, and over 15 minutes of poking around, she managed to spot us several dozen unopened bags of bagels, a pair of zucchinis, 4 perfect Fuji apples (and 2 bruised ones), 2 cartons of blueberries and a basket of fresh basil. I was particularly surprised about the apples as they were the only unpackaged treasure we pulled. My friend explained that if the skin wasn’t broken we could wash them with water and a little bit of bleach and they would be sanitized enough to eat safely.
As I was climbing out, we were joined by several other dumpster divers who we spent the rest of the night with. Since it was my first time, they climbed in and double-checked for goods I may have missed. They found a bag of lemons with only one moldy piece of fruit, two unbroken eggs, and a sad looking sweet basil potted herb that they determined could be brought back to life.

We stopped at a few other stores along the way to the site most frequented by my Freegan friends. The ones with management and night crews still out and about we avoided. I have yet to confirm this, but I learned that dumpster diving is not illegal as long as it not on private property (which, apparently, means it is an enclosed dumpster). All the same, we did not want to call attention to ourselves or create an awkward confrontation over this grey-area activity.
We were not the first to get to the prized dumpster, a couple had loaded up nearly two trunks of food before we got there. I got a glimpse before they awkwardly left us to get the last pickings – they had several bags of breaded goods with expiration dates for that day, boxes of produce looking a bit less than pretty but still totally edible, and good deal of shelf-/dry-goods. Apparently, the night of the week we went followed regular shipments at this particular store, so the dumpsters area always full of product that was replaced during that day.
At this site, I, alone, brought home over $70 in grocery foods. This was what was left after we removed all moldy, dairy, warm, or questionable products from our findings. Anything that had not been pierced and could be washed in bleach was fair game. Understanding that I came only from a two-person home, this was a meager portion compared to the amount the other two intentional communities with me took. One of the girls with us even commented that it was far less than normal and they would have to come back the next night; but I was pleased.
The people who beat us to our bounty were a true Freegan couple (eating only free, organic, non-meat products) and so what was left for us to pick from in the dumpster was a large variety of packaged meats. I was extremely skeptical of taking any, particularly the poultry, but the community members assured me that they had never experienced any ill effects from eating the packaged meats they pulled. To accommodate my skepticism, they gave me the meats that were still frozen in their sealed packaging. I hit the jack-pot when I stumbled upon a garbage bag of eggs still in their cartons. I pulled out about ten dozen eggs in perfect condition! This was what the two houses were hoping for as eggs are a main staple, easily prepared, possessing a long un-refrigerated shelf life, and numerous.

At the end of the night, we took out all the goods from our cars (even the ones that had been scavenged by smaller groups in locations I had not been to) and laid everything out. Item by item we asked out loud who wanted what. The divvying was facilitated by questions of amount and preference and gifting all at once; and there was an air of joy and effortlessness to process. In the kind of conversation where it is reasonable to expect conflict, there was openhandedness and an absence of entitlement. Things were not allotted based on what was fair, or even on who needed what, but exchanged in generosity. I am not exactly sure how such an “exchange” of any kind happened because, without sounding communistic, the food belonged to all of us at once. I suppose a contributing factor was that the dumpster would be there the next night and the next and the next…
When I got home, I was nervous that the food I received would go bad or make us sick and so I prayed. The words I heard myself saying were not at all unique, but they had more implication than ever before – I asked that the food I received would nourish us (despite being pulled from a dumpster), that God would protect us (from dumpster bugs), that God would continue to provide for us… The attitude that my friends from the communities had during the distribution suddenly made sense to me. It wasn’t that the food belonged to all of us, it was that the food belonged to none of us.

What do you want to read next?
	The Irony of Dumpster Diving
	Revenge of the Hidden Temple (Danica's version of the childhood game show)
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Technology doesn't help old people

I'm back! And life has a pace again - oh, Lord - life has a rhythm. I'm so happy. So happy to be working and so happy to have a home again. So happy to be living out of a dresser and not a suitcase and happy to be repaying debts and gifts of kindness; half of which required no reciprocation.

I missed you, Internet world! I can't say how many of my truly lovely friends find my sentiments baffling and this favored medium of interaction, somehow, artificial and insincere. But in having to take a hiatus from my laptop created space for some new observations to take place that have inspired me and caused me to be more enamored with our technology and more in love with people.

More on that later.
I am taking my last class this summer. I will finally have my overdue BA in Sociology by mid-July. You are all invited to the party - it will be a grand affair consisting mostly of a large scale scavenger hunt and a lot of food. (I am planning on investing more time in setting it up than in my class... unwise?)

Below is my first short essay. It's awful. AWFUL. But I think it makes some interesting points worth commenting on. The course is Intro to Gerontology and the topic was an exploration of whether or not technology is a help or hindrance to the elderly. What do you think?

Technology, by definition, is the ultimate byproduct of human creativity and pragmatism; it is the development of tools that aid humans in their pursuit of enlightenment, comfort, or vitality. Technology is the human response to the preservation of both individual and collective lives and lifestyles. In a consumerist culture, the most valuable life is that of the consumer. When faced with the question of importance and application of technology for a specific sub-group of a given culture, we must consider both how able the group is to consume and how applicable to their lifestyle, and therefore how interested they may be, to the product in question. Because technology is funded and perpetuated by the demand of the consumer, particularly in America, it follows that technological development caters to the most normal and high consuming demographic. The elderly (65+ y.o.) only make up just over 12% (but growing) of the US consumer market while the bulk of the working and consuming age group (20-55 y.o.) make up well over half of the population. It is logical to assume that most technology is developed for this sub-group of the population and their specific demands and needs.

For the growing elderly population, technology is only as useful as it is consistent in its application. The cell phone may be slightly helpful to the elderly lifestyle because it is simply a more advanced version of a technology that previously existed, the telephone; but computers, particularly new forms of social interaction available via technologies, are more difficult to implement and are not designed for use by the elderly. A glance at the ads and layout of social mediums like facebook & myspace will reveal a format hardly conducive to the inevitable site and audio difficulties developed later in life. Likewise, the growing necessity of usage of such social networks further isolates the elderly from a generation with a unique form of relationship. This is not to say that the elderly cannot adapt and communicate in these fashions, but the rate at which technology evolves and changes is not expected in the aging generations as it is by the modern children of technology.

The lack of demand for assistive technology for the elderly is the result of several factors working against the potential development of technological aid. The 65+ group cannot create a demand for itself as it does not carry enough influence as a minority population. There are simply not enough people in the sub-group to unify under this specific consumer demand. The elderly also represent a significant portion of the population that is not working and, therefore, cannot independently pursue or afford a perpetually more convenient or comfortable lifestyle. Due to the sharp decline in veneration of our elderly, advocacy for the minority by more highly represented consumers does not exist either. Because of poor representation for needs of the elderly in the technological market, most developments, it would seem, are unsustainable, expensive, or difficult to attain and implement. Such assistive tools that do not have the proper support can be dangerous or a hindrance to an elderly lifestyle.

Technology that does exist in an assistive or enriching form for the elderly is simply residual consequence of products developed for the aforementioned, larger subgroup. For example, the development of the medical alarm necklace, or panic alarm, commonly used to send an emergency signal in the case of an accident or out of reach phone was originally designed for government facilities and guards as a security device. There are several examples that include creative uses of mobile devices, hearing and sight amplifiers, medical tools, and even food, etc, that originally had little to do with assisting the elderly. But such creations that were not intended for operation by the elderly may contribute to sedentary, unhealthy lifestyles or dependencies that suit the primary consumers’ demands more than they benefit their users. In the case of the panic alarm, such technology replaces what was originally human responsibility – the application of this particular device encourages a lifestyle of independence more closely affiliated with the primary demographic than what may be most conducive or beneficial to its elderly user.

Before technology can be truly helpful to our aging population, the majority must recognize the elderly as valuable social group worth preserving and assisting with our technological endeavors as our own needs and comforts are.

Lost in Translation

If you read Traditional Chinese... maybe you could help me out with a comment I received. This is what Yahoo Translator gave me:

You need the indoor design? Please look for extremely the shed! He has gang this fragrant 舖 to make the decoration, who did the fragrant 舖 website design ask to do links SEO also to do said! Your indoor design met a pile too to be also tired my mother Ye! Recently in the friend family do some people married do not know need the wedding ceremony video recording? ISEE this probably good Ye! The Aurora style's Yilan people sleep in there cross the honeymoon to be very idle, the Beijing View Advertisement Design Company designs the wedding ceremony gift box's thing is really very good! Wedding ceremony scene also some people take add the throttle to refuel for the new person, conference site scene flare very US, happy pair's medal is also satisfactory, Lian Liche the headlight is the LED white light moves the peach garden from Nankang, the new home needs the indoor design? Asks this family not to have good which the wrong this family indoor design does! The indoor design's ten methods they have, the indoor design's truth they also know, the wife secretly will not go to the motel with other man, the house also needs two embryos? Your family needs to illuminate? LED will be the future mainstream commodity you knows! The LED province electricity the environmental protection, really wants to buy one to try, my company serves the project has a health foods generation of labor, the vegetarian diet capsule You need to lose weight? Quick movement! The indoor design also contains the space design! Rents a room the net publication free not to spend money in the clear boundary farm sheep to be very lovable! Which is the Middle Ages vehicle performance actually the good indoor design must look for to be quite good! a383 website in? which a383 do you know the website in? The second-hand furniture is also cheap also the easy to use Wenshan Moving company's service telephone good Moving company to introduce that which you fitness to the bodily very good tasty tea buy! What can A piece of many younger sisters look at SEO the place unamusing = = SEO place? How does SEO arrange quite on quickly! Does not tell you the fine Moving company please to look for the yellow page to look how the Moving company does choose quite good Taibei Moving company which good? The Taibei Moving company moves the flow Taibei Moving company, the Taibei Moving company visitors is Ye! This family's appeal thing design is diverse! The appeal thing packing is occult you to need the appeal thing to be auxiliary? The appeal thing uses well! The appeal thing, the appeal thing, the appeal thing, the appeal thing, the appeal thing, the appeal thing, the appeal thing, the appeal thing, the Taichung Moving company, A piece, the Taibei Moving company, the Taibei County Banqiao Moving company, the appeal thing, the appeal thing, the appeal thing, the appeal thing, the appeal thing, the appeal thing, the appeal thing, the appeal thing, the appeal thing, the appeal thing, expends the ticket, the appeal, the appeal, the appeal, the appeal appeal, the appeal, the appeal, the appeal, the appeal, appeal world many people are = = Jan Zhuanfan the tool to be very easy to use! Drafts the letter society service to be fine, 絕 does not make do! Every month the freight transportation company removes goods has the fixed price pickled vegetable delicious Ye uniform invoice to check lottery results the indoor design company light bright this family who 26 must check lottery results to be good! The heat-insulating cardboard has used hotly! The indoor design company usually designs the family is very beautiful! which does the led flashlight illuminate the ultra luminous second-hand stack board to buy? a383 has a look! Moves serves the area to be as follows: The Da'an area moves, Sungshan moves, the mountainous area moves, eight miles move, five move, Taishan moves, Datong District moves, the area moves, the indanthrene moves, Wan Hua moves, rains when supports the umbrella, here has a fine umbrella to let you, the uniform cannot drip wet! The uniform clean is the good baby! SEO　　 This second-hand vehicle's performance is very good

In the Mean Time

Sorry - I'm trying to set a good pace with the voting & writing, etc - but things have been a little hectic around the Northend-Sheean household with work and not work and interviews and cars breaking down, etc.

Matt's dad flew in from Kenya Tuesday night and came to work on our car WEDNESDAY afternoon! And we've had a number of friends offer the use of their cars in the mean time. What beautiful community we have.

In YOUR mean time (while I write a post on the winning topic) I thought you might enjoy some of my favorite people on the Internet:

MattSheean.com - If you haven't been here yet, you're not my friend.
This is my husband's beta website. You can also see his more recent work on his blog. He just got signed to book that will be at ComicCon, too! But even I can break his NDA so all I know is that there are some pretty good illustrations in it. =D

Micah's Blog - My brother in-law luv's website!
This is another fantastic artist whom I recommend checking out from time to time. Without being a totally biased sister, Micah's pretty fantastic. I'm particularly fond of his accuracy with the guns he's draws... ;-)

MalachiWard.com - Matt's other brain.
By far the most attended and anticipated art shows at our university were ones involving Malachi, go check out his work and you'll understand what I mean. I hope he doesn't mind me tooting his horn, but I'm a big fan. Malachi participates in Illustration Friday, too, so you can count on a weekly blog posting.

That all for "In the Mean Time." By popular vote, "Why THIS Universe Doesn't Have Masked Vigilantes" will be up over the weekend!