Fringe society

Maybe it's the Christmas season and people want feel good stories but In recent days the NY Times has been featuring stories on people on fringe of civilized society.

First the story of a guy who is the unofficial guardian of Strawberry Fields, a life calling he claims came from 'the Brother' himself and he explains John Lennon's life to tourists all to continue and grow his legacy. It sounds sort of interesting until you find out the guy is some schizo homeless dude who harasses local florists for flowers to display at the Strawberry Fields emblem in central Park.

Then there was a front page expose about some dude who makes his entire living picking up used OTB tickets and scanning them in with the hopes of finding an accidentally discarded winning ticket. The amazing thing is this dude not only finds winning tickets amongst the thousands of losing ones but he does so regularly and has surprisingly made a career out of it. This dude makes $45,000 per year and employs three other guys part-time to collect garbage bags of discarded tickets from OTB's around the city.

I love the entrepreneurial spirit but when it happens on these fringe levels its borders on step from the guys who scour the streets on recycling nights and rip open garbage bags to fish out the soda cans so they trade them in for a nickel. I appreciate the can-do spirit but these guys always leave all our trash thrown all over the sidewalk and now that the NY Times basically exposed the new $0.05 soda can thing and it will bring the wolves out of the forest.

As if OTB's didn't have enough derelicts. In other words what was enough business to give one dude a (modest) income will now become a feeding ground for every homeless guy from Strawberry Fields to the infield at the Belmont Stakes.
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