Raccoonist Poem - Hohh S'iphw Tu Light

Glundus fonm'z solore pain
Acip dooorn saapix again
yuxus triffig olow quos heart
hoshosh n'ighm thuftun apart
jun'x dsik wipp luunid tommorrow?
aio q'rit zazoz vytr'x sorrow

Wikipedia Vandal Watch - Ja Rule (approx 10

Certain raccoonists are interested in the phenomena of wikipedia vandalism and will therefore post findings of such occurrences when discovered. We intend to only post vandalism which has been found spontaneously rather than found through searching article histories. Here is the first entry of this kind....

This vandalism was found on the Wikipedia article for the rapper Ja Rule:

un-EMPLOYED

Ja rule Lost his job on semptember 67 of 2004 because he aint got no teeth. No teeth=No cash. So there so ja rule had to become a profesinal Yugioh player but he got beat up by a 6 year old who was pist of off in the UK. Ja rule is fat joes homo sexuel partner,They says to have it evry 5 months of so. Fat joe is fat because his pregnint with ja rule baby. Ja rule real name is Ja suck.

The Sheep Look Up - John Brunner - 1972

Does not have a straight narrative and it's structure bears some resemblance to JG Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition in that it's chapters are subdivided into smaller sections which are occasionally very short. Both novels describe a fictional Earth although Ballard's was an indeterminate quasi-urban space filtered through the T-figure's anxieties and is therefore nearly incomprehensible. Brunner's world is plainly earth (primarily North America) ravaged by various ecological catastrophes.

The world in the novel is one where EVERYONE actually feels the impact of various forms of pollution. Protection is needed against rain, tap water is undrinkable, swimming is not recommended (if not outright forbidden) at beaches, masks are often used in open
air, meat from animals raised on antibiotics is unhealthy, disease and infection are ubiquitous, sonic booms from aircraft are common, children are almost never born defect-free. Doctors typically don't have children.

A charitable wing of a Major Corperation sends food to third world countries - food contaminated with an agent which induces psychosis in those who eat it. A group emerges in North America who want to eat the food themselves because they desire insanity as an escape from the world they live in. This agent is derived from the ergot fungus of fermented rye, signalling that it likely bears some similarities with LSD.

Also a group called the Trainites exist in response to this world. They live communally in wat's,
they abstain from drugs, reject cars and most forms of industry, and are well educated. They hold demonstrations and paint slogans and symbols on cars and other omnipresent symbols of disaster. The Trainites movement rejects the traditional way of life for it's intensely destructive character.

Characters lament in the novel a discrepancy between the reality of America in which they live and the image of America constructed and disseminated by mass media. Noting that they're being destroyed by their way of life while simultaneously their way of life is being exported to the third world...often by military force. Of course it is only in images that this way of life can be exported - both the Americans and Third World populations experience a daily reality that stands in opposition to the ideal. Example: The president of the United States is essentially a placid, stupid television talking head who placates the public simultaneous to his Government enacting martial law and branding critics such as the Trainites as dangerous criminals.

Major Corperations struggle to maintain a consumer friendly image while being responsible for various aspects of the overall eco-disaster that plagues Earth. Corperate forces resort to any means necessary to protect their image and interests including murdering critics. In this sense some parts of the novel read almost as actual incidents of Corperate murder found in Naomi Klein's anti-globalization text, No Logo - while No Logo provides accounts of resistance to the
progress of established powers as a signal to hope for improvement, The Sheep Look Up is simply a world which deteriorates into a state of ruin and insanity.