From: evans11@intacc.web.net (Tom Evans)
Organization: MATRIX ARTS NETWORK, Toronto, ON, Canada
Date: Fri, 08 Apr 1994 17:22:17 EST
Subject: WHO IS DR. JOE BAPTISTA?

A NET.SCANDAL SUBSCRIBER ASKS

Who is Dr. Joe Baptista?

He is the good doctor of friction, and fun.
Dr. Joe Baptista...media prankster, electronic equivalent of the 
Shakespearian fool  (a central figure in all of Bill Shakespeare's 
plays as you well know.) 
Writer, activist, humanist, U of T newspaper pundit, WinFaxPro wizard.

Joe at one time played the role of member of the PC party. During 
that time I believe, Joe was appalled at the way a bureaucracy dealt
with the people who elected and supported it The foolishness and 
ineptitude are recurring assaults that Joe levels at the government 
and corporate hippos. The way he does it is what people are confused
about. When Joe notified the Attorney General that Wired had broken 
the ban, the "peanut-gallery" of "keyboard" activism howled with 
criticism and insults. It requires a person of a modicum of vision to realise
what Joe is actually doing in his "war" with government.
 
Since Kovac's and the AG Marion Boyd saw fit to ban the proceedings 
of the Teale/Homolka trial, Joe said...ok...let's put them to the task.
The reality of the situation is the old censorship argument, which needs to be
addressed, no matter how controversial it may be. 
For "them" to try to hush the press and media is completely absurd, 
in that the whole world knows anyway, including Canadians.
Virtually every newspaper around the world has carried the stories 
in a mature fashion, sensational or otherwise. Did we go crazy? No!

Whatever their intended effect, it has backfired. People have 
gone to greater lengths than ever to find out the truth .
(natural human curiosity...to quote Eddy Greenspan)
Teale's chance for a fair trial (which means they lock him up for
good) is jeopardized to a greater degree because,..I feel a neutral 
jury will be *impossible to find. The investigation was handled 
very poorly and there is little evidence to convict him other than 
Homolka's testimony, which after all, is only her side of the story.
The details are unimportant at this level, and for me...at any level.

Enter Dr. Baptista, net prankster, thorn in the side of bureaucracy.
The Dr. Baptista who first mass faxed the Ontario Government about
the hilarity of the ban. The fax was a description on how to access
the banned information from the Ont. Government's employee server,
the same government who banned it. A document entitled "HOW NOT TO ACCESS THE
BANNED INFORMATION OF THE TEALE/HOMOLKA TRIAL" was sent to 60,000 civil
servants in a 2 day period. Like it or not...the Doctor administered the
medicine.
The letter read, ..."if you do _not_ want to read the proceedings of 
the trial, do _not_ access the following files from your server."
Much like saying to a kid, "if you don't want to eat a whole bunch of
yummy candy...don't look in the cupboard under the counter behind 
the potatoes."

They were devastated...as usual. How could anyone do this to us????. Who did
what? is my question, and the answer is hilarious.
The answer is, Joe's an activist, not an anarchist, and an extremely sly one
at that. With one stone, he pointed out how silly the decision was. Who is
government to dictate what we see, read or hear, are we in the Soviet Union?
Are we a banana republic ruled by despots? And if the information is so "top
secret"...why is it available on a public access computer system.?

A variety of battles have ensued. These are however battles of wit.
Joe is only communicating his disfavor to elected officials; a very 
old tradition as a matter of fact. The best example for me to 
describe what goes on is the Watergate impeachment of Nixon. 
A crook gets caught and the public gives him the boot. Or women 
lobbying for the vote a hundred years ago. Certainly the situation is 
different here, however, the same process is taking place.
During all of this, Joe is much like a conductor of a symphony. 
He raises his e-mail baton, and waves of howling and whispering 
ensue from an audience, most of whom are unaware of how truly 
entertained they are, also unaware of their part in the play!
 The bureaucrats draw their lines, the public fills the nets and 
wires with "Should he have done this?", Should he have done that?"  It matters
naught to Joe. In fact all he wants to do as he constantly repeats is "Have
fun."

A clear look at all of this provides the educated viewer with a 
picture of one person having a measured effect on the country 
with a fax modem and a computer, with a tongue jammed 2 inches 
into his cheek...again the jester.

WIRED comes waltzing in with their chic cyber-corporate 
vehicle, with a teaser article to push Canadian sales. This "article" could
not possibly be credited with being either factual information
or news. It was a $BUCK HOOK! _Obviously_ this would sell 
magazines. Joe sees it coming... he had heard a week before release 
that it was on the way to Canuck turf.

First of all the story was misinformation, second "liberated" WIRED 
were thumbing their nose at we "complacent" Canadians. 
Hmmmm, remarks the good Doctor...two birds with one stone... 
Another arrow at government, prompting them to act if they are to 
be worth their "censorial" salt, and a quick education for the cash-
driven/media shark-frenzy of the WIRED.editors Their first 
complaint was that Dr. Joe had cost them a bunch of money; not a 
peep of concern over their publishing an erroneous story. It's so 
silly, the article caused such a rubbish-heap of controversy. There 
was nothing in it...mention the word Homolka in print and the country
goes crazy. It worries me to some degree.

Joe's latest assault was against police chief Bill McCormack, who he
challenged to a public duel, offering bewildered Bill his choice of 
"weapons" and "location", by faxing all the  Ontario civs once again.
Now this is one of the funniest stories I've come across in years. 
A public duel...remind you of a Shakespeare comedy? Joe was pulled 
into court which he attended dressed in a doctor's uniform, with a 
stethoscope and "moose" slippers. The judge was barely able to 
refrain from laughing, and dismissed the "mischief" charges. 
So Joe kept faxing them, night after night, relentlessly. He has to 
date cost the government $3.5M in fax paper. Pennies compared to 
the government scams that go on daily.

In all of this I take great pleasure. I'm one of those big mouthed 
ex hippies. I, like any other members of my generation, who have not 
traded their creative soul for a bag of bucks, feel that any "card
game" with bureaucrats is going to be played with a deck stacked in 
their favour. Armchair activism has become a "fashionable" pastime, 
as long as the rules don't get broken, everyone has an opinion.
Ahhh.....there's the rub!  Ask the same "activists" to put their name at 
the bottom of their activism, or put their neck in their own 
noose...and watch the room clear quickly. We in the west (Canada US
etc.), have a serious problem with government and business 
tampering with our environments, both physical and mental, but seem reluctant
to do much about it. There are isolated outbursts of 
revulsion and potent creative activism, but the issues lack the clarity that
were once in the sights of activists. 
Baptista comes along and the "crowd" misconstrues his intentions. 

The "crowd" it seems has adopted the directives of the "cheats",  those smiling assassins that we elected, ...the deck stackers.
They even howl that the government shouldn't be badgered... "Don't do that!."
"Don't fax so much! " "Don't say so many "bad" wordies!." 
"They're sooooooo busy!"      As far as I am concerned, they're busy 
stacking new decks. In the clear light of day, our social problems are 
rooted in a piece meal, "crowd control" environment, with promises 
of a pot of gold at the end of a 8 hour-per-day rainbow.
"But just be good! " "Don't irritate us, we have decks to stack." "
We're helping Canadian corporations abuse our government grants.

to quote a NET.SCANDAL subscriber--
"How about windshield wiper maker Tridon? Ten million bucks in gov.grants and
they pack up and move, laying everyone off."

Wonder why my taxes are going up, even though there has been so 
much bureaucratic "pruning"? Another crooked card game?

Satire was used for hundreds of years to express the frustration of
those struggling to "activate."  Historically, creative persons who 
were "clear" on what needed to be done to rectify an injustice in a 
community, used satire to move the sloth of the "quo". 
Shakespeare's plays affected Kings and countries. 
Actors were the activists of 15th.century England, the civil and 
human morality wars were fought on the stage, in public markets and parks. 
Today satire is confused with misbehavior or entertainment. 

Make no mistake, satire is potent, entertainment is fluff!

And in the satirical "Doctor" Baptista, we do indeed have a great 
actor....and the fluff; it keeps on blowing and blowing...

Regards...

reply to Tom_Evans@tvo.org,Internet

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