Recently I reported on the firing of Mateo Rueda, now an ex-art teacher after showing 10 and 11-year-olds nude "artwork" at Lincoln Elementary School in Hyrum, Utah on Dec. 4. Normally I would have let this story go by now, but Rueda continues playing the victim, aided and abetted by complicit reporters; libertines the world over; and, unfortunately, some good people who don't realize that the media have mischaracterized his trespass.
Rueda, a native of Colombia, demands an apology, even as he condemns his fellow Cache Valley residents as "cultural dead-ends" and members of a "narrow-minded community." He also said, "I was overqualified[;] I took the [teaching] position with an open heart to make a difference in a predominantly[] Mormon community where there isn't much culture." My, charitable as well as charming! Yet his defenders--who've called people such as me puritans, prudes and even Nazi-like book burners--should know that Rueda himself confessed that the nudes were out of bounds.