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Fired Substitute Teacher Magically Turns Tide In Favor

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By TOM JACKSON

tjackson@tampatrib.com

Published: January 30, 2009

So far, Jim Piculas has pretty much had the public argument his way. Ever since he was able to sucker ... uh, convince a local television station to embrace his unverified version of events, Piculas has soared like a sultan on a magic carpet of new-media celebrity.

Reaffirming Mark Twain's cynical genius - "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes" - Piculas' pop ascendancy, fueled by gleeful Internet blog jockeys, thrived on two potent, but lamentable, facts of human nature: People are gullible, and they prefer to believe the worst about other people, especially people in charge of otherwise faceless bureaucracies.

To refresh: Piculas lost his job as a substitute teacher in January 2008 soon after he performed the disappearing toothpick trick for students at Rushe Middle School. In Piculas' account, his dismissal was Salem revisited, with substitutes supervisor Pat Sinclair channeling Cotton Mather.

Piculas says he was accused of wizardry. His word, not ours, says the school district.

As peddled last winter and well into spring, Piculas' scenario was textbook false logic - post hoc, ergo propter hoc: after this, therefore because of this - as print reporters who ran down his story came to understand. Notwithstanding his performance art, the district appeared to have the goods on an employee who shirked, sloughed or otherwise disregarded his duties.

Prejudices On The March

The lid finally popped off when, having exhausted reputable media outlets, Piculas got a local television station to embrace the accuracy of his accusation and the righteousness of his cause. That this confluence occurred only after he agreed to memorialize his trick on video added heft to the notion that if the images are good enough, TV will make the facts fit.

The piling on was immediate, lustful and shameless. Never mind the district's side. A sub fired for sorcery fit every preconception of the media big shots from Parker Street to Park Avenue. Ranchers, farmers, backwoodsmen and kumquat-eaters. They live in doublewides, shop at the Dollar Tree, keep armadillos for pets and handle rattlesnakes.

What's the on-camera explanation of a school board member elected by those goobers against the opportunity to morph her into a frog?

Good times.

Piculas' skyrocket exploded over the Nature Coast in May and sparkled right on through the Fourth of July weekend, when the scorned teacher retained a lawyer and raised the specter of a lawsuit. Six months later, having failed to extract tribute for his troubles, Piculas' threat materialized.

His reputation has been damaged, he says, by false allegations about his teaching skills. Notably absent from the legal documents? Any mention of "wizardry." All together now: Hmmmmmmm.

Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo

Take away the angle from Oz and all we have is a run-of-the-mill dispute between a disgruntled former employee and a high-profile employer with a reputation for circumspection. Stephen Colbert nation will not be interested.

Yes, until now, the Little Guy with the wacky spin and a willing perpetual-motion publicity machine has enjoyed the fruits of modern culture's appetite for information, real or fabricated. Finally, though, Piculas has upped the ante beyond regional prejudice and keyboard musing. When attorneys start taking depositions, the solution is beyond pixie dust.

As the school district prepares its response, we grow eager to give the man behind the curtain all the attention he deserves.

Tom Jackson can be reached at (813) 948-4219.

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