William Marvel: Communitarian U.

The thinly veiled jubilance of Joe Lentini’s self-congratulatory letter to the editor last week revealed a good deal about the chairman of Conway’s school board. It showed, for instance, his habit of cherry-picking information, such as his claim that ours is the 46th-lowest-taxed state in the country. One survey does claim that, and he repeats it often, but another lists our property taxes as the nation’s second-highest. Joe typifies the reason for that.

Joe also demonstrated how closely he associates education with the ultimately pointless activity that provides him with an income, and how heroically he views his participation in both activities. Why he equated the formation of the Mountain Rescue Service to the creation of a strategic plan for the school district, I can hardly guess. The rescue service seems devoted to saving fools from the consequences of the grave risks they take in accomplishing an unnecessary task — which, although it costs a great deal of money, produces nothing of value beyond a fleeting sense of accomplishment.