Earnest Mann

In 1858, two years before becoming President, Abraham Lincoln lost the race to become the Senator from Illinois. Still, in accepting his party’s nomination as their candidate, Lincoln spoke words that continue to resonate for us today: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Here, Lincoln was speaking about a nation on the verge of being rent asunder. Then, as now, there was a notion that our nation is a compendium of ideals, of values, of historical narrative. This is true. ...

A few weeks ago, hanging out at Hey Mikey’s ice cream parlor down on Postoffice, crowd-watching while occasionally making sure to dam the butter-pecan stream making its way down my sugar cone, I was struck by something I had always seen but never noticed. You know the routine, the one where you stand in line with bated breath waiting your turn to find out what’s down there in the freezer – the 20 or so colorful flavors with names running the gamut from the basic Vanilla to the exotic Irish...