With our usual efficiency, my husband and I woke up one morning a few weeks back and said to each other, "When's the primary election in Massachusetts?" As luck would have it, we still had another 48 hours to get an official postmark on our written requests for our absentee ballots, and in theory, the ballots would show up in time for us to vote and get them mailed back in time for Super Tuesday, February 5th.

Today is the fifth anniversary of the loss of the space shuttle Columbia, which disintegrated upon re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere following a successful 16-day mission. Later investigation determined that a hole had been punched into one of the wings by a piece of insulation that had fallen off from the external fuel tank during lift-off.

Gordon B. Hinckley, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (a.k.a. the Mormon Church) died a few hours ago in Salt Lake City, Utah at the age of 97. Hinckley had served as the head of the church for 12 years. Prior to becoming president, he had served as a counselor under several previous church presidents, effectively running the church as these leaders became incapacitated due to age or illness. He was known for his skill in handling the media.

The current Candidate Diary Wars bring to mind my experience during the 2004 election year while employed as the principal of a tiny, private American school housed in a French public school. Our ~50 students (representing about 30-35 families) were about two-thirds American ex-pats; the rest were from about eight other anglophone countries.

Normally, election years present excellent opportunities for history, poly sci & civics teachers to foster research and debate among their students. So bitterly rancorous and divided was the situation in our tiny school, however, that I did something I never thought I would ever have to do: I forbad political discussion in our classrooms and in the school (and host school) generally. "Why" is below the fold.

It is already January 23rd here in France--the first anniversary of the death of my nephew (whom I will call Matt), a victim of squamous cell cancer at the age of 15. I apologize for the length of this diary, but I want to share some of the "real-time" messages sent during Matt's illness and immediately after his death.

If indeed "the personal is political," there can be nothing more powerful than the untimely death of a loved one to strengthen one's resolve to fight against such wrongheaded political policies as the Bush administration's heartless rules impeding stem cell research, and to work for better health care and compassionate support for all.

A new study cited in a rec'd diary from Jérome à Paris puts France in the forefront of countries addressing treatable diseases, while the U.S. came in last among industrialized nations.

I've heard all sorts of claims about the horrors of "socialized" medicine and the agony of wait times, yadda yadda, so I thought I should share my little story of visiting my new OB-GYN yesterday.

After spending this morning clearing the back patio of fast-weathering furniture, weeds, and innumerable tiny white snails (the bane of my gardening existence), I treated myself to lunch at one of our tiny town's restaurants. This was the last meal of the season; this restaurant, along with so many others in the area, won't be re-opening again until the end of March. I was one of five customers.

I had an extended and far-ranging conversation, mostly about America, with two of the other customers, both elderly French men.

Normally I cannot bear to read David Brooks at all. Given the strongly negative editorial in today's New York Times about Romney's "Faith in America" speech yesterday, I steeled myself and forced myself to take a look at Brooks's review, which turns out to be more critical than either the call-out on the Opinions page or his first several paragraphs would lead the reader to think.

Full text of Romney's "Faith in America" speech is now available.

For me, it was a lot like going to stake conference (a large Mormon meeting), but that's no surprise. His delivery was smooth, as befits someone with a great deal of public speaking experience; his audience was as respectful and "appropriately enthusiastic" as one would find at stake conference (except clapping and cheering doesn't happen at stake conference--not reverent enough). Let the in-depth analysis begin.

[Note: This is largely a repeat of a diary I posted back in June, but given that Mitt's Big Speech is tomorrow, I believe the information herein is both timely and useful.]

Reference to a candidate's religious affiliation has no place in the current  presidential campaign: just as it was wrong to bring up Kennedy's Catholicism, so it is wrong to bring up Mitt's Mormonism, or so goes the prevailing wisdom. But there is at the very least a quantitative difference between the two men's experiences as members of two churches viewed as "other" by the evangelical right in particular. This diary provides information about Mitt's life as a Mormon as a counterweight to the  inevitable, facile comparisons between the impact of Mitt's and JFK's religions on their respective campaigns.

Per the AP story earlier today, thousands of men have gone into the streets of Khartoum this afternoon to demand that the government execute the British teacher whose class of 7-year-olds named their class mascot, a teddy bear, Muhammad.

The teacher, Gillian Gibbons has been sentenced to 15 days in jail, to be followed by deportation, for what most UK Muslims seem to be describing as a huge overreaction to a cultural gaffe.

Y'all can read the story and google for more information and background. I am going to rant and rave below the fold.

Beverly Sills, opera maven, died yesterday at age 78. I loved her voice, her stage presence--and I loved telling people that my mother could have given Beverly a run for her money.

Reference to a candidate's religious affiliation has no place in the current  presidential campaign: just as it was wrong to bring up Kennedy's Catholicism, so it is wrong to bring up Mitt's Mormonism, or so goes the prevailing wisdom. But there is at the very least a quantitative difference between the two men's experiences as members of two churches viewed as "other" by the evangelical right in particular. This diary outlines the reasons that the inevitable, facile comparisons between the impact of Mitt's and JFK's religions on their respective campaigns bear reconsidering.

To understand Mitt Romney, voters need to know something about Mormonism.

Part 1 of 3: Given that the majority of respondants answered "all of the above" to the poll-based questions about Mormonism posted in the introductory installment of "Sunday in the Church with Mitt," I will briefly answer about a third of them in this corollary diary. (Given how easily answers tend to beget more questions, I will go into more detail in other diaries about specific issues as reader interest warrants.)

(Other poll questions to be answered in parts 2 and 3.)

I confess: I was once both a Republican and an active Mormon. In fact, I used to live in Belmont, Massachusetts, and went to church there... and even sat in Sunday School with Mitt Romney.

Although I will touch on how I became a Democrat and a completely disaffected almost ex-Mormon (I'm still listed as a member because it would kill my parents were I to resign), I will be writing about how Mitt's Mormonism affects his campaign and how it likely would affect a (God forbid!) Romney presidency.