Yesterday the YDN endorsed Barack Obama for president. No surprise there, as college newspapers have gone 69-1 for Obama. But the excitement for me was in the articulation of the endorsement; since I was heavily involved in the drafting of the piece, I got to combine what I’ve felt for months with the thoughts of the rest of the board to put forward the views of the paper. And having the institutional weight behind my opinions is thrilling. I can’t say this is my endorsement, since it was very much a collaborative effort. But most of the words in the final piece are mine, so I am proud to share it as representative of (some of) my views on this election in its final days. Read it here.

And now, at the end of two years, Election Day has arrived. Now we wait, and hope. For just a few hours more.

I’ve finished uploading my best photos from Peru to my Flickr page. The newest additions are in the “Structures” album, where I uploaded many of the architectural photos I took for the fellowship I received. (This is what I was supposed to be shooting all summer.) Please take a look; I’m very proud of them. As I’ve gone back through the photos again recently for several contests, I’ve remembered all that I did and saw this summer, and how much better I became as a photographer. I’m no pro yet, but I’m miles from where I began. It feels good, even–especially–as the photos slip into memory.

Here are the photos from Peru. And, as a bonus, here again are my pictures from India, another batch I’m proud of.

I just finished my first week as the new opinion editor for the Yale Daily News. I hadn’t thought about joining the paper’s board until a month ago, when I was asked to do so. I agreed to think about it, and somehow I got myself elected. Now I’m a full editor in charge of my own section. Crazier things have happened to me, but I’m still trying to figure this one out. For the next year, I’ll have another home on the internet, this one for my professional self. Check out the work I’ll be selecting and editing through October 2009, at yaledailynews.com/opinion.

Sarah Palin.

There’s been a lot of bad stuff going on recently, with the economy tanking, the threat of a McCain presidency still real, and the Mets discovering new ways to blow a spot in the playoffs. But I’ve done a good job ignoring all that, and I’ve been exceedingly happy this week. As painful as it gets on a macro level, life as it’s lived between individual people can never be all bad. Take it away, Jimmy:

I meant to write a post here today reflecting on what September 11 means to me now that it is an anniversary of an event slipping farther into the past. As I started to write, however, I realized I wanted to do more than just reflect on my own experience, and I wanted to reach a wider audience. So my reflection became an op-ed, which I was proud to have published in today’s Yale Daily News. It’s my first op-ed, and you can read it here. I would be honored if you would.

Update 9/12/08: I wasn’t at Ground Zero, or even in New York, but I felt as this photographer did. This year was different.

I’m a little late in posting this, but last week I wrote a new sports column, which will probably be my last. It came out of an idea I thought would turn into a blog post during the Olympics, but I ultimately directed it toward the column. Read it here.

If these comments are hyperbole, they’re in very poor taste. If they’re not, this could be a very sad week. Here’s Ray Nagin, Mayor of New Orleans, whose memory of three years ago is surely still very clear:

“You need to be scared,” Nagin said of the Category 4 hurricane tearing along Cuba’s western coast. “You need to be concerned, and you need to get your butts moving out of New Orleans right now. This is the storm of the century.”

…

“This storm is so powerful and growing more powerful every day,” Nagin said. “I’m not sure we’ve seen anything like this.”

CNN: Mandatory evacuations to begin Sunday morning in New Orleans

I’m going back in two days. I don’t always like New Haven, but it’s beautiful in the fall, and it’s got some other pretty awesome stuff, too.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — Nine-year-old Jericho Scott is a good baseball player — too good, it turns out.

The right-hander has a fastball that tops out at about 40 mph. He throws so hard that the Youth Baseball League of New Haven told his coach that the boy could not pitch any more. When Jericho took the mound anyway last week, the opposing team forfeited the game, packed its gear and left, his coach said.

[HT: Mom.]

1. Is “getting it on” really in the Times’s stylebook?

2. Those of us near the top of the medal count don’t think about how awesome it is when just one person from a country wins something. Man, they go crazy. (I hope we would, too.)

3. Shouldn’t every competition have different ways to measure success for the different fan bases? That way, everyone wins. It might sound problematic at first, but think about it–everyone actually comes away thinking they’ve won.