Yes, already — I do! Connecticut’s first gay marriages will be officiated at 10 a.m. today in front of City Hall. Campus political groups are planning to meet at Phelps Gate at 9:45 for a morning of balloons, bubbles and tears. “It’s a win-win situation for everyone,” said Ferny Reyes ’10, who is buying balloons for the occasion.

Johns Hopkins University has named an Eli, Ronald Daniels LAW ’88, to be its next president. “It was really one of the great moments of my life when the call came,” the current University of Pennsylvania provost told reporters yesterday. A Yale graduate in charge of a major science-research institution? Don’t rule out a move north — to Woodbridge Hall — someday.

Yes, we can is more than just “a timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people.” It is also the name of Scout Tufankjian’s ’00 new book — a culmination of photographs collected over two years of following a certain junior senator from Illinois. “They are not your run of the mill posed shots, but artistic, moving, fascinating visual insights into the interaction of candidate and citizens as the amazing Obama campaign unfolded from a faint glimmer into a landslide victory,” wrote one reviewer.

Speaking of the Cult of Obama, in the just-released Yale Free Press — pictured with a heavenly Barack on its cover — Editor Matthew Shaffer ’10 offers a harsh indictment of the college-age generation. Noting that every 20th century totalitarian “captivated and enraptured” the youth, he predicts, “In 30 years, we will look back on our generation when we were young, and many of us will realize we made the wrong choice in this election.”

Nicholas Brady would be proud. James Kwak LAW ’11 and two collaborators laid out an economic grand strategy for President-elect Barack Obama on a Wall Street Journal blog yesterday, urging him to take advantage of competition and foster immigration. “It all lies within Mr. Obama’s grasp,” they wrote.

TheSpoof.com published an (attempted) parody of this week’s storyline that Peru says it will sue Yale for the return of precious artifacts. Drawing on the University’s shared name with a lock company, the site reported an official saying, “If we return the treasure trove to the Andes it will probably just turn to dust. In [the] Yale lock box, it at least has a chance of lasting a long, long time.” Fifth Indiana Jones, anyone?

THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY

1913 A sudden collegewide “burst of enthusiasm” in advance of The Game resulted in the formation of a clamorous late-night parade led by the Second Regiment Band that reportedly saw every Yale student march from Elm to York to Grove to College to Welch Hall, the residence of an unamused Henry Ketcham, captain of the football team. “I haven’t much to say,” he boomed. “On Saturday, Yale is going in to fight. That’s all.”

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