Bucket List represents the unbelievable intellectual privilege we enjoy as Columbia students. We do our very best to bring to your attention important guest lecturers and special events on campus. Our recommendations for this week are below and the full list is after the jump.

Recommended

• “Putin’s Russia and the Upcoming Elections” Monday 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm, Garden Room 2, Faculty House, Nikolay Petrov, Maria Lipman, Alena Ledeneva, Konstantin Sonin, Yulia Latynina, and Timothy Frye
• “Concert: Gift of Instruments” Monday 7:00 pm – 9:30 pm, Miller Theatre, Carter Brey, Alan Gilbert, Victor Goines, Marcus Printup, Aaron Diehl, Yasushi Nakamura, Marion Felder, Joyce Yang, and Simone Porter
• “Anarchy is a Choice: International Politics and the Problem of World Government” Tuesday 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm, 1501 IAB, James Fearon
• “CJR’s 50th Anniversary Conversation on Journalism: How the Past Guides the Future” Tuesday 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm, World Room, Journalism, Vivian Schiller, Michael Shapiro, Connie Schultz, Robert Lipsyte, Justin Peters, and James Marcus, RSVP by emailing cathy.harding@columbia.edu
• “Fiction and History Conference: Day 2″ Wednesday 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm, Faculty House, E.L. Doctorow, Mark Carnes, John Demos, Jane Kamensky, and James Neal
• “Discussion with Filmmaker and Installation Artist Isaac Julien” Thursday 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm, Miller Theatre, Isaac Julien, followed by reception, registration
• “How Can Democrats Win Back the House?” Friday 8:00 pm, 417 IAB, Congressman Steve Israel, free tickets

Full List

Biggest news of the week?

The end of Girl Scout cookie season always comes too soon. This is your last week to stock up Samoas. (Village Voice)

It’s also Bird Week! Naturally, elegant photos of our avian affiliates flood the NYC blogosphere. Keep a lookout for our own nearest and dearest. (City Room)

Is PR beating out newsrooms? This is one of ProPublica’s best stories of the week, which they kindly shared with Columbia Journalism Review. (ProPublica, CJR).

Best thing this Grenadian immigrant’s heard all week is that he’s actually been a citizen for ten years. (NYDaily News)

This week in assassinations: how Obama kept the bin Laden operation secret. PrezOb is planning on visiting Ground Zero on Thursday. (Slate, Daily Intel)

Prince Charles is planning on meeting with Obama in Washington today. Any chance the world will be over the Royal Wedding by the end of the week? Unfortunately, probably not. (CNN, The Daily Beast)

The launch of the space shuttle Endeavour has been pushed to next week, at the earliest. (PC)

In Bwog’s opinion, the second best Girl Scout cookie via Wikimedia

This isn’t the first time Columbia and J.J. Jumper’s stars have collided. A Columbia Journalism Review reporter did a bittersweet profile of the homeless frog for Slate almost a year ago. It seems like J.J. takes it more than he dishes it out so maybe we aren’t so mad at him for destroying $6,500 of CTV equipment.