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. Thursday is a university holiday, so there are very few lectures scheduled this week. Our recommendations for are below and the full list is after the jump.

Recommended

• “Did the Arab Spring Start in Kyrgyzstan?” Monday 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm, Italian Academy, Rosa Otunbayeva, President of Kyrgyzstan, registration (World Leaders Forum)
• “CSA Talks: Dr. Ruth” Monday 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm, 401 Lerner, Ruth Westheimer, includes dinner, RSVP on Facebook
• “The Future of Morocco” Tuesday 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm, Stabile Student Center, Journalism, Ahmed Herzenni (Journalism)

Full List

As part of the ongoing efforts to persuade the faculty to end the exam calendar debacle, the student councils have decided that numbers just might be persuasive and have created a PowerPoint presentation to outline just how many ways ending exams on December 23rd makes no sense. Instead, the presentation calls for starting the school year one week earlier in years when Labor Day falls on September 5th or later, including 2011, 2015, 2016, and 2020.

The bullet points, from a survey of 745 undergraduates:

• 51% of students left campus on December 23rd, and 52% of students paid more to travel home last semester, with 20% paying over $500.
• 78% of students said the late end to the semester interrupted family plans.
• 33% of students had to travel to the west coast or internationally for Winter Break.
• In slightly less serious findings, about 60% of students reported feeling unprepared for 1 or 2 finals, and 90% said they would have used a third study day to, well, study more. Only 58% said they would’ve slept more, which, frankly, seems biologically difficult at best.

Stay tuned for a full round up of last night’s CCSC developments later today.

- JCD

If this new-fangled Twitter thing is to be believed, there’s some big things a-poppin’ in Iran, and the world media has been calling up Columbia professors for their reactions. The man with the most screen time this time around has probably been Professor Gary Sick (at right), which is not surprising given that he was the “the principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis.” That’s the kind of bullet point that gets attention, and Sick has been quoted all over the media, including the BBC, The Daily Beast, the Washington Post, and Politico. Plus, somewhat fittingly, you can follow him on his Tumblr account.

Other professors are getting in on the act as well, including Hamid Dabashi, Phillip Bobbit, and Richard Bulliet. The most creative commentary, though, has come from Ph.D. candidates Alexandra Scacco and Bernd Beber, who argued in Saturday’s Post that the election results were likely rigged because the numbers did not look random enough. Trust us, it makes sense.

In non-Iran news, one group of Columbia professors have discovered two brain systems used to accurately predict others’ emotions, and another group has found that the subway is 15 decibels quieter than it was three years ago. Also, Meghan McCain appears to have dedicated her post-election career to one proposition only: embarassing herself as much as possible. 

The results are in: Sue Yang is your new CCSC president, and Cliff Massey and Aki Terasaki have won their respective class council races.

Massey defeated incumbent president AJ Pascua with 64% of the vote, while running mate Eve Phan won the vice-presidency over current 2010 rep Valerie Sapozhnikova. It was not a clean sweep for the Clear Party, though, as Party Party rep candidate Maximo Cubillette will join Clear Party candidates Asher Grodman and Lena Fan as senior class representatives. Current BSO president Ruqayyah Abdul-Karine was the only Clear Party candidate not to win, though she too would have won if the Council had not implemented instant runoff-voting this year.

At the 2012 level, it was a clean sweep for Access Columbia, led by presidential Aki Terasaki and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Chai. They will be joined next year by Kenny Durrell, Brandon Christophe, and Jasmine Senior.

The rest of the candidates ran unopposed, including Yang’s Action Potential Party (Sarah Weiss, Deysy Ordonez, Sana Khalid and Nuriel Moghavem) and incumbent 2011 president Learned Foote’s ticket. The rest of the results, and more helpful graphics, after the jump.

- JCD & JYH Read more…

Because there’s nothing Bwog likes more than teasing its viewers, we bring you another taste of the upcoming Orientation issue of The Blue and White — it hits your doorstep or dorm lobby tomorrow!

Helfand’s Index

By David J. Helfand 

The June Harper’s Index, that essential compendium of facts masquerading as social commentary, cited the “ratio of negative portrayals of teachers on U.S. children’s television programs to positive portrayals” as 3:1.  I will refrain from speculating on the ratio with which you will portray your professors after four years at Columbia. I also won’t reveal how your professors will rate you. But I was asked by the editors to provide a “Helfand’s Index” of highly pertinent facts to get you started in Frontiers of Science. All them pass Stephen Colbert’s truthiness test. 

Percentage of the greenhouse gas emissions for the entire country of New Zealand that are produce by the burps and farts of cows and sheep: 40% 

End-to-end length of all the DNA in all the viruses on Earth: 275 million light years (one light year is 6 trillion miles). 

End-to-end length of all human DNA: 18 million km (or 0.000002 light years)—so who’s in charge here? 

Read more…