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. As always, please leave any formatting suggestions in the comments!

Recommended

• “The Labor of Cute: Net Idols, Cute Culture, and the Social Factory in Contemporary Japan” Monday 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm, 918 IAB, Gabriella Lukács
• “Café Columbia: Writing about Abraham Lincoln” Monday 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm, PicNic Cafe (Broadway between 101st and 102nd Street), Eric Foner, $10 cover (includes one drink)
• “Cooking Demonstration and Lecture by ‘Iron Chef’ Morimoto” Tuesday 6:00 pm, Casa Italiana, Masaharu Morimoto and Jordan Sand
• “Pulitzer Panel” Tuesday 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm, 3rd Floor Lecture Hall, Journalism, Jeff Gottleib, Ruben Vives, Amy Ellis Nutt, Paige St. John, and Walt Bogdanich
• “I Walked with Giants: The Autobiography of Jimmy Heath” Tuesday 8:00 pm – 10:00 pm, 622 Dodge, Jimmy Heath
• “Secularising Islamists? Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamaat-ud-Dawa in Pakistan” Wednesday 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm, 1510 IAB, Humeira Iqtidar, Sudipta Kaviraj, and Karen Barkey
• “Ciphers and the end of Maya Number Writing” Thursday 7:00 pm – 10:00 pm, 930 Schermerhorn, Anna Blume
• “Muslim American Citizenship: A Decade Since 9/11″ Friday 10:00 am – 7:00 pm, 1501 IAB, Hishaam Aidi, Arshad Ali, Sahar Aziz, Kathleen Foley, Zareena Grewal, Sally Howell, Amaney Jamal, Ousmane Kane, Arun Kudunani, Charles Kurzman, Suhail Khan, Irfan Nooruddin, Farid Senzai, Alfred Stepan, and Mohammed Younis, registration
• “Film Screening and Stargazing: The City Dark” Friday 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm, Pupin 301

Full List

Last night in the Roone Auditorium, the Muslim Students Association held their annual Fast-A-Thon. This year benefited Pakistani flood relief. The attendees had mostly been fasting since sunrise, so people came hungry. The program began with a call to prayer, and then those inclined were invited to pray. Following that, food was distributed and the program began, in which speakers brought home the staggering disaster that has taken place in Pakistan.

Students had been invited to fast from sunup to sundown, without food or water. Though the event was not during Ramadan, fasting is still encouraged for six days in this Islamic month in order to emulate the Prophet Muhammad’s fast. Ava Asiaii, BC ’14 explained, “Fasting makes you able to appreciate the freedom to eat whenever you want.” In order to express solidarity with the Pakistani people, the much awaited menu featured Pakistani cuisine, including chicken tikka, biryani, okra and naan bread. For dessert, gulab jamun was served. The food was a fantastic break from John Jay.

Notably, the ambassador of Pakistan to the United Nations, Abdullah Hussain Haroon, spoke. He delineated the extremity of the tragedy—twenty-one million displaced, one million domesticated animals killed, and more than three thousand dead, with all those numbers still rising. At the peak of the flood, the waters of the Indus were fifty to one hundred miles across, destroying the most fertile and populated parts of Pakistan. Says Haroon, “The Indus is a life source. It gives life to millions of people. At times, its damages and hurts those who it sustains with its plentiful waters.”

But the worst is not over. The cotton crop, which was soon to be harvested and composes 70% of the country’s economy, was wiped out. Rice plantations and staple foods are gone Land delineation is unclear, and the ground is too soaked to plant crops. The torrential force of the flood destroyed communications infrastructure, bridges and homes. Haroon commended the world for pledging money to help but, as of yesterday, they have only received $18 million. The UN estimates that it itself can sustain ten percent of the refugees, only 2.1 million out of 21 million people, at maximum efficiency. It is not operating at maximum efficiency. The tragedy is worse than Katrina, the 2004 tsunami and the 2005 Pakistani earthquake combined, in terms of numbers of displaced persons. Haroon concluded with a call for much needed aid to Pakistan

Read more…

Looking to get his fill of international conflict, Kashmir Bureau Chief Mark Hay grabbed a chair in the Satow Room last night for “Pakistan-India: What’s Next?”

November 26 will mark a somber anniversary – one year since the coordinated terrorist attacks of the Pakistani group Lashkar-e-Taiba ripped through the Indian city of Mumbai, paralyzing both nations for several days. And just like that, after several years of improved relations – cooperation on anti-terror issues, relaxations on border controls – the India-Pakistan debacle was back in the news. Since the relative silence after the Kargil War of 1999, observers had all hoped that what some had called the most dangerous conflict on earth would just fizzle out and die.

Fat chance, as it turns out. So it was in memory, in fear, and in a tenacious spirit of hope that the Organization of Pakistani Students and the massive pan-South Asian club Zamana convened a panel of experts last night to discuss the vital question of “Pakistan-India: What’s Next?” Read more…

Spring is in the air and lovers are marrying on the steps today.  Or, at least, pretending to.  Hangama, the annual Pakistani mock wedding, will be on the steps today from 3:00 to 5:00 PM.  They’re already setting up, although no one has yet spotted the majestic white horse that will ride through the gates.

The Chicken and Rice cart (officially “The Halal Guys”), however, is almost done setting up.  The famed questionable combination will be on the steps this evening.  It’s not free, but one tipster associated with the event says the food will be available at a “reduced price.”

And while you’re gorging yourselves, enjoy performances by Bhangra, Taal, Dhoom, and Raas.  It’ll be a good show, so enjoy the mild weather and last bit of freedom before the dash to finals.

Photo by AB

Image via Yahoo News Canada

John Solecki, the CC and SIPA graduate who was kidnapped in Pakistan two months ago, has been released, according to CBS News.

Prior to his capture, Solecki worked as the head of the UN refugee office in Quetta, Pakistan; on the 2nd of February, 2009, members of the Baluchistan Liberation United Front (BLUF) kidnapped Solecki and killed his Pakistani driver.  In exchange for his release, they demanded that the Pakistani government liberate over 1,000 pro-Baluchistan activists.

The circumstances under which the BLUF freed Solecki are still unclear, but CBS has a quote from an anonymous Western diplomat who says that the “‘release could not have been made possible without some trade-off. I am certain Solecki is a free man but in the process the Pakistanis must have released some people sought by nationalists from Baluchistan.’”

Bwog has noticed that over the next week or so there will be a smorgasbord of learning opportunities for those who are not going home to spend their magnificent four days of fall break.  Whether you are interested in theater, bioethics or academic freedom, there’s something going on that’s right up your alley.

Human Genetic Complexity: What We Know–Legal, Historical, and Evolutionary Perspectives

October 29th at 8 pm

417 IAB

This talk features philosophy professor Phillip Kitcher, biology professor Robert Pollack and NYU law professor and Nation columnist Patricia Williams (who is no stranger to this campus).  While the discussion  supposedly will center around themes from the Core, expect philosophy more contemporary than CC and science more general than Frontiers.

Read more…

As of 6 p.m., the annual Pakistani mock wedding, Hangama (which translates roughly to “hoopla”),  is still going strong on the steps. The “dance floor,” also known as College Walk, is abuzz with Bollywood quick-stepping and colorful saris, and has been since about 4:30, when the groom rolled up in style on a white horse.

The bride, meanwhile, appeared on Low Steps aboard an elaborate palanquin. Once the couple was settled on the matrimonial seat, members of the wedding party showered them in flower petals, adorned them with robes made of money, and stuffed their faces with laddhus and other sweets.

A couple hundred people then clapped and sang along in Hindi and Punjabi for the next two hours as dance groups entertained the mock couple. First, some erstwhile Rais and Khans did a dance number to “Yeh Larki Hai Allah,” then CUBhangra and Raas busted out their competition
moves, the bellydancing troupe entranced all assembled with their gyrations, and the Bollywood dance team Dhoom (Bwog was most surprised to hear it existed!) performed some cute numbers. Finally, drawing cheers and some jeers, two NYU boys and the groom did a choreographed medley of hits from the silver Hindi screen, beginning with a hilarious “Mast Kalandar.” Meanwhile, patrons clamored for dishes from the Chicken and Rice stand, which doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere anytime soon. 

Bwog apologizes for the crappy cellphone pictures.

Recent days have shown that Pakistan finds itself at a very crucial turning point.  The assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and increased dissatisfaction with the performance of President Pervez Musharraf, have upset stability in what was already a volatile region. And Monday’s parliamentary elections, in which Bhutto’s opposition party took the majority of seats in the parliamentary throws further uncertainty into the mix.

A number of key decisions, with both internal and external consequences, need to be made in a quick and decisive fashion in order to ensure Paktistani stability and, in turn, the stability of South Asia at large. A key player not to be overlooked in all of the recent changes in Pakistani politics is Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Munir Akram, a thirty-eight year old stalwart of diplomacy, who at such an uncertain time in Pakistani politics happened to grace Columbia’s Lerner Cinema last night to sort out for students and professors alike his view of the future of Pakistan. Read more…