this was my first wednesday-night informational-talk for the rose scholar program. to be honest, until i arrived, i didn’t even know what the professor’s discussion was going to be covering. tonight was the only evening i had free, so i didn’t look very closely as to the content of the lecture since i had to go no matter what. upon entering i noticed that in the back of the room, the projector displayed a page where students in attendance could text in the names of infamous war criminals, and have them appear on the screen. most were serious answers like osama bin laden, omar al-bashir, and josef mengele, but there were a couple funny ones too, like donald trump and garrick blalock. i really wanted to add grand moff tarkin to the list, although, to be fair, the discussion revolved around international war criminality and g.m.t. is arguably more of an interstellar war criminal. i showed up at seven exactly so by the time i’d apportioned an embarrassingly large number of chocolate chip cookies for myself the only seat left was in the front row. i’m not really a front row kind of person usually, but i didn’t mind today because professor jens david ohlin turned out to be a relaxed, well-spoken, and personable guy. over the course of the hour the conversation shifted fluidly from the international criminal court, to the recent u.s. bombing of a hospital in afghanistan, to the on-going quest to bring al-bashir to justice. i know less of international affairs than i care to admit, so i found the evening to be informative and entertaining. overall, i’d rate professor ohlin’s discussion a 10/10 and would certainly recommend it to a top ten friend.