Twitter Fight Club 2013

I do honestly like an intelligent Twitter snark battle. However, the best snark battles I have ever seen involve the Twitter Fight Club hosted by the great people of Gunpowder & Lead.

Now, if you follow Gunpowder & Lead, then you probably are either a geek of International Relations and National Security like me or one of your besties – can I write that about IR tweeps, do they have besties? – happen to write over there. Either way, you know it is as the place where serious people discuss serious things about national security and foreign policy.

But even these serious people like Professors Laura Seay (@texasinafrica), Steve Saideman (@smsaideman), Anne-Marie Slaughter (@SlaughterAM) and others are smarter than smart and they engage the world not just the small little “a” academy. The fact is they are serious people who know how to have fun. And, to find out that they have lives away from academia is really nice to know, although Dr. Slaughter let everybody know that already in her renowned piece for the Atlantic, “Why Women Can’t Have It All.” Otherwise, those of us mere mortals would envision the conversations being something like this:

Brain 1: “Brain 2, I’ve been re-reading Plato in the original Greek and wouldst thou believe, he used the vernacular form ‘που’ when ‘ποιόν’ was correct?”
Brain 2: “Plato clearly failed to properly utilize his graduate students, particularly that prodigy, Aristotle, for their editorial skills.”
Brain 1: “Perhaps, he flagrantly did so in order to test his students, and upon their failure to readily catch this obvious error, he obviously gave them a β συν.”
Brain 2: “Indubitably!”

Yet, they make fun of each with snark, discuss preferred adult beverages, and share insider IR jokes. By the way, where are all the Friedman, “While I was in a cab in Cairo” bits? Too tired?

So while deployed to Kandahar, Afghanistan, Twitter Fight Club is my relaxation. Let the snark continue!