Singapore: The Tiny City-State That Outsmarted the Planet – and Still Worries About Parking Tickets By Our Correspondent with a Sunburn and a Sense of Irony SINGAPORE—Somewhere between the 14th time you’re reminded not to chew gum and the 15th “No Durians” sign on the MRT, it hits you: this whole country is a deliberate…
Gallup, New Mexico isn’t where you expect to find the pulse of the planet, yet the very name has become shorthand for “what humanity is thinking, give or take three percent.” From its windswept high-desert perch, the Gallup Organization dispatches pollsters like caffeinated missionaries to 160-odd countries, armed with questionnaires and the touching belief that…
Aldi Shopper Avoids Dishwasher Tablets There but Buys Them at Sainsbury’s Instead: The Geopolitics of Suds and Self-Deception By the time you read this, somewhere in the post-industrial sprawl of northern England, a man named Gary—forty-something, fleece-clad, haunted by the memory of interest rates he once understood—has once again completed the weekly sacrament: Aldi for…
Jerusalem—population 900,000, contested percentage roughly 100—has once again reminded the world that some cities refuse to behave like mere dots on a map. While the rest of us argue over parking tickets, this limestone labyrinth is busy hosting a millennia-old multiplayer grudge match with no respawn button. From an international standpoint, Jerusalem is the diplomatic…
The Global Classroom: Four Walls, Infinite Debt, and the Quiet Collapse of Enlightenment By Santiago “Santi” Valdez, roving correspondent, recently expelled from three continents’ worth of PTA meetings PARIS—Somewhere between the chalk dust and the tear gas, the classroom still pretends it’s the last neutral zone on Earth. From Lagos to Luleå, the ritual is…
Global Team-Building: The World’s Favorite Ritual of Organized Chaos By our roving correspondent, still jet-lagged in three time zones If you watch the news long enough, you’ll notice the planet is basically one colossal group project nobody asked to join. From the UN Security Council’s monthly passive-aggressive potluck to your office’s “synergy circle,” teams are…
Versace, or: How a Dead Italian Playboy Became the Patron Saint of Post-Soviet Oligarchs By A Correspondent Who Once Bought a Knock-Off Belt in Istanbul and Still Has Nightmares The House of Versace began, as all great luxury brands do, with a family melodrama: a gifted tailor from Calabria, a fatal dose of ambition, and…
The Global Gospel of the Scratch-and-Pray: Why the World Gambles on Six Magic Numbers By “Lucky” László Kovács, International Desk Somewhere between the refugee camp outside Cox’s Bazar and the air-conditioned lottery kiosks of Madrid’s Barajas Airport, the same slip of paper is doing the rounds: a lottery ticket, flimsy as a cease-fire promise and…
**The Jaysley Beck Phenomenon: How One Woman’s Tragedy Became the World’s Mirror** The name Jaysley Beck likely means nothing to the average Bangladeshi garment worker or Brazilian street vendor, and why should it? Another promising British military recruit found dead at 19, another coroner’s ruling of suicide, another family’s grief splashed across tabloids—it’s hardly the…
Tokyo, 2024 – In the Land of the Rising Sun, the sun is politely asked to clock in a few extra hours because the national pension calculator is wheezing like a 40-year-old fax machine. Japan, once the planet’s poster child for bullet-train modernity, now finds itself the global canary in the demographic coal mine: a…
**The Panopticon Goes Prime-Time: How CBS’s ‘Big Brother’ Became the World’s Accidental Reality Check** While the planet burns through its twenty-first-century adolescence, 16 Americans have volunteered to spend their summer locked in a soundstage bungalow, performing sincerity for cameras that never blink. CBS’s “Big Brother”—now limping into its 26th U.S. season—has become the West’s most…
**The Eternal Prince: How Harry Became the World’s Most Expensive Expat** In the grand theater of modern monarchy—where tiaras meet trauma and bloodlines meet brand lines—Prince Harry has accomplished what no revolutionary, republican, or rational human has managed in centuries: he’s made the British royal family look almost relatable. Almost. From his current perch in…
