The World’s Most Democratic Tax on Hope By Our Correspondent, Somewhere Between the 7-Eleven and the Edge of Reason It was 8:03 p.m. in Madrid when Carlos, a civil servant who hasn’t seen a raise since fax machines were chic, forked over his last two euros for “El Gordo” Christmas tickets. Twelve time zones away,…
Rosie O’Donnell, the Human Rorschach Test No One Asked For By our correspondent in the cheap seats of the global amphitheater PARIS—Somewhere between the Seine and the Hudson, the name “Rosie O’Donnell” has become a kind of international litmus paper, turning one color for Americans who still think Twitter is a town square, another for…
South America: A Continent That Forgot to Read the Global Memo Dave’s Locker International Desk – Friday, 07:14 UTC RIO DE JANEIRO—While the rest of the planet was busy optimizing supply chains, South America appears to have been stuck in the longest cigarette break in recorded history. Somewhere between the Andes and the Atlantic, an…
Jessica Sanchez, the Filipino-Mexican-American vocal firecracker who once turned American Idol’s stage into an emergency-room triage for eardrums, has resurfaced—this time not as a contestant, but as a geopolitical Rorschach test. From Manila’s karaoke bars to Mexico City’s plaza loudspeakers to the algorithmic void of global streaming, Sanchez is less a singer now and more…
Craig Mazin and the Global Glow-Up of Nuclear Anxiety By Dave’s Locker, International Desk It takes a peculiar talent to make the world voluntarily re-ignite its nightmares about glowing rain and two-headed livestock, yet Craig Mazin has managed it twice—first with a fungus that turns gamers into clickers, and then, more alarmingly, with a reactor…
Sinner: The World’s Favorite Scapegoat, Now Available in Multiple Languages By Dave’s International Affairs Correspondent Who Has Personally Sinned on Three Continents Before Breakfast PARIS—If you believe the marketing, the term “sinner” has never been more cosmopolitan. Once the exclusive property of medieval flagellants and small-town preachers armed with megaphones and cholesterol, the label is…
Silksong: The Phantom Game That Has the Whole World Waiting—And Why That Says Everything About Us Dave’s Locker | International Desk | 06.11.2024 Somewhere between the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge and the next scheduled heat-death of Twitter, humanity has found a new shared obsession: a 2-D bug princess who may or may…
Osaka – Population: 19 million, Sarcasm: Infinite By Dave’s Locker Foreign Desk (still jet-lagged since 2019) If Tokyo is the world’s impeccably ironed suit, Osaka is the same suit after it’s slept in a capsule hotel, eaten three sticks of kushikatsu, and decided to pick a fight with the global order. Long dismissed abroad as…
CenterPoint Energy: Houston, We Have a Grid Problem (and It’s Contagious) By the time the lights flickered out in Texas last February, the rest of the planet had already stopped pretending to be surprised. After all, we’ve spent the last decade watching power grids from South Africa to Siberia audition for the same tragicomedy: one…
Argentina: The World’s Most Consistently Unpredictable Soap Opera By: A Correspondent Who Learned Long Ago Never to Bet Against a Country That’s Already Bankrupt Twice Before Lunch Buenos Aires cafés still smell of burnt sugar and desperation, which is convenient because the IMF is currently asking for both back—preferably in dollars. While the rest of…
The Bridge of Spies: A Cold War Waltz That Never Quite Ended By Dave’s Locker International Desk Berlin—There’s something irresistibly comic about the fact that the most famous prisoner exchange in modern history happened on a bridge named after a dead communist, supervised by men who would all eventually be played by Oscar winners. Welcome…
Musetti: A Global Love Affair With a Twelve-Cent Doughnut Hole By Dave’s Locker Foreign Desk PARIS—Somewhere between the Seine and the last functioning traffic light in Naples, the planet has quietly agreed that the pinnacle of human ingenuity is a sugar-dusted sphere of fried dough the size of a golf ball. Italians call it musetti;…
