Madison Pettis and the Quiet Collapse of the Global Teen-Star Industrial Complex By the time most readers in Jakarta or Johannesburg scroll past her name, Madison Pettis has already completed another lap in the celebrity ouroboros: child star, Disney graduate, Instagram lifestyle guru, Netflix romantic-comedy fixture, crypto-curious brand ambassador. To the average passport-stamping adult, this…
**The Accidental Empress: Brigitte Macron and the Global Theater of Political Spouses** In an era where the personal is perpetually political, Brigitte Macron stands as perhaps the most unlikely figure in the global power pantheon—a former literature teacher who found herself married to France’s youngest president and, by extension, to the relentless scrutiny of an…
The Windy City Isn’t Just Chicago—It’s the Whole Planet, Spinning Faster Toward Regret By Our Correspondent Somewhere Downwind of Consequence When an American says “Windy City,” they usually mean Chicago, that muscular Midwestern metropolis famous for deep-dish pizza, deep-frozen winters, and politicians whose promises evaporate faster than lake-effect snow. But step back—say, to a rooftop…
Tax Season: The World’s Least-Wanted World Cup By Our Globally Jet-Lagged Correspondent Every spring—autumn if you’re unlucky enough to live below the equator—humanity divides itself into two camps: those who file tax returns and those who pretend their Wi-Fi died three weeks ago. From the fjords of Norway to the fluorescent cubicles of Manila’s BPO…
Dodger Score: How a Hollywood Box-Office Metric Became the World’s Favorite Anxiety Index By our correspondent in the cheap seats, watching the planet swing and miss LOS ANGELES—MANILA—LONDON—The phrase “Dodger score” still sounds, to innocent ears, like the nightly tally of how many millions the boys in blue left on base in Chavez Ravine. But…
SAP Center: Silicon Valley’s Coliseum Where Code Meets Chaos By Our Correspondent, who once watched a hockey fight break out during a blockchain keynote—San José, California. From the moment you step off the VTA light-rail and inhale the mingled aromas of churros, burnt clutch, and existential dread, it’s clear the SAP Center isn’t just another…
**Opie Goes Global: How Ron Howard Became the Accidental Ambassador of American Mediocrity** The international community has long grappled with America’s most insidious cultural exports: fast food, reality television, and the persistent belief that louder equals better. Yet perhaps no American has done more to propagate the gospel of competent, utterly unremarkable filmmaking across global…
LORDE: THE TINY NATION THAT PUNCHED ABOVE ITS WEIGHT AND GOT AWAY WITH IT By the time the rest of the planet noticed, the principality of Lorde—population 42,000 if you count the sheep, 38,000 if you don’t—had already rewritten the rules of geopolitical clout. Nestled between two quarrelsome neighbors whose names change depending on which…
**The Accidental Statesman: How Michael Keaton Became the World’s Most Unlikely Cultural Ambassador** In an era when Hollywood exports everything from superhero fatigue to democracy-flavored entertainment, Michael Keaton stands as perhaps the most improbable American cultural export since McDonald’s tried teaching the French about portion control. The man who once played a sentient snowman has…
Project 2025: The World Watches America Draft Its Own Fan-Fic Constitution By Our Correspondent, Still Jet-Lagged from Three Continents and One Existential Crisis PARIS—In the plush backroom of a café off Rue de Rivoli, a German diplomat sips an €8 espresso and mutters, “The Americans are at it again.” He isn’t referring to the usual…
If you tune into CNN’s late-night election marathons, you’ll see Abby Phillip holding court with the unflappable calm of someone who has already mentally drafted three post-mortems for democracy and a grocery list. To much of the planet she is merely the poised Washington anchor who can call a race in Arizona while the rest…
**Abu Dhabi: Where Oil Money Meets Existential Dread** The capital of the United Arab Emirates has always been the quieter, more calculating sibling to Dubai’s flamboyant showmanship—a city that built the world’s largest indoor theme park while its neighbors were still figuring out indoor plumbing. But beneath the marble-clad surface of this desert metropolis lies…
