Mexico: The World’s Favorite Punchline That Keeps Punching Back By Dave’s Foreign-Desk Misanthrope-in-Residence Mexico wakes up every morning to the sound of three alarm clocks: one made in China, one programmed by Wall Street, and one fashioned from the recycled brass of deported dreams. Each ring reminds the country that its sovereignty is a participatory…
Sacramento State vs Nevada: A Microscopic Tilt Beneath the Shadow of a Dying Empire By Our Correspondent in Exile, Somewhere East of Reason From the vantage point of a damp café in Sarajevo—where the espresso tastes like history and the Wi-Fi still drops every time a NATO convoy rumbles past—last night’s Sacramento State Hornets versus…
The Curious Case of Rosie Perez: How One Brooklyn Accent Became a Global Export If you listen closely on any given Tuesday in a Berlin U-Bahn, a Manila jeepney, or a Nairobi matatu, you might catch a familiar staccato bark—half Spanish, half asphalt—delivering the line “You got a problem with my earrings, cabrón?” It’s the…
Cal Poly vs Utah: A Collegiate Gladiator Match Observed by a Warming Planet By Dave’s Locker International Affairs Desk When the Cal Poly Mustangs and the Utah Utes trot onto the same patch of turf this weekend, the clash will be broadcast on a half-dozen satellites and streamed to bunkers, boardrooms, and basement bars from…
Minsk, Belarus – Somewhere between the last Ryanair flight that was politely hijacked and the next Olympic athlete who suddenly discovers an urgent desire to defect, the word “Belarusian” has become a kind of geopolitical punch line. To the west, it’s shorthand for “Europe’s last dictatorship.” To the east, it’s a convenient buffer zone with…
The Curious Case of Fran Brown: How One Gridiron Mercenary Became the World’s Most Reluctant Diplomat By Dave’s Locker International Desk Somewhere between the hash marks and the hashish of international politics, Fran Brown has improbably emerged as the closest thing planet Earth has to a consensus-builder. On paper, he’s the new head coach of…
Wimbledon, that annual fortnight in which the grass grows greener, the strawberries grow more expensive, and the British upper lip achieves Olympic-grade stiffness, has once again unfurled its ivy-draped flag over the international conscience. From Lagos to Lima, screens flicker with images of perfectly manicured lawns—lawns that cost more per square meter than a downtown…
Ohio State Football: America’s Gladiatorial Cult Reaches Out to the World By Our Man in the Cheap Seats, Buenos Aires The first thing to understand is that in most countries, the word “football” conjures images of Lionel Messi gliding past defenders or a rain-soaked Champions League night in Manchester. In Ohio, however, it summons 102,780…
Minsk, Belarus – The only European capital where arriving diplomats still keep their luggage on the seat beside them, just in case the plane has to turn around mid-tarmac. That small, paranoid courtesy tells you everything about how Belarus—population smaller than greater Los Angeles, GDP smaller than Delaware’s rainy-day fund—manages to punch so far above…
Courteney Cox and the Global Architecture of Nostalgia By Santiago V. Alarcón, International Desk It is a truth universally acknowledged—if only because the internet keeps repeating it—that a single actress in possession of a hair-straightener and a Netflix deal must be in want of a reboot. Thus Courteney Cox, the Alabama-born woman once tasked with…
I’m not sure who Sabalenka’s boyfriend is, and searching the global rumor mill has so far produced nothing more reliable than a blurry Instagram story and a couple of tennis-forum prophets who also swore the moon landing was faked in a Belgrade film studio. Yet the absence of confirmed facts has never stopped the international…
Immigration Appeals Court: Where Hope Goes to Get a Number and Wait in Line Forever By the Global Affairs Correspondent who has watched passports change hands more often than a €500 note in a Bulgarian nightclub. Walk into any immigration appeals court on the planet and you’ll find the same décor: fluorescent lighting that flatters…
