The Jonas Brothers, International Objects of Desire: How Three Ex-Disney Hostages Became the Planet’s Guilty Pleasure By Astrid Van Der Loon, Senior Correspondent, Everywhere That Still Has Spotify GENEVA—Somewhere between the UN’s emergency climate summit and a hastily convened OPEC meeting on dwindling oil futures, a different sort of global crisis quietly crested: the Jonas…
Crypto: The Global Casino Where Everyone’s a High Roller Until They’re Not By Our Man in the Wreckage, filed from somewhere with spotty Wi-Fi and excellent whiskey In the beginning, there was the blockchain, and the blockchain was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of fiat. Then someone said, “Let there…
KANSAS CITY—If you squint hard enough, the Kansas City Chiefs’ 2024 roster starts to look less like an NFL depth chart and more like a geopolitical risk assessment. There’s the $210 million quarterback who moonlights as a Pfizer ad, the Italian-born kicker whose very existence angers every Brexit voter, and a defensive line that could…
**The Global Offside: How Jawaan Taylor Became Football’s Reluctant Diplomat** In the grand theater of American football—where grown men in spandex ritualistically collide for the entertainment of millions—few stories capture the absurd ballet of globalization quite like that of Jawaan Taylor. The Kansas City Chiefs’ offensive tackle has unwittingly become an international symbol of something…
Kayvon Thibodeaux, the New York Giants’ resident sack-artist and occasional philosopher, is what happens when the American Dream is cross-pollinated with global supply-chain logistics. Born in South Los Angeles, polished in Oregon, and monetized in Manhattan, he is less a linebacker than an export commodity—one that Europe quietly pretends not to need, China reverse-engineers for…
The Glorious Commodification of a Tight End, or How Travis Kelce Became a Walking Sovereign Wealth Fund PARIS — While French pensioners protest the rise in retirement age to 64, an American man whose primary job is to catch an inflated leather ovum has quietly amassed a net worth north of US $70 million—enough, if…
Bill Murray: The Last Living Cultural Geneva Convention In a world where nations weaponize everything from microchips to memes, one man has achieved what the UN Security Council only dreams of: universal diplomatic immunity through sheer existential charm. Bill Murray—actor, urban legend, and walking proof that late capitalism can be outfoxed by a well-timed “no…
KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI – Somewhere between the Missouri River’s lazy meander and the distant hum of NATO air-traffic control, the Kansas City Chiefs politely disembowelled the New York Giants 27-17 on Sunday. To a planet juggling heat domes, sovereign-debt brinkmanship, and the slow-motion collapse of social media civility, the box score looked almost quaint: Patrick…
From the banks of the Euphrates to the neon canyons of Tokyo, the name Jaxson Dart is now muttered with the same hushed reverence once reserved for popes, pop stars, and that guy who figured out how to deep-fry Coca-Cola. Yes, the Ole Miss quarterback—product of Utah prep fields, USC transfer portal purgatory, and a…
Patrick Mahomes, the Kansas City quarterback whose right arm has been called a WMD by Texans who should know, is currently the most effective American export that doesn’t require a congressional waiver. While European governments argue over the price of eggs and Asian supply chains politely implode, Mahomes keeps flinging oblong leather into orbit and…
NBC Sports, the Peacock’s brash younger cousin who insists on showing up to every global shindig wearing a tailored blazer and a foam finger, has spent the last three decades perfecting the art of selling Americans the rest of the planet’s favorite pastimes—then apologizing afterward for the commercials. From the Tokyo Olympics’ cardboard beds to…
Swayze Bozeman, a 27-year-old digital nomad from Missoula, Montana, has become the first human to be de-platformed by a refrigerator. Last Tuesday, somewhere between the durian stall at Bangkok’s Or Tor Kor market and the 7-Eleven that sells better sushi than most of Tokyo, his smart fridge back home—an Internet-of-Things behemoth named “Fridgely” by its…
