Somewhere between the fifth Parisian café burning its third espresso of the morning and a Delhi call-center rep forwarding “10 Ways to Love Yourself Before 9 a.m.” to 3.2 million inboxes, HuffPost quietly completed its metamorphosis from American upstart to planetary mood ring. Conceived in a SoHo loft in 2005 as a liberal vanity project…
The New York Times: A Very American Empire That Still Pretends to Be Shocked By Our Correspondent in a Café Where the Wi-Fi Costs Extra Somewhere between the croissant crumbs and the existential dread that passes for breakfast in most of the world, the international press corps has learned to treat The New York Times…
A Pocket-Sized Empire: How the Smartphone Conquered the Planet and Everyone’s Attention Span Somewhere between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of avocado toast, humanity quietly decided to hand its collective consciousness to a 6-inch slab of Gorilla Glass. The smartphone—once a charming novelty for Finnish executives and Californian geeks—now outnumbers toothbrushes…
From the vantage point of a rickety café terrace in Sarajevo—where bullet-pocked walls still tell 1990s bedtime stories—watching Tomi Lahren’s latest TikTok rant pop up on a cracked iPhone feels like cultural whiplash served with extra foam. One moment, locals debate EU grain tariffs; the next, a blonde commentator in Dallas is yelling that the…
Tim Walz and the Global Giggle Fit By Our Man in the Departures Lounge, somewhere over the Atlantic If you mention “Tim Walz” in a Brussels café, the waiter will nod politely while mentally calculating the tip. Say it in a Nairobi newsroom and an editor will ask whether that’s the new strain of avian…
The Global Art of Sudden Career Termination: A Brief History of Political Assassination In the grand theater of international relations, few acts are as final—or as theatrically effective—as the well-timed assassination. From ancient Rome’s floor plans (note the convenient lack of metal detectors in the Senate) to modern Moscow’s creative use of radioactive tea, the…
When the world wants to feel civilised, it opens a tab on The New York Times. From Lagos to Lima, the faint glow of its blue masthead is the modern equivalent of a Victorian parlour lamp: reassuring, slightly smug, and reassuringly smug. The ritual is global—tap, skim, nod knowingly at a headline about deforestation, then…
CBS News: America’s Square-Jawed Butler Still Polishing the Silver While the Mansion Burns By our man in the departure lounge, passport stamps blurred by espresso and regret From Singapore’s gleaming Changi to Addis Ababa’s bumpy midnight tarmac, screens flicker with the same familiar three letters: C-B-S. The font hasn’t changed since Cronkite warned your grandparents…
Arthur T. Demoulas and the Market Basket Uprising: How a New England Grocery Chain Accidentally Became a Global Case Study in Shareholder Rebellion By the time Arthur T. Demoulas was reinstated as CEO of Market Basket last August, the parking lots of 71 supermarkets from Lowell to Portsmouth looked less like suburban America and more…
When Charlie Kirk’s toddler recently appeared on stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington—wearing a bespoke blazer, pre-knotted tie, and the facial expression of a hostage negotiator—international audiences collectively inhaled the way one does when a priceless vase teeters on a mantelpiece. From Lagos to Lisbon, the image ricocheted across timelines, accompanied by…
MSNBC: America’s Cable Therapy Session, Exported An international correspondent’s notebook on the channel that turned partisan outrage into a 24-hour spectator sport—and accidentally became a soft-power export. The first time I watched MSNBC in a hotel bar in Nairobi, the closed-captioning was in Swahili and the chyron screamed “BREAKING: DEMOCRACY IN PERIL.” The patrons, mostly…
Slovenia, a country whose greatest historical export until recently was existential dread packaged as ski-jumping medals, has given the planet Luka Dončić: a 6’7″ reminder that the global economy now runs on highlight reels and schadenfreude. While the United Nations still pretends to solve crises with communiqués nobody reads, Dončić quietly exports Slovenian soft power…
