From the Beltway to the Beijing Belt-and-Road—Trent Williams as Global Rorschach Test —————————————————————– PARIS — Somewhere between the 50-yard line and the International Date Line, Trent Williams ceased being merely the NFL’s most overqualified bodyguard and became a geopolitical inkblot: what you see in the San Francisco left tackle says more about your hemisphere than…
The Curious Case of Ben Johnson: How a Sprinter Still Outruns the World’s Moral High Ground By Correspondent-at-Large, Dave’s Locker Foreign Desk There are moments in global history that feel like cosmic punch-lines, and the fall of Ben Johnson is one of the few that keeps giving—like a re-gifted fruitcake laced with stanozolol. Thirty-six years…
Brandon Aiyuk and the Geopolitics of a Jersey Tantrum By Our Man in the Cheap Seats, Dave’s Locker Foreign Desk PARIS—Somewhere between the Seine and a bistro that still pretends cigarettes are a food group, the name Brandon Aiyuk is being whispered like a dirty secret. To the French, who treat labor strikes as a…
The Eternal Burn of América vs. Deportivo Cali: A Global Parable Played in Yellow and Red Cali, Colombia – Somewhere between the salsa bars and the bulletproof-vest boutiques, two football clubs are re-enacting the Cold War in miniature, only with more choreography and fewer plausible denials. América de Cali and Deportivo Cali—nicknamed Los Diablos Rojos…
The Laver Cup lands each September like a first-class diplomatic junket masquerading as a tennis tournament: six Europeans, six non-Europeans, and a small mountain of carbon emissions converging on whichever city promised the fattest appearance fee this year. In 2024 it is Berlin’s turn to host the spectacle, which means the old Tempelhof runway—once used…
From the cheap seats of the global economy, few scoreboards flicker with more schadenfreude than the American League East standings. While the rest of the planet frets over tightening grain corridors, runaway currencies, and the slow-motion demolition of the Antarctic ice shelf, this five-club cabal on the eastern seaboard of the United States continues to…
i fought the law (and the law was wearing a bespoke Brioni suit) Geneva, 03:14 a.m. local—While most of the planet was doom-scrolling or pretending to sleep, a small army of negotiators in Hall 7 of the Palais des Nations quietly rewrote the operating system of global order. The phrase on everyone’s encrypted lips was…
Detroit, Michigan – In a city that once symbolised the industrial engine of the West and now mostly symbolises how engines seize when neglected for six decades, the Detroit Lions have unveiled yet another quarterback. The announcement landed on foreign wire services somewhere between the latest Sudan evacuation and the revelation that a Swiss banker…
Matt LaFleur, the man who has somehow convinced Green Bay to treat a 13-3 season like a humanitarian crisis, is fast becoming the world’s most improbable geopolitical case study. In a year when European energy ministers hold emergency summits about winter heating and Sri Lanka auctions off its last presidential limousine, the planet still pauses…
NFL Divisions: How Eight Petty Fiefdoms in Shoulder Pads Became a Global Rorschach Test By the time the sun rises in London, the citizens of the United Kingdom have already placed their accumulator bets on whether the Miami Dolphins will remember what a defense is. By lunchtime in Lagos, WhatsApp groups light up with hot…
The Ballad of Brian Robinson Jr.: A Parable for the Age of Globalized Violence and Marketing By the time the medics reached Brian Robinson Jr. on that humid August evening in Washington, D.C., the bullets had already logged more international air-miles than most diplomats. One slug, ballistics later suggested, began its brief résumé in a…
The Law Wins Again—But Only on Streaming: How a Forgotten 1977 Cop Flick Became the Planet’s Favorite Political Allegory Dave’s Locker — International Desk In the spring of 1977, while New York City flirted with bankruptcy and the Baader-Meinhof gang still held Europe’s imagination hostage, Columbia Pictures quietly released “I Fought the Law,” a derivative…
