Hozier, Global Prophet of the Post-Apocalypse Blues By “Foreign Desk” Dave, filing from everywhere Wi-Fi still works So the world is on fire—literally, if you live in Greece, California, or the bit of Canada that forgot snow was a thing—and into this planetary barbecue strides a soft-spoken Irishman with a guitar and the voice of…
Somewhere between the soy latte belt and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, two MLS franchises will meet on Saturday night in what the marketing department politely calls “a Western Conference showdown.” The rest of the planet, busy watching oil prices, missile parades, and the slow-motion implosion of several democracies, will glance over just long enough to…
The Ballad of Brandon Marsh: How One Man’s Bat Became a Geopolitical Barometer By the time Brandon Marsh’s line drive cleared the left-field fence in Game 4 of the 2023 World Series, the tremor was detectable on seismographs in three languages. In Tokyo, salarymen watching on delay spilled sake on their ties; in Lagos, a…
From the banks of the Schuylkill to the neon canyons of Seoul, the name Kyle Schwarber is now muttered with the same bewildered reverence usually reserved for rogue central bankers or whoever keeps green-lighting Fast & Furious sequels. A 31-year-old left-handed slugger from Middletown, Ohio—population 48,000, or roughly one-third of the crowd that shows up…
Atlas—Santos: A Tale of Two Cities, One Stadium, and the Global Gladiator Complex By Dave’s Locker International Desk Somewhere between the smog of Torreón and the salt-breeze of Santos, two Mexican football clubs met last night in a fixture that, on paper, was merely the latest chapter in Liga MX’s interminable telenovela. Yet the Atlas–Santos…
Scotch Tape for the Soul: How Chivas Became the World’s Favorite Liquid Alibi By Our Man in the Departure Lounge Somewhere between the 5 a.m. call to prayer in Dubai and the 5 p.m. closing bell in São Paulo, the word “Chivas” stopped being a surname and became a passport stamp. Or, more accurately, a…
UK Football: The Empire Strikes Back—With VAR and Petrodollars By Our Man in the Global Sports Saloon Somewhere over the North Atlantic, a chartered Gulfstream carrying a Qatari banker, a Silicon Valley data guru, and three North London season-ticket holders collides with the jet stream of history. The topic in the cabin: whether Manchester City’s…
**The Ghost of Bo Jackson Haunts Columbus, and the World Watches with Popcorn** COLUMBUS, Ohio — In a universe where college football recruiting scandals erupt with the predictability of a Swiss cuckoo clock, the latest twist involving Bo Jackson’s spectral presence at Ohio State has achieved the rare feat of making the entire planet pause…
In a nondescript conference room somewhere between Brussels and Boredom, the world’s defense ministers recently wrapped up another round of what they insist on calling the “Guardians Game.” The term sounds like a Saturday-morning cartoon spin-off, but it’s actually the polite label for a global wargame that runs on classified servers, diplomatic double-speak, and an…
The Nine-Lives of Lisa Aguilar: A Global Parable for the Post-Truth Age Dateline: Somewhere over the international date line, where yesterday’s conspiracy is tomorrow’s Netflix docu-series. If you missed the latest Twitter cyclone, allow me to catch you up: Lisa Aguilar, a 29-year-old municipal clerk from a mid-sized city whose greatest previous claim to fame…
Tigres—León: The Derby That Explains Why the World Can’t Have Nice Things By Our Correspondent, Still Recovering from Airport Tequila MONTERREY, NUEVO LEÓN—If you watched the Tigres–León clash last weekend strictly for the football, congratulations on your adorable naïveté. The rest of us—jaded foreign hacks, commodity traders glued to Bloomberg, and European scouts praying Mexico…
There’s a new name rattling around the UFC’s octagon like a loose screw in a Boeing cockpit, and it belongs to David Martínez, the 27-year-old Spaniard who apparently decided flamenco wasn’t lethal enough. Born in Valencia—where paella and existential dread are served in equal portions—Martínez has leapt from the regional European scene to the big…
