Brazil vs Bolivia: A Quiet Derby for the Soul of South America By: Our Man in a Hammock with Wi-Fi RIO DE JANEIRO—While the rest of the planet was busy measuring the global recession in crypto-converted lattés and wondering whether World War III will be fought on TikTok, Brazil and Bolivia spent last week conducting…
THE QUIET IMPERIALISM OF HENRY BIENEN, OR HOW A NORTHWESTERN PRESIDENT TAUGHT THE WORLD TO LOVE ITS NEOLIBERAL OVERLORDS By Our Correspondent Somewhere Between the Quad and the IMF It is tempting, in the age of instant outrage and TikTok summits, to dismiss Henry Bienen as a quaint Midwestern apparition: tweed, tortoiseshell glasses, and the…
Elizabeth Tsurkov and the Global Hostage Economy: A Graduate Student, a War, and the Price of Curiosity By Dave’s Locker Foreign Desk When Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Russian-Israeli doctoral candidate at Princeton, vanished in Baghdad last March, the world performed its now-customary shrug: another intellectual swallowed by the Levantine wood-chipper. Nine months later, the Islamic Resistance…
Larry Ellison and the Global Art of Owning Absolutely Everything By Dave’s Locker’s Senior Cynic-at-Large Somewhere between the ninth espresso and the tenth zero in his net-worth spreadsheet, Larry Ellison crossed the invisible line that separates “billionaire” from “minor deity.” The rest of the planet—those of us still fumbling for small change in the sofa—watched…
Marc Guéhi and the Quiet Art of Empire Maintenance By Our Man in the Cheap Seats, somewhere above the M4 Marc Guéhi is the sort of name that makes global powerbrokers yawn and then, three seconds later, frantically open a new tab. To the average punter from São Paulo to Singapore, he sounds like a…
Wigan Athletic’s Norwegian teenager, Thelo Aasgaard, has spent the past fortnight doing something no Scandinavian export has managed since flat-pack furniture: forcing the world to read the assembly instructions. One dazzling League One hat-trick later and the 20-year-old’s name is being Googled from Lagos to Lima by people who previously thought “Aasgaard” was either an…
The Left Arm That Shook the Globe By Diego “Digger” Santangelo, International Correspondent Somewhere above the Mediterranean, on a chartered El Al flight in October 1965, Sandy Koufax told the captain he would not be pitching Game 1 of the World Series. The reason? Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. Up in…
While the rest of the planet tries to remember whether it’s still Tuesday or already Thursday thanks to the latest geopolitical time-zone shuffle, the Philadelphia Eagles have quietly decided that the fate of the free world can wait—Jalen Carter just inked a four-year, $84 million extension with $63 million guaranteed. Somewhere in Davos, a hedge-fund…
It takes a certain cosmic perversity to become a global headline while standing in a half-empty stadium in Dortmund, but Ollie Watkins managed it at the precise moment most of humanity was doom-scrolling about melting ice caps or which billionaire had purchased which democracy. One swivelled right boot, one net bulge, and the Aston Villa…
Marcus Rashford and the Global Project of Turning Footballers into Moral Thermostats by Our Man in the Cheap Seats, somewhere between the 18-yard box and the 38th parallel The first time the name “Marcus Rashford” pinged on diplomatic cables wasn’t when he nutmegged a Slovenian full-back, but when Downing Street discovered that a 22-year-old Mancunian…
2026 Lexus IS350: The Global Sedan for People Who Still Pretend to Save the Planet By Our Correspondent, Somewhere Between Frankfurt and the End of Days GENEVA — The 2026 Lexus IS350 rolled onto the international stage this week like a well-tailored apology letter from Toyota: sleek, polite, and vaguely penitent for the last thirty…
The Curious Case of N. Madueke: A Nigerian Nameplate on the Global Stage By Our Correspondent in the Cheap Seats, Somewhere Over the Atlantic If you’ve never heard of N. Madueke, congratulations—you’ve successfully avoided the algorithmic vortex that now passes for international culture. For the rest of us, doom-scrolling through transfer-window gossip and geopolitical meltdowns…
