**The Crimson Empire: How Alabama Football Became America’s Most Successful Export Since Fast Food** While the rest of the world obsesses over actual football—the one played with, you know, feet—America has been quietly perfecting its own version of gladiatorial combat. Nowhere is this spectacle more refined than in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where the Crimson Tide has…
**THE CARDINAL SIN OF GLOBALIZATION: HOW A MIDWESTERN BASEBALL TEAM BECAME THE WORLD’S MOST EXPENSIVE EXPORT** *From our international desk, where we’ve learned that America’s pastime is now everyone’s headache* ST. LOUIS—In a world where democracy teeters on the brink and climate change promises to turn your grandchildren into expensive aquarium exhibits, the St. Louis…
**The Gentle Art of American Apology: Jimmy Kimmel’s Global Comedy Empire** While the world burns through its third year of what historians will generously call “unprecedented times,” one man in Hollywood has perfected the delicate balance of making Americans laugh at themselves while collecting enough international goodwill to qualify as a minor diplomatic asset. Jimmy…
**Houston, We Have a Problem: How the Astros Standings Became a Global Barometer for American Decline** While the citizens of Houston obsess over whether their beloved Astros will clinch another playoff berth, the rest of the planet watches with the detached fascination of spectators at a slow-motion train wreck—except the train is carrying the entire…
**Sloane Stephens: The Accidental Diplomat of a Burning World** In the grand theater of global chaos, where nations weaponize trade routes and algorithms radicalize teenagers with the efficiency of a Swiss watch, Sloane Stephens continues to hit fuzzy yellow balls across a rectangle—an act that somehow still matters to billions of humans who’ve agreed this…
**The Global Solitude of Scott Van Pelt: How One American’s Midnight Musings Became the World’s Background Noise** In the grand theater of global significance, where nuclear powers play chicken over shipping lanes and climate change politely knocks at our collective door, Scott Van Pelt has carved out a peculiar niche: he’s the man who talks…
**The Age of Gridiron Diplomacy: How JJ McCarthy’s 21 Years Shook the Geopolitical Chessboard** In a world where nuclear codes rest in the hands of men who can’t operate TikTok, the international community found itself breathlessly consulting Wikipedia today to answer the burning question: exactly how old is University of Michigan quarterback JJ McCarthy? The…
The Last Full-Contact Diplomat: Why the World Still Cares About Jim Brown, Dead or Alive By our man in the cheap seats of global memory Cleveland, Ohio, is not, by any stretch of diplomacy, a world capital. Its river once caught fire—twice—an achievement even Beirut politely calls déclassé. Yet when news of Jim Brown’s death…
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…
Jim Irsay: The Billionaire Bard of America’s Midlife Crisis By “Hapless” Henrietta Beaufort, Senior Correspondent, Dave’s Locker PARIS—While France agonises over pension reform and Britain cycles through prime ministers the way a teenager burns through vape pods, the United States has found its own uniquely baroque spectacle: Jim Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts, is…
Steelers Game: When America’s Rust-Belt Opera Travels the World By Our Man in the Cheap Seats, somewhere between passport control and a stale pretzel PITTSBURGH—Somewhere beneath the perpetual November drizzle, 65,812 spectators are rehearsing the same primal chant, a vowel sound last uttered by Homo erectus just before discovering fire. The Steelers are hosting the…
**The Curious Case of Austin Mack: How a Forgotten NFL Wide Receiver Became an Accidental Metaphor for American Decline** By the time most of the world heard Austin Mack’s name—which, let’s be honest, was approximately never—the 26-year-old wide receiver had already been waived by three NFL teams and was presumably perfecting his LinkedIn profile somewhere…
