KABUL—In a windowless basement that used to be a Taliban command post, twenty-something Afghans now huddle around blinking LED lights and a router that insists on calling itself “XFINITY_5G_EXT,” the underscore a quiet act of rebellion against the Pashto script. The irony is not lost on them: a brand that means “limitless” in corporate press…
Gen V Season 2: The Global Hangover After the Supes’ Rager By Diego “Dolor” Morales, International Correspondent, Dave’s Locker PARIS—While diplomats at UNESCO argue over whose turn it is to pretend to care about world heritage, a more pressing cultural artifact is dropping its trousers on Amazon Prime this summer: Gen V Season 2. Once…
In a world currently preoccupied with the slow-motion collapse of supply chains, the open-air theater of geopolitical brinkmanship, and the gentle background hum of climate catastrophe, one might be forgiven for forgetting that Dylan O’Brien is still alive and, apparently, thriving. Yet here we are, watching the 33-year-old American actor—once the accidental millennial face of…
Adam Sandler: The Last American Export That Even Trade Wars Can’t Kill By Dave’s Locker International Desk Somewhere between the collapse of the global liberal order and the day Netflix’s algorithm achieved sentience, the planet quietly agreed on one point of consensus: Adam Sandler is inevitable. From the air-conditioned multiplexes of Riyadh—where his latest comedy…
When Rob Reiner ambled onto the world stage in 1971, the planet was busy with other matters—China had just discovered ping-pong diplomacy, Nixon was rehearsing his exit lines, and half of Europe was still trying to find a decent tomato. Yet somewhere between Archie Bunker’s hollering and a meathead’s earnest protest, Reiner quietly became a…
The United States, that vast laboratory of late-stage capitalism and earnest flag-waving, has always insisted on packaging itself in neat little bundles. Fifty of them, to be precise—states, commonwealths, and one District that pays taxes without representation, a civic arrangement that would make any European monarch blush. To the rest of the planet, this tidy…
Howard Stern, the self-proclaimed “King of All Media,” has spent four decades proving that shamelessness is the only renewable resource never subject to sanctions. From a converted Long Island basement to a SiriusXM satellite orbiting somewhere above the equator, his signal ricochets across continents like a cosmic fart in a crowded elevator—impossible to ignore and,…
From the vantage of a Parisian café that still smells faintly of Gauloises despite EU tobacco bans, one can’t help but notice that Reese Witherspoon—once America’s sweetheart in a pink bubblegum wrapper—has quietly become a geopolitical weather vane. Her production company, Hello Sunshine, is now the soft-power equivalent of an aircraft carrier, steaming into markets…
Elle Fanning and the End of the American Empire, as Told from a Café in Sarajevo By “International Correspondent Who’s Given Up on Pretending to Be Optimistic” Sarajevo, 07:14 a.m. CEST — A thick Bosnian coffee hisses on the table, the kind that once fortified Ottoman viziers and now fuels NGO interns who still believe…
Paramount Plus and the Great Streaming Crusade: A Elegy for National Sovereignty, One Binge at a Time PARIS—Somewhere between the croissants and the existential dread, the French have discovered that Star Trek now beams directly into their living rooms in 4K HDR, courtesy of an American conglomerate that also owns Paw Patrol. Paramount Plus, the…
Emmys 2025: The World Watches America Hand Itself Another Trophy By Dave’s Locker Foreign Correspondent (currently in self-imposed exile from polite society) LOS ANGELES—While Gaza smolders, the Arctic melts, and TikTok’s algorithm learns to read our diaries in real time, the global village took a brief, synchronized gasp on Sunday night to watch the 77th…
**The Global Empire of Tiaras: How Disney Princesses Became the Most Effective Soft Power Tool Since the British Navy** While the world’s superpowers jostle for influence through trade wars and military posturing, a far more insidious force has been quietly colonizing the collective imagination of children across every continent: the Disney Princess Industrial Complex. From…
