In the grand theatre of geopolitics, nothing screams “late-stage empire” quite like two nations—each with a per-capita GDP smaller than the average Silicon Valley intern’s coffee allowance—being pitted against one another on the world’s most conspicuous stage. Bangladesh versus Afghanistan is not merely a fixture on the cricket calendar; it is the latest episode in…
If you tilt the globe toward West Africa and squint past the usual headlines of pipeline fires and missing oil revenues, you can almost make out a green-and-white blur sprinting down the touchline. That blur is Nigeria FC—not a formal club, mind you, but the national football team rebranded by the internet into a sort…
When the First Temple fell, the rabbis didn’t immediately issue a press release about resilience—they just kept the lights on, one thirteen-year-old boy at a time. Fast-forward 2,600 years and the barmitzvah strand, that slender coil of tzitzit dangling from a suddenly taller teenager, has become a surprisingly accurate global barometer. From the marble synagogues…
