Brittany Fortinberry and the Quiet Collapse of International Order By Our Correspondent, Somewhere Over the Atlantic (Wi-Fi permitting) PARIS—In the grand bazaar of global affairs, where nuclear threats are tweeted at breakfast and supply-chain hiccups bankrupt nations by tea-time, the name Brittany Fortinberry might scan as a typo. Yet the 34-year-old Baton Rouge native—currently sipping…
HOPENA POKIPALA, MAUI — Somewhere between the ninth Mai Tai and the tenth apology for colonialism, a rented Jeep Wrangler found itself intimately reacquainted with a century-old banyan tree. The tree, unmoved by either tourism or irony, remains upright; the Jeep, less so. Thus was born the “hopena pokipala car accident,” a phrase now ricocheting…
The Earth Moves—And So Does the Money A sardonic postcard from the shifting crust By the time you finish this sentence, the planet will have executed roughly 50 imperceptible tremors, one M3+ wobble worthy of a California coffee spill, and—if it’s Monday—an M7+ catastrophe somewhere along the Ring of Fire, that 40,000-kilometer geological necklace we…
A Severe Thunderstorm Watch Has Been Issued—for the Entire Planet From the equatorial belt to the Arctic Circle, from the rice paddies of Guangxi to the ski resorts of Zermatt, the alert is out: the sky is in a mood and we all live under the same temperamental ceiling. The United States may have trademarked…
