Charlie Morton, the American baseball pitcher whose right leg shattered like a fortune cookie under the weight of a World Series dreams, has become an improbable global metaphor: a man who kept throwing strikes on a broken fibula while the rest of the planet can’t even stand on its moral compass without collapsing. From Kiev…
Katarina Johnson-Thompson and the Existential Burden of Being Good at Too Many Things By Our Correspondent, still jet-lagged from a connecting flight that smelled of duty-free gin and surrender LONDON—While the rest of us were perfecting the art of opening a bag of crisps with one hand and doom-scrolling with the other, Katarina Johnson-Thompson (KJT…
Katarina Johnson-Thompson and the Quiet Rebellion of Persistence By our correspondent in the Departures Lounge, watching nations argue over whose Wi-Fi is slowest There’s something deliciously subversive about a Liverpudlian heptathlete becoming the planet’s most understated act of civil disobedience. While the rest of us scroll through collapses—climate, currencies, collective sanity—Katarina Johnson-Thompson keeps showing up,…
Notts County: The 160-Year-Old Football Club Teaching the World How to Survive Its Own Stupidity By Our Man in the East Midlands, nursing a lukewarm pint and déjà vu Meadow Lane, Nottingham – In a week when Silicon Valley titans were congratulating themselves for inventing the “metaverse pub” (basically a chat room with beer NFTs),…
Jimmy Butler, the NBA’s resident philosopher-king in basketball shorts, has spent the last decade exporting a very American product—pure, weaponized spite—to every corner of the globe. From the frostbitten arenas of Minnesota to the pastel humidity of Miami, he has played the same tune: “You didn’t believe in me? Good. Let’s make this awkward.” It’s…
Nate Burleson: The Accidental Diplomat Quietly Teaching the World How to Talk to Itself By the time most Americans were debating whether their morning coffee tasted more like hope or despair, Nate Burleson had already addressed three continents without leaving a Midtown studio. The former Detroit Lions receiver—whose career highlight reel once consisted of hurdling…
