Washington, D.C.—a city that once prided itself on exporting democracy and importing lobbyists—took a brief respite from its usual grift on Saturday night to host the Great Transatlantic Transfusion known as DC United v. Inter Miami. On paper, it was Major League Soccer fixture #17. In practice, it was a geopolitical séance where a club…
Idaho’s capital is not, by any stretch, a geopolitical choke point. Yet on a crisp Saturday evening in late November, the Boise State Broncos and the Air Force Falcons will square off on a rectangle of blue plastic so garish it can be seen from the International Space Station—an orbital fact proudly cited by locals…
Ben Arbuckle Is the Quietest Man on Earth—and That Terrifies Us All by Dave’s Locker International Desk Geneva—For a planet that never stops talking, the sudden appearance of a man who refuses to is, frankly, an act of war. Meet Ben Arbuckle, 42, American passport, no fixed address, and—according to the only leaked Interpol file—a…
BBC iPlayer: The Last Empire Still Broadcasting in Glorious Standard Definition of British Guilt By the time you read this, iPlayer has already expired on your cousin’s smart fridge in São Paulo. The BBC’s flagship streaming service—once a plucky national catch-up platform—now functions as a sort of 21st-century East India Company, only with more buffering…
Botafogo vs. Atlético Mineiro: When Brazil’s Footballing Family Feud Becomes a Global Soap Opera By the time the first whistle blows at Estádio Nilton Santos, the usual suspects—London, Madrid, Abu Dhabi—will be pretending to ignore the match. Their analysts, trained on Champions League spreadsheets and Gulf-state balance sheets, will sip flat lattes and mutter that…
NASHVILLE, TN—Somewhere between the second verse of “Road Less Traveled” and the fourth refill of a flat Diet Coke, Lauren Alaina has become the accidental cultural attaché of a world that can’t decide whether it’s falling apart or just remixing itself. Yes, she’s the Georgia-born runner-up from American Idol’s tenth season—remember when that franchise still…
Michael McIntyre: How a Man in Skinny Jeans Became the UN’s Unofficial Jester of the Apocalypse Byline: Dave’s Locker foreign desk, filed from an over-air-conditioned lounge in Singapore where the gin is warm but the Wi-Fi is existential. Walk into any expat bar from Lagos to Lima and you’ll hear the same low-grade grumbling about…
Thomas Skinner Strictly: The Glitterball as Geopolitical Football By Our Man in the Greenroom, still hung-over from diplomatic canapés LONDON – Somewhere between a bunting-draped Blackpool Tower and a hastily booked EasyJet to Marbella, Thomas Skinner—the East-End mattress mogul turned meme-savant—has become the most unlikely soft-power export Britain has produced since the Queen parachuted into…
In the grand, ceaseless carnival of American college football—an enterprise that combines the pageantry of medieval jousting with the merchandising genius of Disney—tonight’s modest sideshow features Tulane versus Ole Miss. To the uninitiated, this may appear to be a regional skirmish over bragging rights and a bronze boot called the “Magnolia Bowl,” a trophy whose…
UNC vs UCF: A Microscopic Lens on the Macroscopic Collapse of Western Soft Power By Our Man in the Departure Lounge, Somewhere Over the Atlantic On the surface, Saturday’s gridiron tussle between the University of North Carolina (motto: “Lux libertas,” roughly “Debt and daylight”) and the University of Central Florida (motto: “Reach for the stars—then…
From the banks of the Willamette to the war rooms of Davos, the planet pauses this weekend for a proxy battle that, on paper, is merely a college football game between Oregon State and the University of Oregon. In practice, it is a perfect Petri dish for every neurosis the 21st century has on offer:…
Rangers Score Today, Earth Still Spinning: A Dispatch From The Front Lines of Futility NEW YORK—Another day, another 3-2 victory for the New York Rangers, and somewhere a hedge-fund manager in Geneva just made or lost the GDP of Moldova on exactly how many seconds elapsed between the second and third goals. The puck crossed…
