Twenty-five years ago this week Steffi Graf defeated Gabriella Sabatini (6-3, 3-6, 6-1) to win the U. S. Open Women’s Tennis Title. The victory made her the third woman in history to win the Calendar Year Grand Slam (Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, U.S. Open) along with Maureen Connolly Brinker (1953), and Margaret Court (1970). … More Remembering Steffi Graf’s Golden Slam by Dr. Gerry Coulter 2013-09-27
In early January one of Pakistan’s most senior liberal politicians, Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, was shot 27 times by one of his own bodyguards. The murderer then calmly placed his gun on the ground and waited for the police to arrive. The reason given for the shooting by Taseer’s assassin was that the politician had … More Globalization, Death, and the Fearful Extremist by Dr. Gerry Coulter 2011-01-21
Bernie Ecclestone, who turns 80 this week, sits atop Formula One racing – one of the few remaining spectacles in the world where drivers with amazing reflexes and an incredible instinct for speed pilot land-based vehicles which run on jet fuel at incredible speeds. A former motor-bike racer of some skill, failed race car driver, … More Bernie Ecclestone and Formula One by Dr. Gerry Coulter 2010-10-27
Immanuel Wallerstein, who turns 80 this week, is the author of one of the grand theories of the twentieth century. What set Wallerstein apart as a thinker was his macro-historical approach to the present. Not long after Walter Rostow’s “Non-Communist Manifesto” Wallerstein drew on a democratic neo-Marxist paradigm to the understanding of the emergence of … More Immanuel Wallerstein’s Seductive Fiction by Dr. Gerry Coulter 2010-09-29
In 146 B.C. Rome brought Greece to its knees and within half a century Greek culture (especially its philosophy and science), had permanently changed Rome. Hence the quip: “Rome conquered Greece – but Greece conquered Rome”. What prospects do the Greeks have today of repeating this operation against European bankers and industrialists, obedient politicians, and … More Conquered Europe by Dr. Gerry Coulter 2010-04-30
It is not every month that a Nobel laureate in literature comes out against freedom of speech so perhaps we should give Wole Soyinka his due. In an interview with Tunku Varadarajan at the Jaipur Literature Festival last month, Soyinka said “England is a cesspit. England is the breeding ground of fundamentalist Muslims. Its social … More Reflections on Wole Soyinka and the Cesspit of Free Speech by Dr. Gerry Coulter 2010-02-21
Barack Obama’s State of the Union address shows us that he is already tired of Washington and one almost feels sorry that a man of his caliber will be forced to endure three more years of it. Perhaps now he is coming to realize why people of enormous intelligence have avoided the Presidency for the … More The State of the Union: Obama, Populism, and the Palin White House by Dr. Gerry Coulter 2010-02-02
1968 gets more press but 1969 was the year of the decade. Many of its events echo on while others, important footnotes of history, are silently forgotten. It is worth looking back on this amazing and eventful year as it turns forty especially from the vantage point of our own relatively eventless existence as hostages … More 1969 at Forty by Dr. Gerry Coulter 2009-08-29
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