Nathan Hegedus is a writer, journalist and communications consultant currently living in Stockholm, Sweden with his wife and two small children. He studied in Budapest in 1994 and then from 1995 through 1998 lived in rural war-torn Croatian towns working first in grassroots peace projects then for an American non-profit. He graduated from Swarthmore College in 1995 and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 2000. His work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Newsday, the Boston Globe, the San Francisco Chronicle and lonelyplanet.com, among other places. He also spent five years as a reporter and editor at the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, New York covering the expanding edge of the New York City exurbs.

He is currently blogging about work-life issues, life with no car and a tiny apartment, and the warm and sometimes constricting embrace of the Swedish welfare state at nathanhegedus.wordpress.com.

Blog Entries by Nathan Hegedus

Health Care Reform: It's About Community, Stupid

6 Comments | Posted September 3, 2009 | 07:50 AM (EST)


"About 80 percent of Americans are happy with their health insurance," I said to my Swedish wife over coffee, the baby squealing with glee as his sister danced around him. "So, you see, it can be a hard sell to actually create change."

I was proud. This was it, the...

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Why Can't the Boomers Just Shut Up About Woodstock?

92 Comments | Posted August 12, 2009 | 04:46 PM (EST)


Enough with Woodstock. Please. Put me out of this baby boomer misery.

I have lived with this generation's self-absorbed false sense of grandeur long enough. I can not take one more day of Woodstock nostalgia, of both crass commercialism and well-crafted gooey reminiscences. I can not stand another thirty years...

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Pirates Have Boarded The Good Ship Europe: Will Music, Media and Movie Companies Walk The Plank?

9 Comments | Posted June 9, 2009 | 12:05 PM (EST)


Pirates have been the scourge of the music and film industry for years, swapping and "stealing" songs and movies with no regard for the law.

But now the pirates will be making the law. And this should scare a lot of besieged captains of information industry, who may not be...

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Dick Cheney: The Quintessential Villain of the American West

18 Comments | Posted May 18, 2009 | 02:15 PM (EST)


Dick Cheney is a black hat-wearing bad guy straight out of the Old West. But he is not of the West in the way he pretends -- the long-past Wyoming childhood, the simple black and white tough talk, the hunting with and wounding of other rich cowboys. He is not...

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Help! I Live In Sweden, and I Am Addicted to Socialism

30 Comments | Posted May 13, 2009 | 01:20 PM (EST)


Hi. My name is Nathan. I am an American living in Sweden. And I am addicted to socialism.

I must admit that I did not come here tonight totally of my own free will, which has been apparently sapped by the Swedish welfare state. For I thought I was quite...

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Obama Makes America Sexier to Swedes

Posted May 7, 2009 | 03:19 PM (EST)


A Swedish high school student wants to go to high school in a small city in Texas so he can closely follow stem cell research, according to Metro here in Stockholm.

This is perhaps the clearest example I have seen of the Obama effect on Europe, taking an unfriendly, torturing...

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Men Are Idiots to Not Fight for Paternity Leave

Posted April 13, 2009 | 11:12 AM (EST)


The chance to nap. The chance to ponder NBA playoff match-ups or your favorite baseball team's pitching rotation. The chance to hang out on a bench in the sun with a friend.

Men. You are missing this.

Thanks to the Swedish welfare state, I spent six months on paternity...

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What Europe Really Needs is a Good Shrink

Posted April 3, 2009 | 11:31 AM (EST)


Europe is in trouble. Everyone says so. Paul Krugman says so. The Swedish finance minister says so.

The reasons given are legion. Not enough economic stimulus. A deluded sense that spending on the social safety net will pull economies through. Not enough political integration. Too much economic integration....

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People of Detroit, to the Barricades!

Posted March 31, 2009 | 03:41 PM (EST)


Rage versus resignation: France boils over while Detroit sleeps

In France, factory workers are holding some factory bosses hostage, egging others and taking to the streets in the millions.

In Detroit, a café is holding a 10-day music marathon while an entire city and region passively wait for leaders to...

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