John Nordin

John Nordin is a Mint Press columnist who divides his time as a professor and a researcher between the Twin Cities and Greece, where he specializes in Greek politics, international relations and the economy. John holds a Ph.D. from MIT, and has worked as a Lutheran pastor, a computer science teacher in Kenya and a writer.

The News: It’s Not All Bad, Is It?

In a roundabout way, the media’s focus on disasters and scandals obscures the fact that conditions in America are actually deteriorating.

John Nordin
By John Nordin

Detroit’s bankruptcy is making it hard for other cities in Michigan to borrow money, even cities that are solvent. The opposition to a tyrant in Syria seems to have been taken over by extremists who will bring a new tyranny. Despite evidence of widespread abuse of mental patients by staff at New York facilities, they are not being disciplined and

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An Eye For An Eye In A Dog-Eat-Dog World?

Is conflict simply an inescapable fact of existence, or are there alternatives?

John Nordin
By John Nordin

Is all this fighting necessary? The wars, religious conflicts, lawsuits, marital squabbling, arguments at work, the struggle for control of organizations, and all the rest of it -- is it really necessary? Is conflict programmed into an inherently dog-eat-dog world, an inescapable reality from the wilds of nature to the summit of human life? Some

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Rethinking Privacy In The Age Of Mass Surveillance

Privacy and security need not be mutually exclusive; we just need to remember why people keep secrets in the first place.

John Nordin
By John Nordin

This week brought news of another massive government data collection effort. Called XKeyscore, it is said to allow the NSA to essentially look at anything that is online. Criminal violations of privacy were also in the spotlight as federal prosecutors announced indictments for those alleged to have stolen information on 160 million credit card

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Two Cheers For The Monarchy

In the age of unchecked blanket surveillance and the Imperial Presidency, Americans could learn a thing or two from the United Kingdom.

John Nordin
By John Nordin

Note: the article promised last week, on ways to defend privacy, has been delayed so that we can obsess over the royal baby like everyone else. The world loves the new British royal baby: hundreds camped out in front of the hospital for days, the media was on watch and gave the event massive coverage and everyone gushed over William driving his

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Why You Should Actually Be Concerned About Electronic Data Collection

It doesn’t take any stretch of the imagination to realize that the end of privacy has arrived.

John Nordin
By John Nordin

"You have zero privacy anyway.  … Get over it." So said Scott McNealy, chief executive officer of Sun Microsystems to a group of reporters.  Privacy concerns about computer software and the Internet, he added, are a “red herring.” He said this in 1999. At the time, McNealy’s comments were both condemned and praised as realistic. The

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What Makes A Cultural Identity? The Strange Case Of Leavenworth

One day, the unremarkable town of Leavenworth, Washington, decided to become a quaint, mock Bavarian village. This raises some questions.

John Nordin
By John Nordin

What’s required in order to belong to a particular ethnic group or culture? Can we determine when a person’s claim of cultural identity is fake or should be rejected? In the years ahead, advancing technology will make these questions even more complex. Consider the town of Leavenworth, Washington.   Becoming Bavarian Leavenworth, a small

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From The Tour De France To The ‘Coup’ In Egypt, The Media Knows How To Spin A Story

Problem is, these stories sometimes have little to do with realities on the ground.

John Nordin
By John Nordin

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” is a saying attributed, perhaps in error, to Thomas Jefferson. Either way, one place where vigilance is needed is in the mass media, and how we read it. Our liberty can be influenced by assumptions, by how issues are framed and even by the latest fads. The New York Times of Tuesday and Wednesday this

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