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Articles by John McMillian
Freddie deBoer and the truth about mental illness Progressives are living in a dream world
“Freddie deBoer soon became one of Substack's better-known and most controversial writers.” (J.G. Fox) Freddie deBoerMental healthUS Prefer us on Google When I meet Freddie deBoer on a sunny Sunday afternoon in New Haven, Connecticut, at an upscale Japanese grocery market, he arrives wearing a black Sunn O))) t-shirt — a nod to one of the world’s loudest and most frightening drone-metal bands. “You gonna get food? I’m gonna get food,” he says, before I can answer.
In 1976, Jimmy Carter got heat for his Playboy interview. That made him cool.
I’m looking at the November 1976 issue of Playboy, though with less furtive excitement than if I’d somehow acquired it during my teenage years. It’s got a fetching cover photo of Patti McGuire, coy and glamorous, but truly, I’m here for an article: its lengthy interview with then-presidential candidate Jimmy Carter, which hit newsstands 50 years ago. If you were an adult back then, you probably recall it. Carter said, “I’ve looked upon a lot of women with lust.
Great Story—But Is It True?
On May 3, 1964, the New York Times published a chilling story about a secret Harlem gang called the Blood Brothers. Supposedly numbering about 60 young black men, they were “roaming the streets of Harlem with the avowed intention of attacking white people.” In follow-up stories, revelations mounted: soon the Blood Brothers were said to have upward of 400 members, not 60.
When You’re Right, You’re Right
Where Harvard Went Wrong: Fifty Years of Commentary that Fell on Deaf Ears, by Harvey Mansfield (Encounter, 144 pp., $24.99) Even the best of us occasionally finds it hard to resist saying, “I told you so.” In his new book, Where Harvard Went Wrong, Harvey C. Mansfield says that his goal is not to claim vindication but to argue that conservative ideas deserve a more hospitable place in American universities.
Atlanta Feels Like It’s Falling Apart
By John McMillian The Atlanta skyline. Photo: Zuma Press Free Expression is a daily newsletter on American life, politics and culture from the Opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal. Sign up and start reading Free Expression today. A mix of restaurants, cultural institutions and high-rise residential living makes Midtown Atlanta one of the city’s most attractive neighborhoods.
Atlanta Feels Like It’s Falling Apart
A series of shocking and violent incidents has residents like me on edge. The Atlanta skyline. Photo: Zuma Press Free Expression is a daily newsletter on American life, politics and culture from the Opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal. Sign up and start reading Free Expression today. A mix of restaurants, cultural institutions and high-rise residential living makes Midtown Atlanta one of the city’s most attractive neighborhoods.
A Sympathetic, but Skewed, Portrait of the Working Homeless
There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America, by Brian Goldstone (Penguin Random House, 448 pp., $30) A few years ago, I learned that an employee at Georgia State University, in Atlanta, where I teach, was apparently living in a vacant office on campus. This person held a full-time job but could not, it seemed, afford a home. The employee’s sad situation, which lasted for at least a year, illustrates a broader crisis.
Investigating Jerome Powell
Steve Hayes invites Michael Warren, John McCormack, and James Sutton on the podcast to discuss the Department of Justice's investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, how President Trump's tariffs are affecting interest rates, and the deadly protests in Iran. The Agenda: —Jerome Powell investigation —The fallout of Trump's economic policies —Trump’s approval numbers fall over immigration —GOP messaging and midterm possibilities —Iran’s deadly protests: Is this different?
When Books Are Called ‘Dangerous’
Well, they asked for a culture war, didn’t they? I’m thinking of the overzealous apostles of wokeness, who set out to trammel the right but ended up feeding the foul forces of Trumpism. As the comedian Marc Maron quips to fellow progressives in his new HBO special, Panicked, “You do realize we annoyed the average American into fascism, right?” Another unintended consequence of wokeism—less often discussed but still gravely significant—is that it badly warped American literary culture.
Democrats Are Kidding Themselves on Crime
‘But crime is going down!” That’s what many liberal thought leaders are bleating lately, and who can blame them? President Trump has called Washington, DC, a “crime-ridden hellhole,” teeming with “bloodthirsty criminals” and “roving mobs of wild youth,” and he’s quipped that “even the rats” are fleeing the nation’s capital. So it’s only fair to counter with data showing that violent crime in DC has been plunging swiftly from its pandemic peaks, and is currently at a 30-year low.
‘Back From the Brink’ Review: When Gotham Was Reborn
In the 1970s and ’80s, New York’s streets and subways were plagued with persistent crime. Then the city came back to life. By John Campbell McMillian The old consensus still reigns throughout much of progressive academia: Police can’t do much to deter crime as long as its “root causes” go unaddressed. Before a city can bring order to its streets and subways, this view holds, it’s necessary first to address poverty, inequality and racism. But is it?
Broken Windows Policing Is Still the Best Way to Fight Crime
If you’re familiar with the Broken Windows theory of policing, you may have learned of it, perhaps indirectly, from Malcolm Gladwell’s bestseller The Tipping Point, published 25 years ago. In the book’s most-discussed chapter, Gladwell sought to explain why New York City, in the 1990s, suddenly experienced the greatest drop in violent crime ever recorded. True, other cities saw crime declines in this period, but nowhere else did crime plunge so significantly and so swiftly.
"Am I Racist?" Is Part Of The Problem, Not The Solution
What starts in deadly sincerity ends in camp. If the “woke era” has been characterized by an at-times painful self-seriousness, it is maybe a kind of cosmic justice to see it skewered by some cheap gags and a very bad wig. In Am I Racist?, the Daily Wire star Matt Walsh disguises himself as a twerpy, overly-earnest “certified DEI instructor.” He travels the country attending antiracism workshops and interviewing diversity professionals, whom he exposes as cloying, one-note grifters.
Crime and History
In Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe’s shimmering portrait of 1980s New York, Sherman McCoy’s father offers his son the following advice: if you want to live in the city, “you’ve got to insulate, insulate, insulate” yourself from crime and disorder. “The cynicism and smugness of the idea struck Sherman as very au courant,” Wolfe writes.
Selective Retelling
A few minutes into Vigilante, journalist Leon Neyfakh’s riveting and heart-wrenching new podcast, we hear from Garth Reed, a gravel-voiced New Yorker who had immigrated from Jamaica in the late twentieth century. He recalls traveling south through Manhattan on a dirty, graffiti-covered 2 train. It was a Saturday afternoon, just a few days before Christmas, in 1984.
John Mark McMillian: Superman, Lois, and My Good Friday Playlist
ShareTweetPinPocketFlipboard I’m going to share with you my Good Friday playlist, but first I want to set the table for Good Friday. It’s often puzzled me why anyone would described the day that God died as “good”. Ok, maybe, for my theological purists in the room, let’s say God didn’t exactly die, just his perfect innocent beautiful lamb of a human self expression on earth. Splitting hairs if you ask me, but thanks for keeping us in line. Also, thanks for making it seem even less “good”. I digress.
American Epidemic: Reporting from the Front Lines of the Opioid Crisis (Paperback)
By John McMillian (Editor), Leslie Jamison (Foreword by) $17.99 On Our Shelves Now at: Politics and Prose at 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW 2 on hand, as of Oct 23 9:15pm Politics and Prose at 70 District Square SW 3 on hand, as of Oct 23 5:30pm Politics and Prose at Union Market 35 on hand, as of Oct 29 6:40am Description A first-of-its kind collection of the most vivid reporting about the most lethal addiction crisis ever Just a few years ago, the opioid crisis could be referred to as a...
American Overdose: An Interview with Chris McGreal
Will My Insurance Pay for Rehab? Sponsored ⓘLegal Stuff - This is an advertisement for Service Industries, Inc., part of a network of commonly owned substance abuse treatment service providers. Responding to this ad will connect you to one of Service Industries, Inc.’s representatives to discuss your insurance benefits and options for obtaining treatment at one of its affiliated facilities only. Service Industries, Inc. Service Industries, Inc.
Dopesick: An Interview with Beth Macy
As recently as a few years ago, the opioid crisis could be referred to as a “silent epidemic,” perhaps in part due to its degrading nature. Opioid addiction is frequently described using metaphors of slavery, or enslavement, and those within its clutches are liable to feel acutely ashamed. No longer, however, is it possible to argue that the scourge of opioid addiction is being overlooked.No doubt that is partly due to the growing enormity of the problem.
Mark Pendergrast Traces the Story of the Atlanta BeltLine
In the introduction to his new book, City on the Verge: Atlanta and the Fight for America’s Urban Future, Mark Pendergrast writes that “Atlanta is on the brink of either tremendous birth or inexorable decline.” Having lived in Atlanta for several...
Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich Reading & Conversation w/Timothy Patrick McCarthy
Join East End Books Ptown as we welcome Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich & Timothy Patrick McCarthy, Ph.D for a reading & book signing. “This book is a marvel. The Fact of a Body is equal parts gripping and haunting and will leave you questioning whether any one story can hold the full truth.” ? Celeste Ng, author of the New York Times bestselling Everything I Never Told You A young law student, an unspeakable crime, and a past that refuses to stay buried.
Ada Calhoun's 'St Marks Is Dead' Explores the Complexity of Gentrification
Ada Calhoun’s new book analyzes the gritty, bohemian history—and the yuppified present—of one of New York’s most infamous streets. John McMillian November 4, 2015 Chad Griffith / Zak Bickel / The Atlantic St. Marks Is Dead by Ada Calhoun I’ve lately begun collecting old tourist guides to New York City. Most of them don’t even mention St. Marks Place, which may at first seem not so surprising. St. Marks is an unusually tiny street.
50 Tracks That Tell the Story of the Rolling Stones: Bill Janovitz: 0884552080280: Amazon.com: Books
December 3-4, 1969. Keith and Mick stood at the same microphone at Muscle Shoals, lights dimmed, splitting a fifth of bourbon, and simultaneously sang the melodies and harmonies on the three songs that they had recorded over three days: “Brown Sugar,” “You Got to Move,” and “Wild Horses.” That’s your rock ‘n’ roll fantasy right there, pal.
What Happened When the Beatles First Met the Rolling Stones
Brow Beat Brow Beat is following the Beatles in “real time,” 50 years later, from their first chart-topper to their final rooftop concert. 50 years ago this week, the Beatles met their future rivals, the Rolling Stones. John McMillian, author of the forthcoming Beatles vs. Stones from Simon & Schuster, describes the encounter. Everybody knows how adorably goofy and good-natured the Beatles could come across in their radio and television interviews, especially during the first flush of Beatlemania.
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