Billy Ball is a journalist in North Carolina. In The Atlantic, he published an article headed “My 6-Year-Old Son Died. Then the Anti-vaxxers Found Out.” The subheading reads, “Opponents of COVID vaccines terrorize grieving families on social media.” Yes, that’s the kind of thing that happens. Maybe I could put that more actively: “That’s the kind of thing people do.”

About this article, David French had a comment: “This is an absolute gut-punch of an article.” Extremism in America is “tearing apart our body politic,” French said. It also involves “intense and dreadful personal cruelty and harassment.”

For sure. From what I can tell, the social media have led to serious degradation in our country (and perhaps the world over). Anonymity has a lot to do with it, I imagine: the anonymity of the social media.

Maybe if people were required to identity themselves? To reveal themselves? I think of a line from old movies: “Show yourself!” Someone would say to a masked man, for example, or to a man in the shadows: “Show yourself!”

Incidentally, my friend Barbara Fields, the historian, refers to the social media as “the anti-social media.” There’s something to that.

Okay, big question: Have the social media, with their anonymity, “liberated” people to be their true selves? Is something like “In vino veritas” at work here? Or has our new environment caused people to betray their true selves — becoming something they are really not?

When someone, under a handle, behaves like a jerk on Twitter or in a comments section or what have you — is he being his genuine self? Or has some impostor taken over?

One thing I know, one thing I have seen: Mr. Hyde will come out to play. And Dr. Jekyll must reassert himself . . .

• In Mississippi, the weatherman Matt Laubhan was reporting on a coming tornado. A horrible, destructive, life-taking thing. In the midst of his report, he said, “Oh, man. Dear Jesus, please help them. Amen.”

Stuart Stevens, a native of Mississippi, had a comment. Some people, he said, have claimed that this was “inappropriate or not professional,” but

I thought it was one of the more genuine moments I’d seen on live television. He knew that in moments people were going to die. He reacted in his own way as a human being. I’ll take more of that.

Amen.

• For Axios, Josh Kraushaar had a typically sharp piece called “The DeSantis conundrum.” A little excerpt:

. . . by siding with the MAGA wing of the party, he risks alienating traditional Republicans, who still make up a majority of the GOP electorate.

Another little excerpt:

If he keeps pandering to the most hardline conservative voters, DeSantis risks being caricatured as too hard-edged, even for some Republicans.

Let’s skip, for now, the question of what “conservative” means and so on. My column has addressed such questions many, many times. Also, let me stipulate something: Politicians have to be political, and even individuals in private life have to be “political” from time to time. But:

I wish people would simply figure out what they believe and say it. Without calculating, calculating, calculating. That must be so exhausting: “What’s the ‘sweet spot’? If I say X, what will happen? If I say Y, what then? Can I blend X and Y? What are the results of the latest focus group?”

For heaven’s sake, give me a man who’ll just say what he thinks — genuinely thinks — whether I like it or not. Is that too much to ask? Of politicians? Of media personalities? Of people at large?

(Better not answer that.)

• Chris Christie, the ex-governor of New Jersey and longtime GOP bigwig, is often thought of as “authentic.” I guess because of his appearance and manner — that Jersey affect. But he is all over the place, when it comes to Donald Trump: Yesterday, he was his staunchest defender; today, he is a bold critic; tomorrow, he will be . . .

Jonathan V. Last has Christie’s number, here.

Despite his reputation, Christie is so slippery that even Lindsey Graham might say, “Damn, boy, settle on something.”

• Not for the first time, Patrick Chovanec has said something that strikes me as very true, and very important:

A radicalized person on the left or right is a “radicalized person” first, and only secondarily “on the left or right”. That’s why they often flip. My friends on the left and right need to understand that they are not on your “team”.

I have seen example after example of this. Haven’t you? One day, a fella is an extremist or a hothead on the left. The next day, he’s the same thing on the right. He hasn’t fundamentally changed. What he likes is the extremism, and the current flavor of is no great importance.

• On Twitter, some people are “verified.” That means, the company has determined that the person writing under “Cher,” let’s say, is actually Cher. No one can pretend to be Cher, thereby doing her injustices and misleading people — because the real Cher is “verified.”

(I don’t know whether Cher is on Twitter. She is simply a celebrity who popped into my head. When I was quite young — like, ten — I had a real Cher thing. Not sure it has ever gone away.)

Under its new owner, Elon Musk, Twitter is to do away with the longstanding verification system. Monica Lewinsky noticed, here. The lack of true verification is going to cause mischief of various sorts. I also think it’s mean, to one and all.

But it responds to the populist imperative: Hey, no fancypants around here with their blue checkmarks! Populism is a very, very demanding beast. It has its roots in grievance and resentment — and these are obviously two of the most powerful drivers in life.

• Did you happen to see this? I have linked to a report from the Associated Press — which begins,

China’s global campaign to win friends and influence policy has blossomed in a surprising place: Utah, a deeply religious and conservative state with few obvious ties to the world’s most powerful communist country.

Another paragraph:

An investigation by The Associated Press has found that China and its U.S.-based advocates spent years building relationships with the state’s officials and lawmakers. Those efforts have paid dividends at home and abroad, the AP found: Lawmakers delayed legislation Beijing didn’t like, nixed resolutions that conveyed displeasure with its actions and expressed support in ways that enhanced the Chinese government’s image.

Frank Sinatra sang, “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.” If the ChiComs can make it in Utah — holy sh**.

• How about this?

Visitors flocked to see Michelangelo’s David sculpture in Florence on Tuesday, following an uproar over a Florida school’s decision to force the resignation of the principal over complaints about a lesson featuring the Renaissance masterpiece.

(Article here.)

I believe that the relevant phrase is “Streisand effect.” In any event, I’m not sure that David needs any publicity out of Florida, or anywhere else. He will always draw people to him. Always has, since he was sculpted.

(Hey, don’t forget Donatello!)

• The 2023 World Baseball Classic is in the books, with Japan beating the U.S. in the final game — a thrilling game. It ended when Shohei Ohtani struck out Mike Trout. Both of them are titans. Coincidentally, they play for the same major-league team: the Los Angeles Angels.

I have one simple observation, which I offer FWIW (“for what it’s worth”). When I was growing up, in the 1970s, chiefly, baseball was all around me. Children and young adults playing baseball. In later years, I did not see this so much — until 2018. When I took some long walks through Tokyo.

Walking through neighborhoods of Tokyo — seeing baseball games, seeing fathers playing catch with sons — I thought back to those earlier years in America.

Again, FWIW.

• Okay, here’s something to warm a conservative’s heart: “Amid the Pandemic, a Classical Education Boom: What if the Next Big School Trend Is 2,500 Years Old?” Yeah, man.

• I would like to recommend a column by Nicholas Kristof: here. It’s very hard to read, but also something inspiring. I don’t know. You can decide. Written from Calcutta, the column begins as follows:

This is a story of human trafficking, but mostly it’s a story of a mother’s love, the adoring son she raised and the highest-return investment in the world today.

• Above, I was writing about populism. Check out this news story: “Mexican government puts grammatical ‘errors’ into textbooks.” Some people have objected to this development. And do you know what the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador — that populist par excellence — says about the objectors? “They do not want to include the way the people speak, they want us all to talk like physicists, with technicalities.”

That’s populism, baby.

By the way, AMLO calls the serious press — the press that is not in his pocket — “la prensa fifí,” i.e., “the fancy press.”

Naturalmente. And works every time.

• Another story out of Mexico — a beautiful one, with text by Elda Cantú and photos and video by Marian Carrasquero: “Every spring, jacarandas bloom in Mexico City. The colorful purple flowers are a living legacy of a Japanese gardener.” (Go here.)

• Virginia Zeani, the great Romanian soprano, has died. (For the New York Times, Jonathan Kendall obituarized her.) Another great Romanian soprano, Angela Gheorghiu, once told me, “She is like a mother to me.”

• Hey, speaking of music — for a review of Der Rosenkavalier, the Strauss masterpiece (one of them), performed at the Metropolitan Opera, go here.

• Thank you for joining me today, everyone. Hope your week finishes out nicely. Maybe say goodbye with some Zeani? Enjoy her in the hit from Gianni Schicchi (Puccini), here. Later on.

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