Our Attention-Whore Index

The results of last week’s voting might seem clear …

• Harry and Meghan: 72.13%
  
• Ye: 9.47%
  
• Elon Musk: 7.51%
  
• Donald Trump: 6.92%
  
• The Kardashians: 2.07%
  
• Sam Bankman-Fried: 1.89%

… though it’s pretty obvious that the election was stolen and Trump was the actual winner. But let’s move on.

The nominees in this week’s edition of the Attention-Whore Index Poll are …

1.

Harry and Meghan

Winners by a landslide last week, as decided by you, our illustrious readers, this determinedly under-the-radar Montecito couple dropped the second and final trio of documentary episodes, which was duly shredded on Rotten Tomatoes. Maybe now the teasers and trailers and ads will stop? Because Harry’s memoir is imminent.

2.

Vladimir Putin

Loses points for skipping his customary year-end news conference, no doubt because the news hasn’t been so great this year. But more than earns them back by turning up at a Kremlin reception for “Heroes of Russia,” where he walked around with a flute of champagne asking, “Who started it?” (It=that “special military operation” in Ukraine.)

3.

Elon Musk

Joined Dave Chappelle onstage at a San Francisco comedy performance, to overwhelming boos. Still found time to relaunch the Twitter Blue subscription service, target Anthony Fauci in a tweet, suspend the Twitter account of the college student who tracks his private jet, and ban the accounts of several journalists who’d written about the suspension.

4.

Doug Ducey

Defying environmental concerns, Arizona’s outgoing Republican governor made a show of installing hundreds of razor-wire-topped shipping containers along the state’s border with Mexico. Shouldn’t he be clearing out his desk and putting his tchotchkes in bubble wrap?

5.

Donald Trump

“Major announcement” of $99 NFT digital trading cards, with Trump as Nascar driver, hunter, and superhero standing in front of Trump Tower with lasers shooting from his eyes as he rips his shirt open to reveal a muscular, T-emblazoned chest. Even allies scoffed. “I can’t do this anymore,” said Steve Bannon.

6.

Marjorie Taylor Greene

Regarding the January 6 insurrection, Greene said, “If Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won. Not to mention, it would’ve been armed.” Also, a far-right activist said Greene had asked her to “dig up all the dirt” on her colleague Kevin McCarthy.

7.

Sam Bankman-Fried

Slipping in the polls, he got himself arrested. Extra points for pleading vegan at his bail hearing!

CAST YOUR VOTE HERE FOR WHO SHOULD BE THIS WEEK’S SUPREME ATTENTION WHORE!

And elsewhere around the world …

Withdrawn, and presumably being rethought: a “Dutch Glory” gift coffee mug depicting a happy, smiling Anne Frank surrounded by tulips, ice skates, windmills, and clogs.

At the Court of Appeals, Spain’s former ruler Juan Carlos, who abdicated for the greener pastures—or finer deserts—of Abu Dhabi, won immunity in the U.K. for any actions he’d taken while king. His ex-lover Corinna Larsen has accused him of intimidation and harassment.

South Korean babies are considered a year old at birth, with another year added to their age every January 1. But the National Assembly announced it would end the tradition and “resolve the social confusion … and the resulting side effects.” No longer will it be so complicated to give your age or, worse, calculate how to lie about it.

The European Commission spent $400,000 on a tropical-themed metaverse “24-hour beach party” with a target audience of “18–35-year-olds who identify as neutral about the EU.” In other words, six people. That, reportedly, is how many turned up, virtually, for the gala.

Jailed mob bosses are claiming to have drug problems in order to “secure transfers to rehabilitation clinics, from where they can continue to run their empires,” reported The Times of London. Corrupt doctors supply fake evidence, which can be lucrative but has its downside: one “who supplied certificates for two rival Naples clans, angering one of them, was found decapitated in a Fiat in 1982.”

Tommy-gun-shaped bottles of “Cosa Nostra Scotch Whisky” aren’t exactly a hit, as it were, in Sicily. Perpetuating stereotypes, etc. The Polish company that sells the whiskey also sells “Red Army Vodka” in Kalashnikov-shaped bottles.

Sarcophagi discovered during the restoration of Notre-Dame Cathedral following the 2019 fire are yielding secrets of “remarkable scientific quality,” according to The Guardian: a young cavalier, possibly from the 14th century, who had “a chronic disease” that cost him “most of his teeth,” and “a high priest who died in 1710” but who had “extraordinarily good teeth.” —George Kalogerakis

George Kalogerakis, one of the original editor-writers at Spy, later worked for Vanity Fair, New York, and The New York Times, where he was deputy op-ed editor. A co-author of Spy: The Funny Years and co-editor of Disunion: A History of the Civil War, he is a Writer at Large for AIR MAIL