The Attention-Whore Index

Donald Trump is, so far, the winningest Attention Whore in our little weekly competition, and likely to remain that way unless and until the once-unbeatable Sussexes return to form. Last week Trump added to his domination of the single thing he knows how to do, abruptly ending a modest two-week Matt Gaetz winning streak to place first with 37.7 percent of your vote. Next, at 23.5 percent, came George Santos, serving notice that he was back in the game. Finishing a close third was up-and-comer Nadine Menendez (22.4 percent).

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

1.

RON D_ESANTIS

The Florida governor turned foreign-policy expert exhibited his trademark human touch when he declared that the U.S. should not accept any refugees from Gaza: “If you look at how they behave, not all of them are Hamas, but they are all anti-Semitic.”

2.

JADA PINKETT SMITH

Promoting her new memoir, she talked to The Times of London about her “transparent marriage” to Will Smith, their closet “love nest” with its “beautiful blue dome with twinkle lights in the ceiling with a circular mattress bed,” and how there’s no way she “made” Smith leave his seat at last year’s Academy Awards ceremony to slap Chris Rock: “Nobody can make Will Smith do anything, and surely not me. If I could make Will do anything the last three decades of my marriage would have looked totally different.” What’s left to read? Maybe just that they’ve lived “completely separate lives” since 2016.

3.

DONALD TRUMP

Proud recipient of a limited gag order from a federal judge in Washington. Don’t: Make public statements attacking witnesses, prosecutors, or court staff “involved in the federal case concerning his efforts to overturn the 2020 election,” said The New York Times. Permitted (if you must): “Continue disparaging the Justice Department and President Biden,” so long as the remarks are not directly connected to the case.

4.

BOB MENENDEZ

This year, a normally well-attended fundraiser for Menendez at a Puerto Rico resort had a few cancellations, The New York Times reported, with more than half of the 50-odd donors and guests opting out of the opening reception. Among the no-shows: the indictment-festooned senator himself—even though he and his co-indictee wife, Nadine, were on the island. This might seem like the inverse of an Attention Whore. However: he remains a senator, and he reportedly insisted that the fundraising event proceed as planned.

5.

JIM JORDAN

The jacketless Ohio congressman-wingnut who makes even Republicans squeamish—former Speaker of the House John Boehner once called Jordan a “legislative terrorist”—spent the week doing “whatever it takes” to stake his claim as second in line for the presidency. Lost two rounds of voting, announced he would not pursue a third one, and hours later announced that, well, actually, he would. Lost that vote too and, finally, in a surprising moment of self-awareness, ended his bid to run for Speaker.

6.

THE IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER

If a woodpecker pecks in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it exist? Long presumed extinct, the spectacular bird was back basking in the spotlight because, it was announced, it wasn’t one of 21 species being removed from the Endangered Species Act. The reason? Even though the last agreed-upon sighting was in 1944, it has to remain an endangered species just in case any do survive. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service “will continue to analyze and review available information before making a decision,” about whether to label it officially extinct, said The New York Times.

And now for this week’s Diary …

Shrugging aside civic ambivalence, Italy’s Ministry of Culture will restore a damaged Banksy mural, Migrant Child, painted on a building wall along Venice’s Rio Novo canal. ARTnews said that the mural, which “depicts a child holding up a flare and wearing a life vest” and appeared one night in 2019—quickly becoming a tourist attraction—had more recently prompted debates “over whether it should be allowed to gradually fade. Critics were divided over the fundamental purpose of street art: wasn’t its ephemeral nature the point?” It almost sounds like the dilemma of Venice itself, writ—or, in this case, painted—small.

Western Europe’s highest peak has shrunk by seven feet in the last two years. But not to worry (much): because of its ice and snow cover, “the mountain’s height changes from year to year depending on wind and weather,” Euronews reported, and so the loss of height “may be due to lower rainfall during the summer.” In fact, the chief surveyor pointed out, Mont Blanc “could well be much taller in two years”—unlike the rest of us.

A family of five Eurasian beavers from Scotland has been re-settled in an area of wetlands in Ealing. The hope, according to the BBC, is that the beavers—the first in London in 400 years—“will improve the local habitat and reduce flood risks” by providing what the head of the Ealing Wildlife Group described as “cost-effective, nature based” measures. “They will soon get to work remodelling their new west London home with dams and trenches,” said the BBC, while noting, sadly, that last year two other semi-aquatic rodents, “named Justin and Sigourney Beaver, were introduced to a farm in north London, but one of them died before the pair could breed.”

Olive-oil thieves struck storage facilities in this town in the Halkidiki region of northern Greece and made off with more than 4,000 tons of the “liquid gold” worth some $320,000. “From the Peloponnesian peninsula — famous for its purple Kalamata olives — to mountain villages in Crete, thefts of oil have proliferated,” reported The Guardian. After Spain and Italy, Greece is the world’s biggest producer of olive oil and proportionately the biggest source of high-quality extra-virgin olive oil. As one person told the newspaper, “They don’t go for jewelry any more, they go for olive oil.”

A bar here has been fined $3,500 for a promotion authorities deemed vulgar and threatening to public order, the South China Morning Post reported. The ad campaign urged patrons to “Get drunk, go home together.”

When a group of environmental activists tried to stop construction at the building site of a new religious center in this bucolic village, they were met with fierce resistance—from the local nuns. One nun was even filmed tackling a protester to the ground, Rugby-style. “I didn’t expect that,” one protester declared to public broadcaster France 3. “They decided to protect the site with their actions and their bodies.” Police say three people suffered minor injuries. The nuns have said they are praying for their opponents. —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 at AIR MAIL