The Attention-Whore Index

No surprise: the Beetlejuice incident, while particularly obnoxious and weirdly entertaining, was only a reminder that even in routine circumstances Lauren Boebert is the definition of an Attention Whore. (As are most politicians.) In a show of appreciation for her having taken the idea of audience participation to a new level, Boebert got a whopping 57 percent of your vote last week. Even Elon Musk was a distant second (19.6 percent), and the rest of the field, including Kim Jong Un, Ashton Kutcher, and Drew Barrymore, trailed badly.

But now we start fresh.

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

1.

ELON MUSK

Because he knows we crave his opinion on absolutely everything, was among those who were quick to implicitly or overtly support Russell Brand—Andrew Tate and Tucker Carlson were, predictably, two others. Held a mutually expedient meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu. (See, I can attract tech investment in Israel! and See, how can anyone say I’m tolerant of anti-Semites!) Also had a meeting with Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and his three-year-old son, X. (Musk’s three-year-old son, X, that is.) In general, continued to fly under the radar, as he prefers.

2.

MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE

Complained about the easing of the Senate dress code: “Dress code is one of society’s standards that set etiquette and respect for our institutions. Stop lowering the bar!” In other words, let’s see more white furs like she wore—out of respect to our institutions—to the State of the Union last year? But as a calling, fashion-forward pales next to impeachment-forward: “We are going to drag Biden and everyone who covered up his crimes through the headlines day after day, month after month, and prove to the country the entire Democrat party is corrupt and can’t be trusted. So no matter which candidate runs for president if they take Biden out, everyone will know the Democrat party is filled with liars and traitors.” And she revealed she’d be publishing a book this fall: “I wanted people to hear my side of the story.” At long last.

3.

THE ROMAN EMPIRE

It’s back, apparently. Men are obsessed with it, according to The New York Times. This year the Empire “went viral on TikTok,” and “the trend seemed to really take off last week,” when a North Carolina woman “was scrolling through social media one night [and] came across an Instagram Reel mysteriously suggesting that men the world over were hiding a secret: ‘Ladies, many of you do not realise how often men think about the Roman Empire.’” She asked her husband how often he thought of it, and his response—“Every day”—was shared and has received millions of views. Toga up, guys, if you haven’t already.

4.

XI JINPING

His ministers keep disappearing. “Three weeks after he was last seen in public, there is still no official confirmation about what has happened to Gen Li Shangfu, China’s defence minister and the latest senior official to be seemingly swept up in China’s political purges,” The Guardian reported. Li had been appointed only in March. The foreign minister, Qin Gang, vanished in July after less than a year in office. Xi, meanwhile, continues to keep a somewhat higher profile, taking offense every time someone refers to him as a “dictator” (Biden last June, the German foreign minister last week).

5.

DREW BARRYMORE

“I own this choice,” she’d said in deciding to proceed with her talk show in spite of the writers’ strike. Days later, she also owns her subsequent choice: changing her mind. Having “listened to everyone,” Barrymore is now delaying her premiere until the WGA strike is resolved, she announced in a long, weepy online video. Bill Maher, who also was charging ahead, has decided to pull up, putting Real Time on pause “for now.”

6.

DONALD TRUMP

He owns it, too: told NBC “it was my decision,” not some loser lawyers’ or whack-job advisers’, to try to overturn the 2020 election results. (Suddenly his 2016 debate line “I alone can fix it” takes on an entirely new meaning!) Celebrated Rosh Hashanah by sharing on social media a flyer that slammed “liberal Jews” who didn’t support him (“Let’s hope you learned from your mistake & make better choices moving forward! Happy New Year!”). A longtime assistant said he used classified documents as scrap paper, writing to-do lists for her on them. Best of all: on the same day he ridiculed President Biden as “cognitively impaired,” warned that Biden will lead us into World War II (yes), bragged that he was currently leading Obama (yes) “by a lot” in the polls, and noted that back in 2016 “with Obama”—yes—“we won an election they said that couldn’t be won.”

7.

Rudy Giuliani

“America’s Mayor” is becoming better known as America’s (alleged) Groper. In a new book, the former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson describes how, backstage during Trump’s incendiary January 6 speech near the White House, Giuliani “moves towards me, like a wolf closing in on its prey.… Rudy wraps one arm around my body, closing the space that was separating us. I feel his stack of documents press into the small of my back. I lower my eyes and watch his free hand reach for the hem of my blazer. ‘By the way,’ he says, fingering the fabric, ‘I’m loving this leather jacket on you.’ His hand slips under my blazer, then my skirt. I feel his frozen fingers trail up my thigh.” Giuliani is already facing a lawsuit by a former personal assistant who has alleged sexual assault and harassment, along with myriad other financial and legal problems. A statement from Giuliani’s spokesman, Ted Goodman, described Hutchinson’s recollections as “a disgusting lie.”

And now for this week’s Diary …

Sweden’s right-wing government has concluded that there isn’t enough plastic polluting the planet: it wants to do away with a tax on plastic bags. “We are convinced that Swedes use plastic bags wisely in their daily lives and that there is no reason why they should be more expensive,” declared the minister for climate and the environment [sic], Euronews reported. This follows another Swedish government announcement that it would reduce taxes on gas and diesel fuels.

A gynecologist refused to treat a trans patient because he said he didn’t know how to, and instead had offered to “refer [her] to a specialist who could provide appropriate medical care,” reported The Times of London, “but the patient had shouted, ‘You’re transphobic!’ before storming out of his consulting room.” Cue the online condemnation and impassioned debate. “Marguerite Stern and Dora Moutot, two prominent feminists, vigorously defended the gynaecologist,” who they felt “had been intimidated into making an unnecessary apology,” said the newspaper. “Would we criticise a cardiologist for refusing to treat a plant fungus or a fishmonger for refusing to sell pastries? So why criticise a gynaecologist for refusing to treat men — even if they declare themselves to be women?”

The National People’s Congress proposed a legal amendment that would “punish individuals for ‘hurting the feelings of the Chinese nation’ with up to two weeks of detention without trial,” according to the South China Morning Post. Exactly how might individuals hypothetically hurt a nation’s feelings? Well, “wearing clothing or symbols deemed harmful” to those feelings, for one thing. To many, that sounded dangerously vague, so the N.P.C. is now encouraging feedback: “We sincerely welcome public opinion on the draft law through normal channels. Those opinions are concrete manifestations of the masses’ concern and orderly participation in the national legislative work.” Go ahead, masses, tell them what you really think.

Eight schools in this French-speaking region in southern Belgium have been set on fire or vandalized in recent days, a reaction to newly required four-hour EVRAS classes (a sex-ed program) for 11-to-12-year-olds and teens. At one school, in Liège, a fire forced the evacuation of 1,500 kindergarten and grade-school pupils, and their teachers. The government is investigating the arson. “They are attacking our teaching, our freedom of education,” Belgium’s education minister told the broadcaster RTBF. “EVRAS is there to protect children, not to harm them. It is a public health system.”

This tranquil beach on the Isle of Barra in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides was recently the setting for perhaps the most disturbing episode there since a vital cargo of whiskey sank offshore in the 1949 Ealing Studios comedy Whisky Galore! A man and two women were attacked by an aggressive herd of cows “whilst walking” along the beach, rescued by coast-guard and local emergency crews, treated at a hospital (to which the man had been airlifted), and released. Those Scottish cows—so unsporting. —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