The Attention-Whore Index

Elon Musk is a perennial in this competition, but there are weeks—and last week was one of them—when he can’t afford just to rest on his laurels and expect the spotlight to find him. He’s running with a fast crowd here—ease up, and you pay the price. (Or overpay, if you’re Elon.) Musk finished fourth (13.6 percent), behind a sweep of Republican luminaries: the redoubtable Donald Trump (26 percent), Marjorie Taylor Greene (23.8 percent), and Rudy Giuliani (18.6 percent). Complacency is punished.

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

1.

BOB MENENDEZ

The other half of this week’s indisputable It Couple is celebrated elsewhere in this issue, but here let’s acknowledge the innocent-until-proven-guilty senator’s reactions to jaw-dropping evidence of corruption—jaw-dropping but also incredibly entertaining, what with gifts of Mercedes-Benz convertibles, exercise machines, and bars of gold bullion. And lots and lots of cash. “It is not lost on me how quickly some are rushing to judge a Latino and push him out of his seat,” Menendez said. Rest assured that, when he goes to trial, “not only will I be exonerated, I will still be New Jersey’s senior senator.”

2.

MILLIE BOBBY BROWN

Wrote a novel. Correction, “wrote” a novel—the 19-year-old actress has been up-front about using a ghostwriter to produce Nineteen Steps, a work of fiction based on her grandmother’s life. (Up-front-ish: her acknowledgment reads, in small type, “with thanks to … ”) But even with this team effort, the novel’s first paragraph contains sentences like “It was hot — the kind of heat that makes you yearn for the weather to cool down … ”

3.

ELON MUSK

Apparently rethought his initial tacit support of the accused rapist Russell Brand. “It is rather disappointing that he is exclusively pushing Rumble when X has supported free speech just as much,” Musk said on X. So, Brand apparently crossed the line by posting his conspiracy-theory-drenched screed of a video on a platform not owned by Musk. Whose platform, by the way, has a higher ratio of disinformation on it than any other, according to a report by the E.U.

4.

MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE

Musk will be pleased that Greene, at least, is an X aficionado. This week she used it to post an image of a menorah (“To all those preparing for the solemn day of Yom Kippur … “). Jared Moscowitz, a Florida congressman, responded, also on X: “That’s a picture for Chanukah. Different Jewish Holiday. Yom Kippur is where you atone for your sins. Lord knows you will be very busy.” Perhaps the poor woman was just trying to make amends. A few years ago, Greene had claimed that California’s wildfires had been intentionally started (for profit) by lasers from outer space funded by the Rothschilds. Also, accompanied Donald Trump as he priced Glocks at a gun store in South Carolina.

5.

THE HOUSE OF WINDSOR

King Charles and Queen Camilla’s state visit to France was regarded as a great success. Unfortunately, the afterglow was short-lived, as Buckingham Palace was soon denying reports in The Sunday Times that Charles’s “decision to keep Harry as a counsellor of state — one of seven members of the royal family who can deputise for the monarch if he is abroad or unwell — has created a dilemma. By law, counsellors of state are required to have a UK domicile, but Harry has no home here after stepping back from official duties”—and being evicted from Frogmore Cottage.

6.

MATT GAETZ

The insufferable Florida Republican claimed to have dated the former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, something she denied (“I never dated Matt Gaetz. I have much higher standards in men. And Matt, frankly is a very unserious politician”). But very serious about trying to shut down the United States government, in the process stepping up his bullying of House Speaker–piñata Kevin McCarthy. It almost made one feel sorry for McCarthy. Almost.

And now for this week’s Diary …

Even though “fast-growing trees were planted in the ruins of Adolf Hitler’s Alpine home to hide the remains of his legacy,” neo-Nazis have continued to regard the Berghof as a shrine, said The Times of London. Now Bavaria has decided to confront the mansion’s history (and better accommodate some 170,000 annual visitors) with an exhibition and a new visitor center. “As long as there are Hitler worshippers, it will never be possible to completely prevent a place like the Berghof grounds from attracting them,” said Sven Keller, the historian in charge. “On the one hand, we have to put up with that, but on the other we have to try to make the place unattractive for right-wing sacralisation. This requires transparency and publicity, and thorough information about the history of the site.”

It was probably inevitable. The late politician and businessman Silvio Berlusconi spent holidays at this Riviera resort and for a time owned the Villa dell’Olivetta here, and even though “in Italy, 10 years must normally pass after a death before anyone gets such an honour,” as Reuters reported, “in this case an exception was applied as Berlusconi was judged to be one of those ‘people who have particularly served the nation.’” The honor in question? A street in his name, the one connecting Portofino’s central piazza with Berlusconi’s former villa (now owned by Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana), which will soon be anointed “Via Berlusconi.” Fine, but what’s wrong with, oh, Boulevard of the Bunga Bunga?

An open-air movie theater in this Siberian city was but one of many venues in Russia screening pirated copies of Barbie. “Russian film distributors adopted an illicit scheme last year by obtaining digital copies of movies shown in Kazakhstan via the messaging app Telegram,” reported The Moscow Times. The Tyumen screening’s organizer told the newspaper, “We just want to show movies and provide access to some entertainment in these harsh realities we’re in.” Still, always beware the critics: one film reviewer complained about “sh*tty’ dubbing and pop-up gambling ads,” and the organizers “vowed to continue screening ‘Barbie’ with fewer ads.”

A 39-year-old man who, across 1,300 videos, won 12 million followers and 20 billion likes by lip-synching to old songs was banned from Douyin, the Chinese TikTok, with no official explanation. Now it appears the tax authorities are investigating him: a 62-year-old Beijing woman reported Xiu Cai (an alias), “claiming he had cheated her out of 510,000 yuan [$70,277] over three months, using dividends as bait,” according to Shanghai Daily. Three-quarters of Xiu Cai’s fans were said to be women, two-thirds of them 50 or older.

A judge’s ruling is expected soon regarding the fate of the playing grounds of the Lepic-Abbesses Pétanque Club (C.L.A.P.) in Montmartre. “Last year, city officials warned the nonprofit club that it was squatting [at] the site without any authorisation, and said it would consider rival projects for use of the public land,” reported the Agence France-Presse. “The CLAP says it’s the victim of the luxury Hotel Particulier adjacent to the site, whose owner is a former club member who wants his own private garden.” ”Boules!” said the club (or words to that effect), and took the boutique hotel to court.

Newsbreak: if you’re traveling to Denmark, you should immediately and henceforth stop using the phrases Pigerne fjantede rundt (“The girls fooled around”) and Han er anklaget for uagtsomt manddrab (“He is accused of negligent manslaughter”). For its upcoming edition of the Danish spelling dictionary (you know, the Retskrivningsordbogen), the Danish Language Council is “focusing on gender equality and making words and descriptions more gender neutral and less stereotyped,” The Guardian said. For example, the new edition “adds to afholdsmand, the existing word for someone who abstains from drinking alcohol, which has a male-gendered suffix, a female version: afholdskvinde.” Noted! —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