The Attention-Whore Index

The votes are in, and three magic words landed Meghan Markle in first place: “American,” “Riviera,” and “Orchard.” In that order, as it happens, although they work about as well after random shuffling. While this is only the second solo Attention-Whore Index victory for the duchess, the Sussexes, as a pair and singly, have a combined 11 wins—the most except for you-know-who. Last week’s top finishers: Markle, 36.3 percent; Katie Britt (the emotive, misleading senator from Alabama), 24.7 percent; Donald Trump, 13 percent. Among the half-dozen competitors who trailed, George Santos (8.1 percent) surprised us by not polling better: after all, he announced his return to the political arena. Tough crowd!

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

1.

KIM KARDASHIAN

Her fondness for taking quick hops on her $150 million, cashmere-seat-equipped jet has been detected by Jack Sweeney, the college student who tracks private-airplane use by public figures (last month Taylor Swift’s attorneys threatened Sweeney with a lawsuit). According to Jezebel, “Since January 1, Kardashian has taken 30 flights with her Gulfstream G65OER jet—five of which were taken in one day.... Not only did she make multiple 10-minute journeys but one eight-minute journey on March 4.... The billionaire’s flights have used over 35,420 gallons of fuel and released 425 tons of CO2 emissions … the equivalent of the energy used by 55 homes or the electricity used by 83 homes in just one year.”

2.

KRISTI NOEM

“I love my new family at Smile Texas! The video says it all, and I am so grateful for their help fixing my smile for me.” The judgment of the governor of South Dakota—and potential Trump running mate—is being called into question after she posted a testimonial for a Texas dental practice, “[leading] to a firestorm of criticism, a lawsuit and a potential ethics inquiry questioning whether she participated in an undisclosed advertisement or used state resources,” according to The Washington Post. The dentist who worked on the gubernatorial dentition, meanwhile, took to Instagram: “This gracious leading lady @govkristinoem just received an executive, feminine, beautiful smile here at Smile Texas. I’ll be posting later how we achieved this smile on this gracious, calm, and courageous patriot!”

3.

VLADIMIR PUTIN

Six more years. (For now.) With 87 percent of the vote, Putin could almost claim a landslide of Trumpian proportions.

4.

DONALD TRUMP

A few harmless little remarks—some migrants are “not people,” the January 6 rioters are “hostages” and “patriots,” a loss for him in November will result in a “bloodbath”—and everyone is getting all bent out of shape! Well, as he put it, “Nobody, when you think of the fake news, nobody has been treated like Trump, in terms of badly.” The cash-strapped candidate-defendant also said that Jews who vote Democratic “hate Israel” and “[hate] their religion,” and claimed in a speech that “Joe Biden beat Barack Hussein Obama, anybody ever heard of him? Every swing state, Biden beat Obama but in every other state, he got killed.” Not clear what imagined election the increasingly befuddled Trump was referring to.

5.

RUTH BADER GINSBURG

Unwanted posthumous attention. The winners of the Ginsburg Leadership Award were announced: Elon Musk, Sylvester Stallone, Martha Stewart, Michael Milken, and Rupert Murdoch, “five iconic individuals,” according to the Dwight D. Opperman Foundation, which does the bestowing. Originally called the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Woman of Leadership Award, it “was expanded this year to include trailblazing men and women.” The selections of Murdoch and Musk displeased the Ginsburg family (which is not associated with the Opperman group), with the late justice’s daughter, Jane C. Ginsburg, calling it “an affront to the memory of our mother.” After which the Opperman Foundation canceled the awards. The nominating committee for this year’s awards has not been revealed, but last year’s included Jennifer Flavin Stallone and Martha Stewart.

6.

ELON MUSK

The mercurial Ginsburg Leadership Award honoree, having successfully courted the former CNN journalist turned serial whiner Don Lemon to do a show on X, became Lemon’s first guest—and the next day canceled the deal. Lemon, who later posted the interview on YouTube, got Musk going on hate speech, on his recent meeting with Trump, on his ketamine use, and on his apparent endorsement of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Did the putative free-speech crusader later decide he’d been too free with his own speech? “I don’t have to answer these questions,” Musk said at one point. “I don’t have to answer questions from reporters. Don, the only reason I’m doing this interview is because you’re on the X platform and you asked for it.” Problem solved!

And now for this week’s Diary …

The ninth Earl Bathurst’s decision to break with three centuries of tradition and start charging admission to the 3,000 acres of parkland on the Bathurst estate in the Cotswolds has not gone over well. Local residents and protestors engaged in “a mass trespass,” reported The Swindon Advertiser. “They chanted ‘Whose park? Our park’, with some holding placards reading ‘Right to roam.’” Other signs included one reading, “The peasants are revolting”—a sentiment, one is compelled to note, that might have benefited from a re-write to avoid possible misinterpretation.

This Italian village on Sardinia is one of the world’s blue zones, places where people “enjoy exceptional health and longevity,” reported the Daily Mail. “So it was quite a shock earlier this month to hear Dr Saul Newman, an academic at Oxford University’s Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, insist Blue Zones are a load of old bunkum or ‘statistical junk.’” Something to do with unreliable or missing birth certificates. Although there is evidence on both sides. “Some people will always say they are younger than they are,” Perdasdefogu’s Usunta Floreddu, 96, observed. “But there are also some that say they are older.”

At the other end of the actuarial spectrum, young people in rural France are “embracing” McDonald’s, The Times of London reported. While Beautor still has two cafés, one couple told the newspaper that their generation prefers the “younger” atmosphere of the fast-food chain. (“It’s really clean as well.”) The Times noted that just 25 years ago a sheep farmer called José Bové “became a national hero by trashing a McDonald’s restaurant under construction in Millau in the south of France in a protest against US restrictions on French cheese.” In this case, Plus ça change, plus ça change.

More than 100 surgeons participated in an online circumcision competition organized by two urologists to raise male-health awareness in China, where the male-circumcision rate is low. Each doctor “presented a pre-recorded six-minute circumcision video with live commentary,” according to the South China Morning Post. “Judges evaluated the surgery based on technique, explanation, and innovation … with the winning doctor being praised for his ‘exceptional technical expertise’ and ‘compassionate patient care.’” —George Kalogerakis

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