◼ Turkey’s decision to ratify Sweden’s NATO application is good news. But the remaining holdout, Hungary, still seems in no hurry to follow suit, whether because it wants to squeeze some additional political or financial price out of its supposed allies, because of its government’s disturbingly close links to the Kremlin, or both. To be sure, Sweden is increasingly being integrated with NATO (and, even more closely, with the armed forces of its Nordic neighbors), but falling short of the formal protection of full membership leaves a gap in the defense of northeastern Europe. The position of the vulnerable Baltic trio would be considerably strengthened if Gotland, a strategically located Swedish island, were unequivocally under NATO’s umbrella. Sweden would not be a free rider. It has one of the strongest air forces in Europe, and its impressive defense sector sits within the country’s technologically advanced manufacturing base. After years of dawdling, Sweden is rapidly increasing its defense spending, which should cross the NATO target of 2 percent of GDP this year. The “incentives” it takes to win Budapest over will be worth it.

◼ The show trial of Jimmy Lai is under way. Lai, 76, is the great entrepreneur and democracy advocate in Hong Kong who has been a political prisoner since 2020. What is his show trial showing? That the authorities are scared of criticism and contemptuous of the truth. In a new development, they have named “co-conspirators”—foreigners who advocate democracy and human rights in China and elsewhere. Two of them live in London: Bill Browder, the founder of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign, and Benedict Rogers, the founder of Hong Kong Watch. The Chinese authorities are trying to scare off anyone who would help Jimmy Lai, or any other dissident. “Hang in there!” a supporter called out to Lai in the courtroom. So should we all, until this man is free.

◼ The Oscar nominations for 2023 are out. The “Barbenheimer” duo of Barbie and Oppenheimer that dominated the summer box office was well represented. Christopher Nolan’s biopic of the Manhattan Project nuclear scientist led the pack with 13 nods, while Greta Gerwig’s arch pink fantasia is up for eight. Controversy has emerged, however, over two perceived snubs for the latter. Though Barbie has been nominated for Best Picture, Gerwig is not in the running for Best Director. And though Ryan Gosling is up for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Barbie as Ken, Margot Robbie’s portrayal of the primary eponymous Barbie is not up for Best Actress. The film’s perceived cultural status as a girl-power statement has helped give rise to accusations of sexism on the part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which announces and ultimately selects nominees. The case for Robbie’s having been snubbed is absurd on its face, given that a woman will win the Best Actress award regardless. As for Gerwig’s exclusion from the Best Director contest, the level of directorial competition—from the likes of Nolan, Martin Scorsese, and (the female) Justine Triet—suffices as an explanation. Gerwig and her husband, Noah Baumbach, can take consolation from knowing that they remain contenders for another category: Best Adapted Screenplay. Though why Barbie fits that category and not Best Original Screenplay is a mystery whose answer would require knowledge of the arcane inner workings of the Academy.

◼ “Words like generosity and mercy sound foreign to them,” Lev Rubinstein said of the Russian government under Putin. “They regard any sign of goodwill, any concession as weakness.” A young librarian at his alma mater in Moscow in the 1970s, Rubinstein grew to love card catalogues and found in them a format for the avant-garde poetry he’d begun to write. Who needs paper when a stack of the small cardboard rectangles will do, each one good for a line or two? “We go our separate ways, do not forget me,” read the last four of the 97 cards of “Here I Am.” Rubinstein was a founder of Russian conceptualism, a pie-in-your-face response to the socialist realism favored by the Soviet regime. He wrote for mainstream Russian publications after the Soviet Union fell and in 1999 was awarded the Andrei Bely Prize, dedicated to writers who defy censorship. He advocated for causes at odds with Putin’s crusade to suppress freedom of expression. Crossing a street in Moscow on January 8, he was hit by a car. He died of his injuries six days later, age 76. “We go our separate ways, do not forget me.” R.I.P.