Stephen J. Williams

Author: Stephen J. Williams

  • Protected: People. People who need people

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  • Protected: We hope, we hope

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  • Would-be oligarch falls to death from sky

    “If only things had turned out differently, 
    this time,” he thinks, undone now by flying.
    His mind’s archives change to melody. They 
    scream a vapid, sentimental song of 
    mayhem in the air that, from down here,
    is just a smudge and smoky curlicue. 
    The old, Austrian seer foretold that death 
    is the subjunctive of our very being. 
    Our birdman, he grasps it now and succumbs 
    to that truth’s sting—his personal pain. 
    In chapels spanning every longitude 
    of its vast motherland, his public hear 
    the solemn knell that tolls his passing hour. 

    Peasants, scholars, drivers on the roads begin 
    to capture his descent on mobile phones. 
    They see it for what it is … proof of life,
    descending earthward, flames. They take a pause.
    The savage boar and all his clan are dead.
    These simple folk believe this life’s no more 
    than a trip to a zoo, where animals 
    root in the dirt and fling their shit about. 
    They thought there was no end to their decline, 
    no respite. Then, a man falls from the sky
    into his grave, and proves the zoo is ours 
    to leave. And governments, disasters, wars, 
    simply, but sometimes by chance, always end.

    Firefighters in Russia (watercolor and acrylic on paper, 20230414) Stephen J. Williams
    Firefighters in Russia (watercolor and acrylic on paper, 20230414) Stephen J. Williams

  • The 193 member states

    The 193 member states

    As the United Nations prepares to pontificate on how democracies defend themselves, it might be useful to remember that across the United Nations’ 193 member states, a substantial proportion are not democratic. According to the 2025 V-Dem report, about 90 states qualify as autocracies, either “electoral autocracies” or “closed autocracies.” Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2025 survey classifies 59 countries as “Not Free,” meaning citizens lack basic political rights and civil liberties. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index 2024 offers a similar perspective, designating 59 of the 167 states it surveys as authoritarian. Although methodologies differ, these datasets all indicate that roughly one-third to nearly half of UN members fall outside democratic governance.

    A handful of states are unambiguous theocracies. Iran and Afghanistan are clear examples, while Saudi Arabia is often described as a theocratic monarchy. Military juntas are rarer but currently in power in about eight UN members, including Myanmar, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Guinea, Chad, Sudan, and Gabon.

    Sources

    V-Dem 2025 report: https://v-dem.net/documents/54/v-dem_dr_2025_lowres_v1.pdf

    Freedom House 2025: https://freedomhouse.org/…/FITW_World2025digitalN.pdf

    EIU Democracy Index 2024: https://www.eiu.com/n/democracy-index-2024/

  • Goethe was for green (pencil pretending to be a Polaroid, 2025)

    Goethe was for green (pencil pretending to be a Polaroid, 2025) Stephen J. Williams
    Goethe was for green (pencil pretending to be a Polaroid, 2025) Stephen J. Williams

  • Bruce (pencil pretending to be a Polaroid, 2025)

    Bruce (pencil pretending to be polaroid, 2025) Stephen J. Williams
    Bruce (pencil pretending to be a Polaroid, 2025) Stephen J. Williams

  • Public relations manager (pencil pretending to be a Polaroid, 2025)

    Public relations manager (pencil pretending to be a Polaroid, 2025) Stephen J. Williams
    Public relations manager (pencil pretending to be a Polaroid, 2025) Stephen J. Williams