Jean Charest and Pierre Poilievre are among Canadians’ top choices for the next leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.
Court Painter has risen to the challenge and rendered both front runners with numerous striking portraits of approximation. Everyone who has viewed them agrees he has captured penetrating similarities to the actual subjects however leave the viewers scratching their heads in wonderment. Court Painter has served the greater purpose of Art once again.
You can discern much of Bannon’s mad character and contradictions in these exchanges. The chaos and the focus, the pugnacity and the enthusiasm, the transparency and the industrial-grade bullshit. Also, the mania: logomania, arithmomania, monomania (he’d likely cop to all of these, especially that last one—he’s the first to say that one of the features of his show is “wash rinse repeat”). Garden-variety hypermania (with a generous assist from espressos). And last of all, perhaps above all else, straight-up megalomania, which even those who profess affection for the man can see, though it appears to be a problem only for those who believe, as I do, that he’s attempting to insert a lit bomb into the mouth of American democracy.
In the struggle to mitigate and adapt to climate breakdown – and all the other entangled crises we face – we are starting to recognise that other ways of knowing and acting on the world, from indigenous knowledge systems to changes in our own consumption and patterns of life, are vital to surviving and thriving on a hotter, wetter and more conflicted planet. We know too that this survival is dependent not only on our own abilities and inventions, but on the survival of the other species we share the planet with. The collapse of biodiversity which is already occurring makes it harder for us to hold back the collapse of whole ecosystems on which we too depend: for the pollination of crops, for disease resistance, for safe and sufficient food, for protection from fires and other natural disasters. We will flourish together, or not at all.
The deep knowledge that is possessed by animals, plants and others – their intelligence, we should begin to say – is another reason why we must preserve and protect them. But more than this: we should be listening to them, learning from them and working with them. The hyperaccumulator plants, for example, show us there are other ways of getting what we need from the planet; they also remind us that there are limits to what we should extract, as to turn them into another agroindustrial resource like soya beans or palm oil would be just as damaging. The knowledge that there are other ways of being intelligent on this planet should force us to reassess the centrality and usefulness of our own. Other worlds are not only possible, they have been growing around us all along.
James Bridle is a writer and artist, and the author of Ways of Being: Beyond Human Intelligence
While the Progressive Conservatives may have won a sweeping victory Thursday night, a large majority of Ontarians decided not to bother heading to the polls.
The province recorded the lowest voter turnout in history during the 2022 election, with just about 43.5 per cent of eligible voters casting a ballot according to preliminary Elections Ontario results.
Of the just over 10.7 million registered voters in the province, this equals just over 4.6 million votes cast.
PCs WON 40.8 % OF THOSE VOTES
According to the preliminary results, Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives won with just over 1.9 million votes
The last time voter turnout was below 50 per cent was in 2011, when just 48 per cent of Ontario residents over the age of 18 voted.
No other time in Ontario history has the voter turnout fallen that low.
Court Painter with his recent Ford Dynasty painting.