Nude painting of Stephen Harper promotes Tim Hortons!

In Kingston Ontario a nude painting of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was submitted by Kingston artist Margaret Sutherland to the Arts Council's Annual Juried Art Salon.

The painting is titled "Emperor Haute Couture" . Its on display in a Kingston Public Library. I presume that the entrance to the library has some suitable warning about this library contains adult content etc..However the library decided that the painting would be removed when children's events are held in the room where the painting is displayed. The artist objected to this so a compromise was reached. The nude is now covered with a cloth making it opaque to the naked eye when children are present.

The painting is a political satire and is a takeoff on an 1863 painting by Manet called Olympia.which features a Venus like nude attended to by a slave. In the Sutherland painting the nude Harper is attended to by a headless woman in a power suit who gives him a Tim Hortons coffee on a silver plate. There is a dog in the painting.

The prime minister's office issued a release pointing out that everyone knows that the prime minister is a cat person. An opposition member said that this was one time when he was in favor of a Conservative cover up. For more see this article and here in the local paper.

UPDATE: You are too late the painting has been sold for 5,000 dollars. The buyer's identity has not been revealed. Probably a good investment. 

Anti-terror caravan to stop in Kingston area..

This is from thewhig. I am surprised that the caravan is pressing for an Arar type inquiry for Almalki et al. There is not a snowball's chance in hell of this happening since the government has already set up the Iacobucci Inquiry that is examining the cases of the three men. The government will avoid another Arar type inquiry like the plague. The Arar Inquiry not only revealed the ineptitude of our intelligence services but it cost the government millions to Arar and for the inquiry and much dirty linen was glimpsed in public hearings. However, no one was ever disciplined or punished. Some involved have since been promoted.
The standard from now on will be set by the Iacobucci inquiry. Few public hearings and all meetings with security officials in secret with not even lawyers present.

Anti-torture caravan to stop in area
Posted By Ian Elliot
Posted 2 days ago
Kingston and surrounding communities will be included in the travels of an anti-torture caravan that is making its way from Toronto to Ottawa.

The Caravan To End Canadian Involvement in Torture, part of a campaign to pressure the federal government to end its use of secret security certificates and its practice of deporting citizens to countries that are known to practice torture, will stop in this area next week.

The caravan, which will feature hooded activists dressed in orange jumpsuits and shackles, will hold several marches, vigils and public events in Napanee, Kingston and Gananoque, said organizer Matthew Behrans of Toronto.

One of the protests will be held in front of Millhaven Institution, where the federal government erected a special facility to hold people being detained on security certificates, and which still houses one inmate.

"That's obviously somewhere we wanted to include," said Behrans, a longtime social-justice activist.

The caravan will arrive in Napanee on Tuesday, where its members will have lunch with members of the Amnesty International chapter there.

They will hold their vigil outside Millhaven around 2:30 p.m. and arrive in Kingston later that afternoon, where they will hold a public talk at the downtown branch of the public library at 7 p.m.

The featured guests will be three Canadians who were tortured in Syria and Egypt on information organizers say was supplied by the Canadian government - Abdullah Almaki, Ahmed El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin.

One of the purposes of the caravan is to press the Canadian government to hold a public inquiry into the cases of the three men, similar to what it is now doing for Maher Arar.

ielliot@thewhig.com