April 9, 2008
HA HA HA HA Olympic Torch Hilarity
The whole world's watching -- as we make total fools of ourselves over here in the City By The Bay!!! We are literally crying with laughter as we read the coverage of this Olympic torch freakshow online.
So the torch is going from Pine and Van Ness down to the Marina? It's like the Gavin Newsom tour of San Francisco! Will the torch go see Beach Blanket Babylon and shoot some pool at the Tosca next?
And yes, we've gotten it confirmed, the press corps is in fact being ferried after the torch in one of those Bay City Quacker buses shaped like a duck. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
We'll update this post with the hilariousest pieces of news we get from the Olympics coverage, but big ups to the Chron, they deserve a Pulitzer just for the headline "Protestors chase after elusive torch." (alas, it's now gone, or we'd link to it.)
After the jump: Board of Supes pres Aaron Peskin's statement slamming Gavin Newsom for running away from problems instead of confronting them head-on!
Here's Aaron Peskin's statement:
Gavin Newsom runs San Francisco the way the premier of China runs his country - secrecy, lies, misinformation, lack of transparency and manipulating the populace. He misled supporters and opponents of the run. People brought their families and their children, and (mayoral officials) hatched a cynical plan to please the Bush State Department and the Chinese government because of the incredible influence of money.He did it so China can report they had a great torch run, It's the worst kind of government - government by deceit and misinformation."
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Red sox did their world series victory tour in duckboats, same thing,
KCBS coverage is outstanding: They have at least 3 reporters on foot and on bike chasing the torch around town. It's like a crazy scavenger hunt. It's pretty hilarious listening to it.
I wonder how this odd torch thing will affect our tourism?
That elusive torch, it's being reported, is going to be on it's way to SFO right now, and the thousands of people waiting at Justin Herman are going to get stood-up. I think the most likely scenario is that the duckboat is going to launch at the boat ramp that's right there where it's sitting right now, and it could go down to a covered pier where it can be more securely transported to the airport, or the Duckboat could even carry the torch almost all the way down the Bay toward the Airport.
I don't think the amphibious boat has been fully utilized at this point and there is a reason that it was selected.
Good job, SF. I'm proud of your ability to protest, true to the philosophy "It's okay to disagree, as long as you behave agreeably."
Get down, Peskin! Impeach Gruesome Newsom, Communist lickspittle!
It probably will not hurt at all, with the dollar in the dumper.
Seriously folks, I am bummed I could not see some really good violence between the pro-Tibet and Pro-China protesters. With all of the video cameras I am certain we could have gotten some good shots.
This just had the signs of major and highly visible train wreck that would have been horrible for tourism. Now both groups can be angry at the city and the mayor. Big deal. Given the reports, I would rather have this than people punching each other in the streets. Sorry there is not as much to report, but I think from watching and hearing the blog reports people were not exactly getting along.
The boat car was humorous ....
Peskin wanted to see people hurt by our police? Okay ....
at least there was no riot, riots bad, really bad...
What the hell kind of route are they doing? They are going up the road to Park Presidio (hwy. 1).
KGO feels the torch is heading back go SFO.
HEAD ON--apply directly to the forehead
I just want to point out that Akit knows more about the Golden Gate Bridge than the entirety of the NBC11 news team, including the traffic guy.
You're NOT ON 19TH, dumbasses. It's Park Presidio, the secondary southbound exit of the Golden Gate Bridge!
/grew up in the Richmond
//NO, NOT THE RICHMOND WITH THE BART STOP
///is getting angrier by the minute
Just pathetic.
At least our comments can be read versus the 700+ oddballed messages flooding "the gate."
The Chinese government took over the route last night. The FBI, CHP and all local authorities were working for the Chinese government. They just announced that on NBC.
The Chinese government took over the route last night. The FBI, CHP and all local authorities were working for the Chinese government. They just announced that on NBC.
I'm betting that since everything worked well for the Chinese government, they'll offer Newsom a nice free vacation (once again)...
The closing ceremony will be at SFO on the tarmac and put on a plane to the next destination. Argentina.
troymccluresf: thank you for acknowledging a fellow local SF citizen.
And I also believe that NBC 11 news sucks.
Can someone tell how they got from Pier 1 to VN & Bush without anyone seeing? Unmarked car? Star Trek transporter? Did the Chinese Gov't build a tunnel last night?
The hid the Olympic flame, which is, you know, the exact opposite of the symbolism its supposed to be expressing.... oh well.
Damn, I was hoping for, say, a closing ceremony in the parking lot behind the Silver Spur on 20th and Irving.
You do know the legend that the city has some underground basements that can take you some distance; thank you prohibition era!
its not just legend about those tunnels... over at the bar formerly known as Pow on 6th and Mission we went pretty far in a few of them.. then it gets spidery, dank, and creepy...
OK, here's a better theory. Maybe they used a fake flame and torch at the Embarcadero and hid out somewhere with the real torch near Van Ness and Bush.
Flame was lit at McCovey Cove. Runner went behind the stage into one of the pier buildings. Loaded torch & runners onto the buses inside the building so no one knew what was going on. Sent a motorcade, which turned out to have the torch and runners in tow, up the Fourth Street bridge, thru the TL on Ellis Street, and over to Van Ness. First runners started at Sutter/Van Ness. Frequent torch hand offs. Went north to Bay St, turned west on Bay St, where the protesters & supporters caught up to the torch, along Marina Blvd and up onto to Doyle Drive (approach to the GGB) where the route just stopped mid-span and was totally secured from the public. Then Torch disappeared back onto the bus unceremoniously, and the motorcade took the 19th Ave exit South, went South on Park Presidio, Crossover Drive, 19th Ave to 280, to SFO. It's now 4:23 and no one is covering it anymore. It was totally fascinating to watch it unfold across five different local stations.
They got into a van at Pier 46 (or whatever that pier is beside China Basin) and they drove over to Van Ness, letting two new torch carriers get their olympic spirit on starting in front of the Holiday Inn.
"Protestors chase after elusive torch."
i almost died. beautiful.
Wonder how much this "joke" cost the tax payers of SF.... nice job.... probably 1 million dollars ... for what???? oh SF has tons of $$$
Oh Rita, LOL on this one 4-ever. Superior.
A riot between the two factions wouldn't look good on TV anyway. Chinese and Tibetan people look too similar. Better if it were a Black vs. White thing...
ABC TV showed the van coming out of the Pier with the motorcade, but didn't think anything of it. It didn't occur anyone on any of the networks to follow it?
I actually think none of the torches have been real so far, and the real one is drunk in the back room at the Toranado. I mean, who would notice?
The whole thing had a Midnight Madness feel to it...I looked out my window at one point this afternoon and saw a pack of several dozen people, all wearing white t-shirts and wielding picket signs and Tibet flags, galloping down the middle of Battery on foot towards the Embarcadero, screaming their heads off
Ok, as I said before, I watched all the coverage of the torch relay, which was a contsant stream on five channels. Out of curiosity I just went to the Chinese-government-controlled Xinhua news news.xinhuanet.com/english), and the after-the-fact government propaganda on what happened in Paris and London is disturbing, of course, but now what's eerie is to see the sanitized SF story & photos, and the big lie planted in the story: "At one point, Tibetan separatists tried to disrupt the torch relay. They tried to grab the torch, but were pushed back by police escorting the torch relay, a Xinhua correspondent witnessed." I was watching and it never happened. Hopefully the whole world is watching too.
About funding the cops: News from the past few days notes that some of the funding is coming from the feds and the state.
Gees... how much more cash strapped are we?
I'm just amazed Gavin wasn't in Hawaii while all this was going on.
Peskin's concern for others (such as the torch bearers) remains the same: utterly non-existent.
Congratulations, voters of District 3, the voice who represents you belongs to a megalomaniacal attention whore.
I saw this movie once. I think it's called It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. It's hoot! Mad cap comedy as they used to say. I don't remember the torch relay, but everyone was chasing after everyone, so it must be the same movie.
@SFNYGirl: There was an instance of police tackling a protester who almost made it to the torchbearer on Van Ness just south of Chestnut; this was when the big phalanx started.
@DC1974: And yes, it was a lot like it's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, except along the Marina instead of Santa Monica bluff.
I only feel sorry for the people who waited patiently at Justin Herman plaza to see the torch. Only my constant monitoring of the sftorch twitter stream and being on a bike made it possible for me to see the torch run.
I found the protesters for the Uygers, the Vietnamese, and the surprisingly suburban looking Darfur people most affecting, more than people spoiling for a fight over the torch itself.
I wish the people expending all this effort on the torch protest would spend time figuring out how to use technology to spam mobile phones on Mainland china with true images of what's going on in Tibet, Darfur, and the rest of it, instead of creating a media event that will only play in Western media. If we can't counteract domestic Chinese nationalism, the whole effort is pointless.
If there's one thing that Gavin does better than anyone, it's dodging confrontation.
I love Peskin's comment. To wit: damnit, Gavin, we here in San Francisco like nothing better than having a damn circus and you ruined our damn circus. And comparing him to the Chinese Premiere is total Godwin.
Mmmm....overreaction much?
Did Rosie Ruiz carry the torch?
@ troymccluresf
Finally someone else starts using the close-tag right-slash in their SFist comments!
And yes, I do remember you from such educational films as "Lead Paint, Delicious but Deadly" and "Here Comes the Metric System".
/had to Google it to get verbiage correct
Oh Rita...great job!
As I was riding my bike over to the opening ceremonies around noon, I noticed cops on almost every streetcorner in the Van Ness/Pine area. I had an intuition that the route might be changed to Van Ness. If only I trusted my intuition more.
It was interesting visiting the McCovey area where I was the only one I saw with Tibet support garb. Several Chinese supporters politely told me they were offended by the tibetan flag I was wearing, and one just yelled at me in Chinese. What was truly surprising to me was that they all blamed the Tibet unrest on western media printing lies. They seemed to really believe that the atrocities in Tibet were not real, just western propoganda. It was eye opening for me that even the Chinese here in the US believe the Chinese government propoganda.
Oh, and in case you haven't heard: not one but two torchbearers held tibetan flags while carrying the torch.
Yes, Majora Carter tried to pull out a flag along Van Ness, but the two baseball-capped Chinese Army tae kwon do secret forces dudes quickly pulled it away from her and put her back on this bus. It took about three seconds for it to start & finish. Who was the other one? What the xinhua news piece said was that a protester broke through the police line and made a grab at the torch and then was pushed back by police. That didn't happen. The phalanx of cops started with the torch at Sutter & Van Ness and it was two or three cops (including bikes & motorcycles) deep: no one got close enough to the torch to do anything except the bearers & two tkd army torch-watchers. There was one pile-on of cops on someone at one point, next to a parked car perhaps on Marina Blvd, but the person definitely wasn't within grabbing distance. It's disturbing that most of the reported comments by the Chinese are total denials of what is happening in Tibet, saying things like "We treat them well" (on the TV coverage), and Solamit's comments #45, and even statements from Chinese students residing in the US who presumably have all the access they could want to "free" and unbiased media.
peskin is a such a douche.
Tae Kwon Do is a Korean martial art, dummy...