Mayor Gavin Newsom released a few details yesterday regarding the Beijing Olympic Torch jog throughout the city . The route will include areas around the Ferry Building and AT&T Park, but not Chinatown. Why? Well, according to the Gate, "the density of Chinatown and the small streets running through the historic neighborhood make it logistically difficult to include the neighborhood on the route." (But it would look soooo pretty going to Chinatown!) Newsom announced the flame's path after yesterday's attack at the Chinese Consulate, where someone tried but failed to immolate the building, and before the Board of Supervisors had to sit and listen to "4 1/2 hours of public testimony mostly critical of China's human-rights record."
Newsom went on the say that when the Olympic Torch comes to SF, "cheering crowds will outnumber protesters '10 to 1.'" But protesters who arrive without a permits "would be allowed in the so-called free-speech zones."
For those of you fraught with tension and self-righteousness over the Beijing Olympic Torch's SF pit stop, the Tibetan Freedom Torch will travel stop at San Francisco's United Nations Plaza on April 8. Also, a Human Rights Torch event "is planned at Union Square on April 5." Whatever your point of view, there's a flame made just for you.