Carrying the Torch

As a sports fan, I love the Olympics.

As a UC Santa Cruz alumnus, I hate hippies. They're the reason everyone thinks Santa Cruz is flaky and stupid. I once had an encyclopedia salesman, sitting in a booth at the Contra Costa County Fair in 1992, ask me if Santa Cruz wasn't a "hippie farm."

Well, it's fucking not. And neither is San Francisco, despite what Fox News tells you.

But this picture says it all. A bunch of white hippies waving Tibet flags and smelling bad. The worst was a stupid cliche of a girl I saw wearing baggie pants under an embroidered skirt, walking around with a stoned, smug look on her face and tearing up a plastic, Chinese flag. Oh, she was also wearing, with no apparent recognition of the irony whatsoever, a NorthFace jacket.

Most of the people down there are Chinese-Americans from San Francisco and other parts of the Bay Area who are stoked to have the Olympics in the country of their forefathers and mothers. The last thing they need is a bunch of white assholes trying to assuage their guilt over Iraq and Guantanamo Bay by taking it out on China for, among other things (again with no trace of irony in their earnest sloganeering), torturing people.

Every day, I watch huge tankers floating towards Oakland to be unloaded. Those huge ships mainly come from China, and I've never once seen Richard Gere on the Embarcadero prostesting them.

Never once.

Update: SfGate.com has continuing coverage. They moved the route to the Marina toward the Golden Gate Bridge, prompting this bit of hysteria from Supervisor Aaron Peskin:

"Gavin Newsom runs San Francisco the way the premier of China runs his country - secrecy, lies, misinformation, lack of transparency and manipulating the populace," Peskin said. "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," Peskin said. "It's the worst kind of government - government by deceit and misinformation."

Awesome. Come to think of it, I do seem to remember Gavin rolling tanks down Market Street to crush all the people protesting against Gay Marriage a few years ago. Just like the premier of China runs his country!

Turns out people can also hate the torch run because China is, after all, still "Red China:"

...[A] San Francisco man named Kevin Johnson, 48, walked into a crowd of torch supporters and began yelling, "Communists!" The crowd encircled Johnson and the confrontation escalated when Johnson pulled a Chinese flag off a man's backpack. Then, someone grabbed Johnson's throat and another person punched him in the face before police intervened and walked him to safety.

"I know it sounds racist, but if they want the Olympics in China they should go back to China," he said.

You're right, Kevin, it does sound racist. You ignorant prick.

Look, I get it, people love the Dalai Lama. I even own a Mac. But I still think we Americans should solve our own problems before we start pointing our fingers at other countries.

The best sign I saw all day was being carried by a man in a suit down California Street that said, "First things First: U.S. Out of Iraq."