Robert and I went down to see the show, and maybe rabble-rouse for Tibet a little. Not planning to interfere, but still be small voices, perhaps even heard. Oh yeah, and we wanted to see the torch.

We were surrounded by very professional pro-china people, who were themselves at least highly confrontational, and tending toward violent rhetoric. We were not comfortable around these people -- they were very successful in their intimidation. We wound up north of the Ferry Building, and fell in with a group of Burmese activists. They handed out home-made flags of maroon fabric zip-tied to pvc pipes, and we waved our flags and chanted. Classic non-violent voicing of opinion….There were various other protesting groups, ghettoized north of the main press area by the throngs of slickly outfitted pro-China supporters.

The police, gods love them, did a marvelous job of keeping order and keeping us all from suspecting the truth. There were lots of police, keeping the path clear, and then suddenly they were all gone, and it took quite some time for people to figure out what had occurred. There were some ordinary folks come to see the torch, but mostly it was a political camera-fest, for all sides, and the torch would indeed have lost significance in the fracas.

By the time that the torch was on its alternate path, Robert and I had tired of chanting and waiting, so we saw the progress of the torch down Van Ness from Sinbad's Bar. We toasted the prank, which did indeed seem rather San Francisco-esque, especially because they didn't tell most of the big media, and they were scrambling! The foreign media, which had been pushed to the margins just as the anti-Chinese protestors had been, had no chance to extricate themselves and get to the actual route.

All in all, a beautiful day for a protest followed by Whippets in a bar overlooking the bay. AND we got to take home our homemade Burma freedom flag.