torch kidnapped by authorities

The Olympic Torch relay just keeps getting more bizarre by the day. Wednesday, in San Francisco, the torch was briefly held captive in a warehouse, then forced into a van and taken to an undisclosed location so that an impromptu ceremony could be held celebrating its arrival and departure from San Francisco. The subterfuge was done to keep protesters from disrupting the torch relay, who are protesting for among other things, a more transparent, less authoritarian government. It's not exactly clear why our government, the United States, is being complicit in such actions, except that hiding its actions from the public seems to be one of the current administration's modus operandi.

The Olympic torch movement, despite its 1936 origins as a celebration of the strengths of the National Socialist German Wokers Party in fascist Germany, seems today to have become more a celebration of its corporate sponsors - and less an acknowledgement of the spirit and hope of international amateur athletics. S'nuff said.