"Flame of shame"? Flame on!

It's now clear that the masses of protesters seeking to disrupt the Olympic torch relay across the globe — whether it be Ancient Olympia, Paris, London or San Francisco — are doing more bad than good.
I'll expand later this week with an in-depth look at the Tibetan question and China's human rights record, but for now I'll stick to the basics: People looking to share in the rare occasion of seeing the Olympic flame in person with their own eyes are losing out. Good citizens are being denied the opportunity and honor of being a torchbearer because the extent of the demonstrations has forced officials in San Francisco and Paris to reroute and cancel portions of the torch relay.
The protesters will slam these actions as dirty tricks by elected officials to silence or censor their messages — in reality, it's more about public safety.
If the organized efforts to denounce China's role in Tibet and other issues with human rights were not a threat to public safety, I can't imagine the scene from San Francisco being repeated. However, many single-issue groups loosely aligned to the Free Tibet movement have turned these protests into a public nuisance and beyond the realm of free speech. It's only a matter of time before these actions result in people getting hurt, and that not only perpetuates the kind of violence so many have accused China of committing, but it flies in the face of many of the principles and spirit of nonviolence that many forms of Buddhism (including Tibetan) espouse.
In the end, the torch relay is about the Olympiad, sport and the coming together of mankind to compete and honor achievement. There are times and places for those angered by the actions of the People's Republic of China to vent their frustrations and denounce the selection of Beijing for the Summer Games — the torch relay is not one of them.