The opening ceremony for the Olympics was quite a spectacle. There was another scene, less well reported than the official goings on. The protests.

I caught the fever of the East Vancouver protests via my son, Samuel and a friend of his, Ellen. They were both on location and kept me up to date with info which I then tweeted to the world.

For those of you not up to speed on the reasons for the protests let me simply say that it has to do with sponsors (mostly Coca Cola and RBC), stolen land and poverty, poverty, poverty and poverty. How many ways can that be said. Additionally, school closures, arts de-funding and such things as the elimination of a nurse practitioner position from the neighbourhood clinic my mother uses. RBC is heavily involved in the tar sands and hence the environmental evisceration and human disease (Fort Chip) associated with them. All in all, the Olympics are a huge price for the poor and marginalized and, we suspect, the middle class for years to come. That is just the humans being negatively affected. The environment is taking a major hit as well and not just because there are fewer Provincial Park staff and less government oversight of the land and water than there was a brief time ago. With that in mind, check out these vids from the protests yesterday.