The NYT's take on the first act of the FIFA World Cup 2006.

An excerpt:

Forty-eight matches were needed to whittle a field of 32 entrants down to 16, and after all that, the surprise is that there were practically no surprises. All the top seeds advanced with little trouble, leaving the usual big fish — Brazil, Italy, Argentina, Germany, England and so on — still very much in the thick of it and almost all the minnows going home.

This is in marked contrast to Korea/Japan 2002, when several unfancied and untraditional teams, like South Korea, Turkey and the United States, went far.

But back in one of soccer's European homelands, almost everything has proceeded according to form, and the 16 remaining teams make up pretty much the same field you would have seen starting a World Cup in 1970: the usual contingent from Europe and South America; a surprise package or two from Africa and Oceania; and one team from the North and Central American region: Mexico, and definitely not the United States.

The only teams' presence that might be termed something of a surprise is that of Ecuador, which beat out Poland to advance to the Round of 16, and Ghana, which surged past the Czech Republic to go forward.

Neither of them are given much chance in their next matches, however: Ecuador must play England, and Ghana will go up against mighty Brazil.

Two Pakistani journalists, arrested March 5 for filming near an air base used by the United States, have been granted bail. Their relatives say they were tortured while in the custody of the Pakistani security ...   more »

A new Pew Research Center study finds both Muslims and Westerners holding unflattering views of the other one.

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Martin Adler, a TV cameraman, was shot and killed Friday while covering a massive demostration in Mogadishu held in support of Thursday's peace agreement.

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In Koreatown, supporters of the Republic of South Korea were out by the hundreds along Bloor Street. But there was to be no delirious street celebration this time like the quarter-final victory over Spain in 2002.

I watched the second half at Clinton's Tavern, which was totally packed -- mostly Koreans, but a healthy proportion of soccer tourists like myself.

Plenty o' chanting and singing  in Korean (and lots of premature screaming on marginal scoring chances :) ), but when Switzerland added a disputed insurance goal at the 77-minute mark,  things got real quiet real fast.

Many Korean fans started trickling out shortly after that. Instead of running in the streets after the game, there was aimless milling around and the occasional "fuck" heard as a verbal expression of frustration.

It would appear that some expressions are universal. :)

And since the Koreans were particularly in-our-face to those flying the flags of nations they defeated in 2002, it would appear some measure of balance has been restored.

From the Beeb. Spot the typo!

Frankie's stories

The rise of the "citizen journalist" is challenging the authority of traditional reporting. Citizen journalist Frankie Roberto has given up a week of his holiday to spend time in the offices of the BBC News website and see at first-hand what advatanges professional reporters have. Here, through the course of the week, he'll be publishing his stories. You can e-mail him using the form on the right, and find out more about his experiment here.

A Beeb story by Martin Shankleman on how HD (high definition) TV actually took away from the experience of watching the England-Paraguay World Cup match.

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While the audience doesn't compare to TV, FIFA has served up 31 million streaming World Cup 2006 clips so far.

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This Beeb article talks about how mobile devices that can offer TV and video are the rage at the Broadcast Asia trade show in Singapore.

An excerpt:

The World Cup seems to have energised people in South Korea, a pioneer in mobile TV.

Sales of handsets for the free-to-air terrestrial mobile service have soared this month to 10,000 per day.

According to analysts Informa Telecoms and Media, more than 210 million people across the world will be watching TV on mobile devices by 2011.

Asia-Pacific will lead the way in mobile TV growth. Informa forecasts more than 95 million subscribers in the region by 2011.

Jon Stewart of the Daily Show found a news item that makes for a dandy quiz question: Of the 32 teams in the first round of the World Cup, guess which one drove around in an anonymous bus?

As a hint, you have two choices: Iran, or the United States.

Here's a Beeb feature on Iran's presence at the World Cup.

A BBC story on Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has some troubling observations about the Afghan national government's commitment to freedom of the press.

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A new round of anti-terror arrests has reportedly been carried out in Miami. The early word is they were targeting the Sears tower in Chicago.

Apparently the suspects have no al Qaeda link. But to this point, authorities haven't said if they turned up any bomb-making equipment or similar evidence.

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says a news conference will be held Friday.

Here are the CTV.ca, BBC and CNN stories.

I bought a record from Amazon.ca tonight. It's by French producer Bertrand Burgalat and is modestly entitled The Genius Of ... . Most of the disc is Burgalat remixing other artists, however, it became a favourite until  I lost it somewhere.

Oddly enough, Soundscape Records (the king of indie T.O. record shops) was having trouble tracking down the disc for me, but tonight, Amazon came through.

The number I would semi-dare people to "top" is the Amazon.ca sales track number, which is 97,151 for this disc.

If you've bought something recently with an even lower ranking, let me know!

Another question: I wonder what the absolute lowest ranking on the list is?

Pretty damned fun- and soccer-loving!

I watched the Brazil game at Cervejaria Bar and Grill (Ossington and College).

Brazilian fans come with a sense of manifest destiny (Oilers fans in the 1980s or NY Yankees fans at pretty much any any point in history know what I mean), so it caught them offguard when Japan scored first on a brilliant shot by Keiji Tamada from within the penalty box. Even worse, Brazil had been outplaying Japan to that point, but Japan's netminder Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi had a great first half.

All the better then, when Ronaldo -- accused of being a big, do-nothing, tub-'o-goo -- scored on a header early in the injury extra time of the first half.

That gave a litle more impetus* to the Brazilian samba-drum performance on College St. -- which ended pretty much to the second the second half started.

* And unfortunately, since people went nuts when Brazil scored, some news photographer felt he had to push me out of his way to get a better picture. There was certainly no post-rudeness excuse me from this guy. But then again, I guess some members of the news media don't wonder why people think they're assholes.

Brazil pulled away in the second half. Ronaldo potted a second, and two reserve players scored, making for a 4-1 final score.

With each subsequent goal, the noise level in Cervejaria grew louder and louder -- and not just peoples' voices, but drums and whistles too.

"BRA-ZILL!!" (thump, thump, thump)  "BRA-ZILL!!" (thump, thump, thump) was a favourite, as well as singing along with the Ole, O-le-o-le... song.

You can see some video of the place from CTV.ca Toronto. Look for 'World Cup Video' down on the right side.

For atmosphere, you can't beat them, although the Korea-Spain quarter-final in 2002, won by Korea in a shoot-out, may well be comparable.

Korea plays tomorow, so we'll see how their fans are in 2006. :)

P.S.:

At 4 p.m., the bar staff let people know they should move their cars off the north side of College or risk getting towed. There were lots o' cops to keep traffic moving. However, on Dovercourt, just west of the party area, there was another small mounted unit on standby at the intersection of Shannon St. and Dovercourt, just south of College (14 Division police station is just a few blocks further south).

At World Cup of Toronto.

Here's some other stuff:

Leap in the Dark: Viva Azzurri -- A look back at World Cup '82: How Italy's win galvanized the Italian-Canadian population in Toronto and made the quadrennial celebration of the world's game an integral part of Toronto's culture.

The Globe and Mail's World Cup blog

Victory pix of Ghana fans at GhanaWeb (H/T to WCT)

Rabble.ca -- A Socialist's guide to the World Cup: Writer Simon Black offers a class analysis of the beautiful game.

The Royal Theatre on College St. was put up for sale recently. Someone I know with connections to the place say it was purchased by the folks who used to run the Mount Pleasant theatre in mid-town Toronto.

These folks may have a plan to develop some of the massive office space upstairs into office space for film and video editing, and then continue to show movies in the evening.

Let's hope that's true!

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai wants the coalition nations in his country to refocus how their conducting the war on terror, and while he didn't say the name out loud he also pointed a finger at Pakistan.

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The Italy-Czech Republic match just ended. Newspaper deadlines aren't until sometime late tonight.

So why do some news shooters feel compelled to ask goofs to pose -- even giving them instructions -- at the corner of College and Clinton in Little Italy?

Wait five minutes, there'll be lots of chances for real news photos.

Incidentally, lots more police around than the last time I was present for an Italy victory. The bike cops and horse-mounted officers are in force, as one example, when they weren't last time. I wonder what will happen if Italy makes it to the final rounds?

P.S.:

Let's see if the Italian partiers have more stamina than the Portuguese. The car horns died after about 15 minutes when Portugal beat Mexico yesterday. :)

P.P.S.:

I watched the last half of the Italy-Czech game at Bar Azzurri. There was a guy in there who looked like Henry Rollins and who was yelling and carrying on like Henry Rollins on crystal meth. Somebody should have taken his picture. :)

A new Senate report on the state of Canada's media calls for an ad-free CBC and limits on market share for giant media companies.

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The Beeb's Paul Reynolds on the Haditha massacre, where U.S. Marines are accused of going on a killing spree last November following a roadside bombing. Several factors may have led to the problems there, he finds.

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Beeb journalist Steve Rosenberg has spent the past few weeks touring the North Caucasus region of southern Russia -- home to such newsworthy places as Chechnya and North Ossetia, where  Beslan is situated.

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The Beeb's Aamer Ahmed Khan analyzes the case of Hayatullah Khan, whose family suspects that Pakistani security services murdered him after he reported that an al Qaeda figure was killed by a U.S. missile and not while making a bomb.

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Just as fans need to be protected against terrorists and criminals, World Cup sponsors must be protected from those trying to use the world's greatest sporting tournament for commercial gain without ponying up.

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A few days ago, in the throes of dengue fever, a painkiller addiction and while being held hostage by terrorists, I wrote the following nonsense:

At some point, however, someone's will gets broken. At some point, someone says, "no mas." That point in time is at hand for the Carolina Hurricanes.

Before I came to that stunningly wrong conclusion, I wrote this:

What a crazy series this has been.

My analogy is a championship fight between two boxers. One smacks the other so hard, you want to hold a mirror over the poor guy's mouth, let alone hold a 10-count. But despite the shot, he somehow gets up off the canvas and finds it within himself to take the fight back to the other guy.

I was sort of half-right, which is appropriate when it's down to two teams. I was just wrong about which team would have the strongest will to win.

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A new Amnesty International report claims that Chinese are selling arms to such lovable regimes as Sudan and Burma. The BBC says its experts independently confirm the report's main findings.

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The Beeb has an interesting special called Urban Planet, about the rapid urbanization of the Earth's human population.

In addition, Vancouver is hosting the World Urban Forum this week. There 's a CP story on CTV.ca available if you want to know more.

Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather and the network are talking about his leaving the corporation that has employed him for the last 44 years before his contract expires in November. But he might have his fingers in a new pie, one being backed by billionaire Mark Cuban.

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NYT researcher Zhao Yan has a month to worry about whether he'll be found guilty of fraud and disclosing state secrets following a closed, one-day trial on Friday.

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Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, has funded the startup of Sharesleuth, a website that will "focus on corporate chicanery and securities fraud," according to the NYT article.

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This BBC story rounds up some World Cup commentary from the African blogosphere.

The Globe and Mail had a story about a new program to help exiled and refugee journalists learn how to ply their craft in this country.

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What a crazy series this has been.

My analogy is a championship fight between two boxers. One smacks the other so hard, you want to hold a mirror over the poor guy's mouth, let alone hold a 10-count. But despite the shot, he somehow gets up off the canvas and finds it within himself to take the fight back to the other guy.

At some point, however, someone's will gets broken. At some point, someone says, "no mas." That point in time is at hand for the Carolina Hurricanes.

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Hayatullah Khan, who reported last year that an al Qaeda commander died in a U.S. missile strike and not as a result of a bomb-making accident (the Pakistan government's story), has been found dead.

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Want to tweak the Albert Einstein or Christina Aguilera entries on Wikipedia? Too bad, they are in the "protected" category.

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