Welcome to the Sunday outing for The Voice’s near-daily Daily View series. As it’s a Sunday, today it comes with a special epic mustache bonanza. Not just any old mustaches you understand.
2 Big Stories
Iran: public criticism of senior figures is becoming the norm
Former President – and opponent of current President – Ali Akbar Rafsanjani has been speaking out. As the BBC reports:
By calling for an open debate about the election result, Mr Rafsanjani was almost openly challenging the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Four weeks ago, from the same pulpit, Mr Khamenei called for an end to discussion about an election result which he declared had been blessed by God.
Former President Rafsanjani played his trump card, by referring to his friendship with the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini.
He quoted Ayatollah Khomeini in ways that appeared to support the opposition’s right to demonstrate.
Mr Rafsanjani even called for protesters who have been arrested to be released from prison.
First World War veteran Henry Allingham dies
As the Guardian puts it:
Born in 1896 to an ironmonger’s wife in a corner of north-east London, the veteran, whose life spanned three centuries and six monarchs, was 67 when John F Kennedy was assassinated and 73 when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon…
He remembered spending a night in a shellhole in Flanders. “It stank,” he said. “So did I when I fell into it. Arms and legs, dead rats, dead everything. Rotten flesh. Human guts. I couldn’t get a bath for three or four months afterwards.”
2 Must-Read Blog Posts
- Nich Starling continues to be the must-read blog for coverage of what’s happening on the ground in the Norwich North by-election. This time he’s got the tale of the Conservative campaign’s highly targeted approach to blogger outreach.
- Readers of my blog will know of my views about the lack of media interest in Mark Cavendish’s sporting triumphs. (Equalling the British lifetime record for Tour de Franch stage wins, and still only being 24, wasn’t enough to get him into the top 95 stories on Sky News.) If he was getting the sort of coverage his successes deserve, yesterday’s controversial disqualification would be all over the mainstream media. Instead, head over to Stephen’s Linlithgow Journal for the Mark Cavendish disqualification story.
Sunday Bonus
Mustaches of the epic variety:
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One Comment
There ought to be a special commemoration in 2009, at the Cenotaph, dedicated to the life and national service and patriotism of Henry Allingham.
His long life as the last surviving ground and sea combatant in WW1 serves as an anti war beacon of light, to spur Nations to remember the total futility of the human carnage of WW1.
Henry Allingham was the last patriotic servicemen to fight in the Commonwealth Forces that gave the supreme sacrifice in WW1.
His name should also be carved large at the Menin Gate or at Flanders.