Notices by Roland Klose (rwklose@mastodon.social)

In a little more than two weeks since Trump took office, the world’s richest man has created an alternative power structure inside the federal government for the purpose of cutting spending and pushing out employees. None of this is happening with congressional approval, inviting a constitutional clash over the limits of presidential authority. https://www.stltoday.com/news/nation-world/elon-musk-tightens-grip-on-federal-government-as-democrats-raise-alarms/article_ee29fa58-e284-11ef-94da-73897ffaf566.html #trump #musk

“‘The path we are being led down is one of conquest, annexation and ethnic cleansing,’ warned the former Israeli general Moshe Ya’alon in an early December television interview. ‘There is no Beit Lahiya anymore, no Beit Hanoun, the army is intervening in Jabaliya, and in truth, the land is being cleansed of Arabs.’ Israel is threatening to become a ‘corrupt and leprous fascist messianic state.’” https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/israeli-settlement-plans-within-a-year-we-will-be-living-in-gaza-a-bed2eb18-6169-4280-8bb5-1c679e5ca2b4 #palestine #gaza

Margie Hart, born on a farm near Edgerton, Missouri, gained fame as a stripper in St. Louis, but decided to go “legit” in the 1940s. She starred in one film, “Lure of the Islands” (1942) — “a movie that,” she later said, “set pictures back 20 years.” She isn’t in the “Hall of Famous Missourians” — yet. #missouri

The Post-Dispatch was printed in St. Louis for 146 years. That ended Sunday. https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/business/post-dispatch-print-facility-ends-146-year-run-in-st-louis/article_7851ca60-c9ff-11ef-88ee-dbeebe948501.html #journalism #stlouis

“With nearly 2 million Palestinians forcibly displaced, most are trying to survive with little access to water, food or adequate shelter in the winter. Israa had to leave her two young sons behind in a place where children are starving and freezing to death to give her daughter a chance in St. Louis.” https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/column/aisha-sultan/sultan-a-princess-party-for-a-toddler-double-amputee-learning-to-walk-again/article_5c0c9f5e-ce07-11ef-9208-978f07587cc4.html #palestine #gaza #stlouis

St. Louis Health Commissioner Max Starkloff, back in 1900, faced anti-vaxxers, including at the Board of Education, which adopted a policy that accepted the word of parents that their kids had been vaccinated against smallpox. “In many instances, we have found that parents deliberately falsified in order to keep their children from being vaccinated,” Starkloff said. “I regret that this system is to be crippled and rendered partially ineffective by the action of the board....” #stlouis #vaccine

On Dec. 20, 1924, less than 9 months after he was sentenced to 5 years in prison, Adolf Hitler is pardoned by the Bavarian Supreme Court and released. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Hitler, then 35, “announced his intention of retiring from politics.” #politics #fascism #stlouis

“The US presidential election campaign served only to underline what we have considered for a long time: that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse.” https://bit.ly/4fEFGPz via @TheGuardian

@wcbdata I fixed. Thanks.

Stowaways on the dirigible ZR-3 will be fitted with a parachute and “gently tossed overboard,” officers of Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH warned on Aug. 25, 1924. The airship was being flown to Lakehurst, N.J., for its handover to the U.S. Navy. The vessel was christened as the USS Los Angeles in a ceremony held in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 25, 1924. It was dismantled in 1939.

In 2019, on another site, I wrote: “Of all the declared candidates for President, @KamalaHarris is the only one who put my former employers in orange jumpsuits.” https://bit.ly/3Wxy6yI #KamalaHarris

This is the former home of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, once one of the top newspapers in the nation, reimagined by new owners as some kind of tech hub and featuring workplace areas that “encourage happenstance collisions” and an industrial feel “reimagined.” There’s even a nod to the founder, Joseph Pulitzer. (The newspaper is still in business. It’s just in a much-smaller place.) To see the marketing video, go to https://youtu.be/pEnc1HLouUc #stlouis

“The wreckage goes on for block after devastated block. The smell is sickening. Every day, hundreds of people claw through tons of rubble with shovels and iron bars and their bare hands.

“They are looking for the bodies of their children. Their parents. Their neighbors. All of them killed in Israeli missile strikes. The corpses are there, somewhere in the endless acres of destruction.” https://rb.gy/gso1x4 #palestine #gaza