https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5Kdv1t0NsE
The heart is called Yi [unified power] becuz when intent moves, spirit is agitated; qi is dispersed. Qi is the Mother of spirit; Spirit is the child of qi. The Mother as qi is the horse that guides/conducts the river chariot (yin spirit) in the water (yin jing). Once your mind is away from the lower Elixir Field, your Qi will be led away from it and be consumed. By gathering the Shen into the lower tan tien then the Qi follows it there. Light of eyes descend as Yang fire inner yin qi line
of ‘pythagorean pathways’, which is generated by two letters P and Q representing octave P8 and fifth P5, respectively." Noll, T. (2007). Musical intervals and special linear transformations. Journal of Mathematics and Music, 1(2), 121–137. doi:10.1080/17459730701375026 url to share this paper: sci-hub.tw/10.1080/17459730701375026 "Who says that sublimation by fire cannot be taught, Since only silent circuits can plumb the depth sublime?....This is called freezing spirit."" Taoist Yoga: alchemy and immortality ..."For human beings are nothing but the gathering of ch'i: they live whenever the ch'i concentrates, they die when the ch'i disperses. Nothing is more abominable to Chuang-tzu than "governing the world," since Tao in the form of yin-yang unity is the origin of everything and exercises supreme dominion over the human and cosmic worlds....the unity of yin and yang result in harmony, and that through this unity things are produced. A comparable insight is to be found in Heraclitus: "Harmony consists of opposing tension, like that of the bow and lyre." Thaddesu T'ui-chieh Hang, Taipei, "The Unity of Yin and Yang: A Philosophical Assessment" for Anaximander: the heavenly bodies uttered a flute-like whistle and the circles that carry the stars have "flute-like" pipes with breathing holes through which the fire bursts forth when they are not blocked up. It seems certain that the pressurized fiery vapour escaping from these [ancient Greek] must make sounds or notes that reflect the size and diameter of the pipe, rather like the sound of huge pan pipes played across the dark and misty heavens. The Void of Parmenides as Apeiron is the Siren that creates the energy of the Stars as the Hearth or Air that Feeds off the Light of the Universe To become a Pythagorean he studied your gait and emotions and if you passed then he studied you for three years. Only then could you be accepted to train in five years of silence but you still could not actually see Pythagoras yet. After five years then you were allowed to speak to Pythagoras but still only from behind a veil with him hidden. Xenocrates (4th Century BCE) followed Pythagorean tradition in defining the substance of the soul as 'number moving itself',24 and this on its own suggests that the fragment may be authentic to him.
An alternative approach involves noncommutative geometry , which yields similar results. It seems likely that there is a deep link between the two approaches. It is interesting to note that the theory of DSR has its origin in the work of Born in 1938 and Snyder in 1947....
Our result is also consistent with prior approaches using the apparatus of noncommutative geometry, where the experimental tension bounds the scale to be above 14 TeV....
The effect of the fundamental length in spacetime is to modify the propagator for the virtual photon carrying four momentum 𝑘, by adding an additional term of 𝜂→𝐤
Overall, this would make a contribution nearly 30,000 times larger than the photon propagator to the anomalous magnetic momentum, and would increase the energy scale needed to explain the tension in the measurement by 4 orders of magnitude. It should also be noted that it operates in the opposite sense to the photon contribution. This is unsurprising as the use of the physical propagator is not Lorentz conserving on its own, and there is no balancing factor from the momentum measure.
Yiwu, Zhejiang Province, China - it's 2 am there now. So I was able to figure out how to take a screen shot of a word doc... as a jpeg... hmmm. It took a few tries to fit it all in. On an orange baseball hat:
From Cooperative Commonwealth to Yardstick Capitalism
I haven't been up north since last Fall - but there's a town downtown up north in Minnesota that has a statue in honor of the International Workers of the World - a radical mining and logging union. Did they work with farmers much? The IWW had a strong anarchist connection and now "anarchists" are still targeted by the Drumpf fascist regime - yet that area of Minnesota probably turned to supporting Drumpf?
His father and grandfather were proud miners — and staunch Democrats. It got to the point growing up, Vlaisavljevich said, where "a Republican was a scary thing."
But now, the 60-year-old is a vocal Trump supporter, with a Trump bumper sticker plastered on the front of his desk.... He believes Democrats are too beholden to environmental groups and have become less supportive of mining....Across the Rust Belt of the Upper Midwest, from Ohio to Wisconsin to the Iron Range, voters who sided with President Barack Obama in recent elections instead took their chances on Trump this year.
...most local and state DFLers easily won reelection.
So there is a bit of a schizoid approach as the unions stayed democrat and local politics stayed democrat but on the national level people voted Drumpf...against Hillary Clinton....
Since 1900, Minnesota has voted Democratic 65.6% of the time
he did capitalize on the economic discontent of the 1930s to champion the idea of a cooperative society distinct not only from socialist and communist economic systems but also from corporate capitalism.
Midland Cooperative Wholesale, a farmer- owned federation that sold gasoline and automotive supplies wholesale to cooperative oil associations, sprang up in the Midwest
during America’s farm recession in the 1920s. Struggling with skyrocketing production costs, farmers organized to purchase their supplies collectively.
Midland federation included hundreds of cooperatives throughout the Midwest that had
joined Midland to challenge the primacy of corporations. In addition to cheap gasoline and related products that farmers needed, Midland offered its members a cooperative way of life that strove to build a society based on good will.
By the time it peaked in the 1970s, prior to its 1982 merger with Land O’ Lakes (another
cooperative), Midland was one of the largest farm- supply cooperatives in the United States. It claimed 300,000 members among its federation of more than 700 cooperatives.
Land O'Lakes is technically a cooperative still but is it really?
Her first job was detasseling corn for $2 an hour. During college, she cleaned toilets and painted houses.
Decades later, after working in a number of leadership positions at companies such as Mobil (now owned by Exxon), PepsiCo and Scholastic, Ford joined Land O’Lakes in 2012, where she would climb the corporate ladder to the C-suite.
Her appointment to CEO in 2018 wasn’t just a personal achievement, it was a historic milestone: Ford is the first woman to lead Land O’Lakes in its 101-year history, and the first openly gay woman to become a Fortune 500 CEO.
There are currently 44 women CEOs who run Fortune 500 companies, a record high.
https://familyfarmers.org/?p=784
Family Farm Defenders is an activist group that has campaigned against Land O'Lakes, criticizing the large dairy cooperative for promoting industrial agriculture, driving down milk prices for small producers, and supporting factory farm expansion
Given that 2012 is the U.N. Year of the Co-op, it is also disturbing to have a once proud farmer driven co-op like Land O Lakes routinely violating the Rochdale Principles of International Cooperation, as well as the 1922 Capper Volstead Act.
Land O Lakes in the August issue of Z Magazine. (pdf link) You can read a version of the article here: It\’s 2012! Are You Feeling Cooperative Yet?

As they reached out to their base of former Nonpartisan League members, Farmer-Laborites, socialists, and liberals, the field men “preached cooperation as if engaged in ‘a religious crusade,’” wrote cooperative historian Steven Keillor.
It was great to see so many friends and allies - both old and new - at the 40th Anniversary Shindig of the National Family Farm Coalition last week in St. Louis! Lots of FFD folks were there to celebrate - who can you find in this group photo?
Back to John E. Peck, Ph.D. article on cooperatives!
For instance, the largest farmer co-op in West Africa - Kuapa Kokoo in Ghana – boasts over 45,000 members in 1100 villages, and is a leading force in fair trade through its well known brand name Divine chocolate. In India, the world’s largest dairy producer, over 100,000 co-ops collect milk from 12 million farmer members each day.
in Wisconsin there are 844 co-ops statewide serving 2.7 million members and generating $5.6 billion in sales annually.
For example, Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) - along with two of its top two executives -
was fined $12 million in 2008 by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for illegal manipulation of the Class III milk market at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). In 2010 the U.S. Dept of Justice blocked a bid by Deans Food to buy out Foremost Farms, another "corporate" co-op, which would have created a quasi-monopoly on fluid milk in parts of the Midwest. Land
O' Lakes' website gushes with feel good rhetoric about the U.N.Year of the Co-op, yet some question its true commitment to cooperation, especially when it prefers to import milk protein concentrate (MPC) from abroad rather than pay its own farmers a fair price and promotes dangerous
biotechnologies like rBGH and RR alfalfa that jeopardize the marketability of its own products.
https://znetwork.org/zmagazine/are-you-feeling-cooperative-yet-by-john-e-peck/
https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/trump-influence-minnesota-gop-primary-2026/
Trump lost Minnesota in 2016, 2020 and 2024.
https://www.twincities.com/2026/04/10/trump-foreign-steel-east-wing-ballroom-mn-miners/
The White House Ballroom Controversy: Al King, president of United Steelworkers Local 6115 in Virginia, MN, blasted the Trump administration for using $37 million in donated foreign steel from Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal for a new White House ballroom while Iron Range mines remained idle and hundreds of local steelworkers faced layoffs. King labeled the decision a "gut shot"
“(Trump) says one thing, and you think ‘Good, he’s going to stick with American manufacturing and American steel,’” Johnson added. “And then all of a sudden this comes. It’s just like he says one thing and does the total opposite.”
Yeah cuz Trump is a child rapist according to Sarah Ransome who personally had coffee with one of Trump's victims - Trump regularly abused at Epstein's NYC mansion.
OK I just ordered Steven Keillor's book farm Cooperative Commonwealth!
I also ordered "Luxury lost its lustor" on globalization and sweatshops....
No I did not order from Bezos' website! thanks
Cooperative Commonwealth is an important book that serves two primary purposes. First, it demonstrates the Minnesota Historical Society's extensive collection of farmer cooperative papers and local newspaper archives. Since MHS published the book, it is a quasi-advertisement for future researchers. Second, the book's theme traces the development of farmers cooperatives not as a response to prevailing capitalist principles, but as a completion of economic networks into remote rural regions. Author Steven Keillor demonstrates how Minnesota's Scandinavian farmers established co-ops based upon English and eastern United States models instead of Old World Scandinavian models.
The earliest attempts at establishing union stores failed in part due to inexperience but also because their scope was too broad. But in time farmers learned that the more specific their objectives, the more likely they succeeded. Creameries were the first resounding success. A creamery was established at a crossroads that served local farmers and was soon followed by a store and church. This hamlet seemed to provide all the local farmers needed. Fire insurance mutuals and wheat elevators soon imitated the creamery example. Railroads attempted to piggyback onto successful grain elevators, but farmer control many times prevailed. Farmer movements such as the Grange and Farmers Alliance aided co-op development, but were not instrumental. The fact that co-ops outlived national agrarian movements says more for the local institutions than for national organization. Co-ops eventually bloomed into full-fledged corporate entities such as Land O' Lakes and CENEX. These organizations played important roles in Minnesota politics.
Keillor's book is well written, though the reader will encounter a myriad of acronyms that are seemingly unavoidable. Keillor's writing style can be difficult to follow at times, but he manages to regain the reader's attention often enough so not to spoil the book. The primary issue with the book is its reliance on a handful of sources.
There are specific examples Keillor puts forth to illustrate his points, but perceived generalizations lead the reader to wonder if these examples were true representation across the state. To emphasize his point on anti-county set politics, Keillor points out that the county seats of Yellow Medicine, Brown, and Otter Tail counties came under fire by co-ops because their seats were not centrally located within the counties. However, none of the seats were moved in response. Also, were there anti-county seat movements of co-ops in counties where the seat was centrally located? Keillor does not say. He also uses Freeborn County as his case history for cooperative creameries. But did the same circumstances happen in other counties? By design the book intentionally omitted data from counties where other economic endeavors outpaced agriculture, but many agricultural counties were neglected as well. There is no mention of Stearns, Houston, Nobles, Jackson, Chippewa, Cottonwood, or two dozen other agricultural counties. What are their stories?
One final flaw concerns the last two chapters. Up until these chapters, the primary focus was on the farmers, not the politicians. But by the end of the book, Keillor's emphasis is entirely on the governors and legislators and how they interacted with federal programs of the New Deal such as the Rural Electrification Administration. Farmers become role players in their own economic development.
But there is much to be learned from this important historical work. Keillor sets the stage for future scholarship to either prove or disprove his thesis, and given the extensiveness of Minnesota Historical Society collections, there is plenty of opportunity to expand on the work started here.
We see here that applying the Ritz-Rydberg formula based on Heisenberg's new amplitude formula relies on a changing of the value of K based on the order of K in the formula.
This noncommutativity of frequency forced the use of Matrix multiplication but the "identity Matrix" then covered up the diagonal nonzero values that are inherently nonlocal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcNHTv7Rw3c
Core Authentic Themes
- Apocalyptic Expectation: Sayings announcing that the current evil age would soon end and God would violently intervene to establish a new cosmic order. [1]
- Radical Ethics: Instructions on loving enemies, turning the other cheek, and helping the poor as preparation for the imminent judgment. [1]
- The "Son of Man": References where Jesus spoke of an upcoming cosmic judge (the Son of Man) coming from heaven, which Ehrman argues Jesus viewed as a separate figure rather than himself.
Yes, that’s probably the most widely held view, but I don’t buy it for a minute. THere are huge debates about what the phrase “Son of man” means on the lips of Jesus and which of the son of man sayings he actually said and which were put on his lips by later story tellers. It is interesting that when he refers to the son of man as the cosmic judge of the earth, he does not appear to be talking about himself. Since the story tellers thought he *was* the future judge of the earth, it does not seem like *those* sayings would be ones they would have made up. So I think they (e.g., Mark 8:38) are the ones he said, that he called God’s future judge the Son of Man (based on Dan. 7:13-14), but that after his death when his followers thought he had been raised from the dead and exalted to heaven, they naturally concluded he was the one God would send, and so had him refer to himself with the term — which is why the Gospels report him using it as a self-designation.
No, I haven’t changed my mind. I’m saying that MARK understood Jesus to be the coming Son of Man. That’s very different from saying what Jesus himself thought.
Special relativity asserts that physical phenomena appear the same to all unaccelerated observers. This is called Lorentz symmetry and relates long wavelengths to short ones: if the symmetry is exact it implies that space-time must look the same at all length scales. Several approaches to quantum gravity, however, suggest that there may be a microscopic structure of space-time that leads to a violation of Lorentz symmetry. This might arise because of the discreteness or non-commutivity of space-time.....
The constraint reported here on a possible maximal electron speed less than the speed of light is more than seven orders of magnitude better than previous limits. This limit is strong enough to conclude that quantum gravity scenarios postulating or implying this sort of Lorentz violation are not viable.
The type of Lorentz violation that we have considered also violates CPT symmetry, the symmetry under combined charge conjugation, space inversion, and time reversal. The fact that it is ruled out might therefore be a consequence of CPT symmetry, rather than Lorentz symmetry. It thus makes sense to think seriously about constraining Lorentz violation suppressed by the second power, (E/E Planck).
Carroll, S. M., Harvey, J. A., Kostelecky, V. A., Lane, C. D. & Okamoto, T. Noncommutative field
theory and Lorentz violation. Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 141601 (2001).
For example, string theory predicts that we may live in a universe with non-commutative coordinates [2], leading to a violation of Lorentz invariance [3].
https://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-th/0407149
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1140/epjc/s10052-011-1653-y.pdf
in the noncommutative generalization of electrodynamics the interplay be-
tween a nonzero noncommutative parameter and an external
magnetic field leads us to predict the production of lepton
pairs of low invariant mass by free photons (an event for-
bidden by Lorentz invariant electrodynamics) in relativistic
heavy ion collisions at present and future available energies.
This unique channel can be clearly considered as a signature
of noncommutativity.
, in the framework of NCED, the effects of a noncommutative
spacetime can be detected in relativistic heavy ion collisions
by the grid of the following experimental signatures/filtering
procedures:
the decay of a single noncommutative photon
Bremsstrahlung is the electromagnetic radiation produced when a fast-moving charged particle—such as an electron—slows down, speeds up, or changes direction upon interacting with the electric field of an atomic nucleus. The word comes from German, meaning "braking radiation"
Freeman Dyson in 2002, meeting one of us (A.I.) among researchers
at MIT to hear about their work, defined as “radical” the hypothesis of
a noncommutative spacetime.
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-8994/17/6/923
The non-commutativity of the modified
position operators provides a link between GUP models and non-commutative geometry
models [31,32]. Consequently, the related uncertainty relationships are ∆Xi∆Xj ∝ ϵijk⟨ˆlk⟩
and the uncertainty of the cross-sectional area is connected to the expectation of the angular
momentum operator. This provides a potentially dynamic non-commutative geometry that
warrants further study. Moreover, this provides another connection between the 3D GUP
models in this work and spin foam models [33,34].
We leave these questions—the modification of the Lorentz algebra and the connection
of 3D GUP models to non-commutative geometry and spin foam models—for future work.
This is the Ellie Phillip's system for dental health.
Neutralize=CloSys (original formula - not the "healthy gums" formula). So you "bath" your teeth in CloSys for one minute but no longer - this neutralizes any mouth acids to prepare the teeth for scrubbing. You don't want to "scrub acid" into your teeth yet food/drink makes the teeth covered in acid.
Remineralize = Crest original formula toothpaste (now called Crest Plus but not any of the other newer types of Crest). The original Crest uses "sodium fluoride" while other types use "stannous fluoride" but Ellie Phillips is against the stannous fluoride.
Sanitize = Listerine essential oils mouthwash (the original with no flavor is considered the strongest but mint flavor is fine also).
Seal = the ACT original (now called Restore) fluoride rinse. If you get the smaller size bottle then the fluoride dose is stronger - at .05 instead of .02. The purpose of the fluoride is an ion catalyst to pull in the minerals to remineralize your teeth. The alcohol acid of Listerine actually "etches" the teeth so that the Fluoride reacts stronger into bonding to the teeth.
Stabilize = the mouth saliva itself as "mouth resting" - so go an hour with no drinking or eating for the fluoride to work its magic.
Prebiotic = Xylitol that kills off the Strep Mutans bacteria that feeds off sugar in food. Xylitol also increases the saliva flow and so increases the good bacteria and remineralization process. Have 5 grams a day minimum - so have four mints after each meal. The sooner you have the Xylitol after eating or drinking, the sooner you stop the damage by stopping the feeding of Strep Mutans. Xylitol keeps your teeth clean as a "slick" feel since the dead strep mutans will now easily slough off your teeth through the above mouth washing process.
And added bonus is to get a "flossing toothbrush" from Dr. Plotkins - this brush has "finer than hair" bristles that are extra long to get in between your teeth. Also the brush is lined with silver embedded in the bristles to keep the bristles antiseptic - after six hours of drying.
Ellie Phillips on the need to alkalize your mouth by destroying Strep Mutans via Xylitol
Xylitol is a 5 ring carbon, not a six ring carbon - so the Strep Mutans bacteria starve from xylitol after the bacteria try to eat it....You can WASH plaque off your teeth without even brushing...and xylitol feeds your good bacteria...
Xylitol just needs to be put on the back of your tongue and since xylitol is hygroscopic - it PULLS the salvia out of the top back molars - where the salivary glands are....
Strep Mutans plaque can drop to 0.2% only in the mouth after six months!!
Streptococcus mutans is a primary bacterium responsible for dental caries. It colonizes the mouth and produces sticky glucans that bind to tooth surfaces, forming the biofilm known as dental plaque. It thrives by metabolizing sugars into lactic acid, which erodes tooth enamel
Xylitol doesn’t directly kill Streptococcus mutans in the way an antibiotic would, but it effectively starves them. When the bacteria ingest xylitol, they cannot process it for energy. This triggers a "futile energy cycle" that stunts their growth and prevents them from producing tooth-decaying acids. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]Over time, this process causes the bacteria to lose their stickiness, making them easier to wash away with regular brushing and significantly reducing their numbers in your mouth.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3434645/
The S. mutans and S. sobrinus counts of the saliva samples decreased significantly (p = 0.01 and p = 0.011, respectively) in the xylitol gum group but not in the sorbitol gum group.
wipe xylitol over lesions in the mouth....
Yes, Streptococcus sobrinus is one of the primary bacterial species that causes cavities and tooth decay in humans. Working alongside Streptococcus mutans, it thrives on sugars in your diet, producing acids that dissolve tooth enamel and cause decay. [1, 2]While S. mutans is more common, S. sobrinus is often considered more potent. It produces acid much more quickly and is highly associated with the onset of decay on smooth tooth surfaces
Chemically, pure xylitol is nearly neutral, with a pH of roughly 5.0 to 7.0. However, it actively promotes an alkaline environment in your mouth. Because oral bacteria cannot ferment it into decay-causing acids, it neutralizes mouth acidity and stimulates saliva flow, pushing oral pH above 7.0 to help remineralize tooth enamel.
In vitro tests demonstrated the xylitol concentration of 12.5% was required for inhibiting the growth of S. sanguinis; however, S. mutans was inhibited significantly at a xylitol concentration of 1.56% (24). Kontiokari et al. (31) showed in vitro effectiveness of xylitol in reducing S. mitis. This is incompatible to the finding of the present study, which suggested that xylitol chewing gum consumption did not effect on in vivo growth of S. mitis. It is possible that xylitol selectively affects and reduces S. mutans and S. sobrinus levels without altering load of S. mitis and S. sanguinis, the bacteria implicated in development of oral health.
Bacteria make up the active, living portion of a cavity, but they rarely exceed 1% to 5% of the total mass of the dark, decayed tissue. The rest of the black cavity consists of demineralized tooth structure (collagen), food debris, and mineral stains...The bulk of the cavity is dead, softened dentin and decalcified enamel....
Chromogenic Bacteria: Some people naturally host "good" chromogenic bacteria (like Actinomyces) that form harmless, thin black lines along the gum line, often despite excellent oral hygiene
Arrested Decay: If a cavity stops growing and remineralizes, it can turn dark and hard, meaning the S. mutans bacteria are no longer actively eating the tooth structure
During the first 5 days without food, a person may lose 1–2 kilograms (2.2–4.4 pounds) of body weight each day. Most of this weight loss is related to dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. Over several weeks of starvation, changes in the body usually cause weight loss to slow down to an average of 0.3 kilograms (0.7 pounds) per day.
The more fat stores available, the longer a person can typically survive during starvation. Once the fat stores have been completely metabolized, the body then reverts back to muscle breakdown for energy
thousands of foreign farmworkers had been illegally charged fees by labor contractors to work in the U.S. Some were forced to pick crops for little to no pay in what prosecutors described as a form of modern-day slavery.
Federal investigators seized a trove of passports that they say had been confiscated from farmworkers by the defendants. Obtained by ProPublicaMany farmers speak only English. So they end up hiring contractors to bring foreign laborers to the U.S. and oversee their work.
That outsourcing can shield farmers from responsibility for — or even awareness of — harm against their workers.
Labor regulators have repeatedly failed to make sure that contractors do what the government requires them to do: keep workers safe and pay them what they’re promised.
ProPublica also reached out to over 30 of America’s largest grocery and fast-food chains to ask why they haven’t joined the Fair Food Program or expanded their limited participation. None of the companies answered questions about the program.
by 2030, there could be a need for up to 500,000 H-2A workers — roughly triple the number requested in 2016, the year that President Donald Trump was first elected.
there’s a bill proposed by a bipartisan group of lawmakers that would require farmers to stop working with recruiters who charged laborers an illegal fee to obtain an H-2A visa.
shall offer family housing to workers with families if such workers are engaged in agricultural employment that is not of a seasonal or temporary nature. The worker may reject such an offer.
up to 500 aliens may be issued visas or otherwise provided H–2A nonimmigrant status under paragraph (1) in a fiscal year for range sheep or goat herding.
Some of America’s largest supermarkets (Walmart, Whole Foods) and fast-food chains (McDonald’s, Burger King) participate in the Fair Food Program. The corporations’ participation was originally limited to a select set of crops, such as tomatoes. Some of their commitments since have grown to include more crops. Other big buyers, like Kroger, Publix and Wendy’s, have not participated in the program..... still less than a tenth of the more than 300,000 H-2A workers in the U.S.
Mendoza said that if she had it in her mind to leave his operation, she’d have to do so without her passport. She wasn’t getting it back.... He was charging some applicants thousands of dollars for the chance to get an H-2A visa...... he’d bring in more and more workers that the farmers didn’t actually need, just to get those up-front fees. He’d even bring her to meetings with King.... Mendoza crammed a couple dozen people — workers and their children — into a trailer. She noticed that a few didn’t have enough money to eat. Sofi believed that the workers were being shorted. She remembered Mendoza occasionally picking up calls in the middle of the night, alerts that people were escaping.... Still, she told him no. It didn’t matter. Month after month, closed up in his house with him, he did what he wanted to her.....I’ll call immigration, she remembered him saying. I’ll have you deported. Only after she signed did he explain what the document was: a marriage license.... Sofi took some of Mendoza’s money and the keys to his car and drove the children to a gas station to get them some food. Mendoza caught wind of it and tracked her there. He took the car and made her and the children walk back. And he beat her for what he saw as her defiance.... She recalled him telling her over the phone that if she didn’t stay with him, he would kill her son. She feared that with all his connections in Mexico, it was possible he could. She arranged with her parents for the child to be hidden far away....
On a small wooden table, objects were arranged in an offering of sorts: fruit, cigarettes, a bottle of tequila, flickering prayer candles. In the middle was a photo, placed upside down, of the woman who’d been kidnapped. She was holding a bouquet of yellow roses and a box of chocolates. Looming over the photo was a statue of La Santa Muerte, known among law enforcement as a saint invoked to protect criminal acts. There was blood — what he later learned was the victim’s blood — smeared on the statue’s scythe
Mendoza was indicted in September 2020 for sex trafficking. It was the first big indictment of what was known as Operation Blooming Onion, which exposed widespread abuses of H-2A workers across Georgia.
His charge was followed by a flurry of others — including forced labor and money laundering — against two dozen other participants in what the federal government described as a sprawling, transnational criminal organization. It was one of the largest H-2A trafficking investigations ever.
Mendoza made more than $25,000 a month by charging workers unlawful fees before he would submit their H-2A applications. They also turned up evidence that he’d inflated the number of workers he needed so he could collect more of those up-front fees and that he’d sold the labor of some of the additional workers to farmers not authorized to participate in the program.
prosecutors alleged that defendants filed petitions seeking more than 71,000 H-2A visas, leading to thousands of applicants getting approved when there was no legitimate job for them. They also estimated that the operation raked in more than $200 million in profits by illegally charging workers thousands of dollars to get a visa and by having them work for other, unauthorized employers, not all of them farms, which violates their H-2A contract. One of those workers died of heat stroke after working on a farm where he wasn’t supposed to be.
“How many times did he rape you?” the prosecutor asked.
“Many,” Sofi said.
“How long were you with him, do you remember?”
“One year.”
“And during that year, did he rape you on a weekly, monthly or daily basis?”
“Whenever he wanted to.”
The prosecutor turned to the day of the kidnapping. It was a day that made Sofi fear she’d never see her son again — or, worse, that she’d see her son killed.
this year has led to arrests of undocumented farmworkers — who account for over 40% of all field laborers — and sparked enough fear to convince others to no longer show up to work. If farmers are squeezed further by the shortage of farmworkers, the H-2A program can fulfill that demand. There’s no limit to how many visas can be issued.
.... she couldn’t stretch her $450-per-week paycheck to cover rent, utilities and car insurance — let alone send any money to Mexico for her older son’s tuition, uniform and shoes. The stress wore her down. She developed facial paralysis, but the nursing home wouldn’t give her time off to address it. Then she slipped and broke her ankle. She couldn’t walk, much less work, until she recovered from surgery. Without health insurance, the bills piled up, roughly $24,000. The one thing that could help her — the more than $16,000 in court-ordered restitution for unpaid H-2A wages — had yet to materialize.
extreme stress and fatigue can severely weaken your immune system and trigger vascular spasms. This makes the facial nerve susceptible to viral inflammation—such as the herpes simplex virus—resulting in Bell's palsy
Sofi hasn’t been able to finish her and her son’s applications for green cards. After paying $1,000 for the required medical exams, she couldn’t come up with the $400 to cover vaccines or a reference letter from an employer.
Yes, certain actinomycetes (like Thermoactinomyces vulgaris) not only survive extreme hot temperatures but are specifically heat-loving (thermophiles) that thrive at 50°C to 65°C and can tolerate dry heat over 100°C for hours.
Actinomycetes are beneficial, filamentous bacteria naturally found in soil, compost, and the tea plant's (Camellia sinensis) microbiome. Wow I wonder if I got it from tea?!! Endophytic Actinomycetes from Tea Plants (Camellia sinensis) National Institutes of Health (NIH) | (.gov) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › articles › PMC6241348 by W Shan · 2018 · Cited by 134 — Endophytic actinomycetes from tea plants represent a valuable source of bioactive metabolites with antibacterial, antifungal, and plant-growth-promoting .. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6241348/ cultivated actinomycetes residing in tea plants ...A more recent study isolated 16 and 28 endophytic actinobacteria, respectively, from two tea cultivars Zijuan and Yunkang-10 and showed that some demonstrated antimicrobial and immunomodulatory activities in vitro [32].
Actinomyces naturally colonizes the teeth and gums. While they are usually harmless commensal organisms, a diet high in sugar causes them to rapidly multiply and increases their acid production, which can contribute to dental plaque formation, root decay, and localized infections.
I use a ton of essential oils but I did not target their use on my teeth and gums. So now I am plugging the ginger powder between the gums and teeth and cheeks - and I can enjoy the burning cleaning sensation as the ginger powder kills off the actinomyces bacteria biofilm. Pronounced:
ak-tin-oh-MY-seez.... actinomycetes are living, soil-dwelling bacteria that thrive in compost and organic-rich environments...Streptomyces and other actinomycetes produce the Streptomyces is a well-known genus of bacteria that belongs to the actinomycetes group. Specifically, it is the largest genus within the phylum Actinobacteria (also known as Actinomycetota) and is famous for producing many of the world's antibioticscompound geosmin, which creates a strong earthy, musty, or "wet basement" flavor...
I have self-diagnosed (see below) that since I was drinking a jug of tea a day and had dry mouth - I had a very acidic mouth that was perfect for this bacteria to thrive!! Wow.
https://rmsjournal.org/ArticlesView.aspx?ArticleId=630
Actinomycosis is considered as “the most misdiagnosed disease” even by experienced clinicians and is listed as a “rare disease” by the Office of Rare Disease (ORD) of the National Institute of Health (NIH)....In our lot we noticed three recurrences that required reintervention in patients who had
had short-term antibiotics due to non-compliance with treatment out of four such cases....The disease was determined after identifying colonies of Actinomyces israelii on pathol-
ogy (Figure 5) or bacterial culture from surgically drained pus (15 cases). The histopathology
discovered a granulomatous inflammation located in the intestinal wall, in the omentum,
and of the parietal peritoneum with confluent serosa and mesentery abscesses....The mean duration of
treatment was 6.5 months ± 4.6 months ranging from 3 weeks to 12 months, with regard to
the clinical and laboratory symptoms.
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/12/3/447
It usually requires 6 weeks or longer for an actinomycotic swelling to break down and discharge pus....Infection involving the cervicofacial [throat-mouth] area is most common,
No pus - so must be pretty recent...Simply because I didn't pull my cheeks back to visually inspect my molar side that I chew on - although I did on the other side of my face - the right side molars - the left side molar needs a lot of work. So I definitely would have done this before if I had known about it.
https://www.tooth-life.com/black-line-on-teeth.php
Luckily I will get the cavity filled - and they are on both sides of the mouth - so I have ginger on both sides. The x-ray proved they are cavities but these are just "surface root caries" (see below)
I have not been to the dentist in eight years but I have been eating refined sugar just in the past few years and then drinking a lot of tea so I had dry mouth a lot. Again I use tons of essential oils all the time so I could not believe the black was from the cavity itself - sure enough the black is from the actinomyces bacteria! It is Ferric Sulfide!!
The most common species involved is Actinomyces. These bacteria interact with the iron in saliva and release compounds that stick to the teeth, creating the typical black discoloration.
This results from the hydrogen sulfide they produce, which reacts with iron in saliva to form black compounds called ferric sulfide.
Strangely I did not feel any pain or get any blood from flossing - so I was really shocked to see black along one molar - the gum is black and the lower tooth on the outside. I thought I had stained my gums from black pepper since I eat a ton of black pepper. I think this is part of the black color but the x-ray proved this is not true - that it is actually a cavity.
I don't see any actual cavity or hole - meaning the cavity could still be just a general weakening of the enamel - since I don't feel any pain. But I definitely feel the ginger taking effect with a nice mellow burning sensation.
I will order more ginger powder. Again I use a TON of ginger powder but I was not using it in a targeted manner and so these teeth spots slipped me by.
I just got a dental cleaning just half a week ago - so I'm surprised it would be all black just from plaque. I think it is a combination of the black pepper and the streps mutans.
Black (Cavities/Staining): Teeth turn black only when the decay process is highly advanced (the cavity has deepened),
Yeah like I said - I don't see or feel any hole in the tooth... very strange.
Actinomyces: These are normal oral flora that actively take part in the formation of plaque biofilms. While Streptococcus mutans typically kicks off the cavity process by feeding on sugars and producing enamel-eroding acids, Actinomyces bacteria are highly capable of surviving in acidic environments and are major contributors to root surface caries (decay near the gum line)
Scientific studies suggest that ginger derivatives, particularly extracts, can inhibit the growth of and kill certain species of Actinomyces bacteria (such as Actinomyces naslundii and Actinomyces viscosus)
Yes, you are on the right track! Actinomyces species are primary chromogenic bacteria involved in the formation of extrinsic black tooth stain. They metabolize and release hydrogen sulfide, which then reacts with iron and trace elements in your saliva to create an insoluble, dark pigment. [1, 2, 3]
While Actinomyces causes the staining, the halitosis (bad breath) often stems from a different process closely related to these bacteria: [1, 2]
If the line reappears consistently after cleanings, chromogenic bacteria are a likely cause.
according to the Mayo Clinic, cavities that have progressed to the point of visible dark discoloration have typically penetrated through the enamel into the dentin layer, meaning they need a filling rather than remineralization.
If you suspect the black spot is a cavity, schedule an appointment within 1-2 weeks. Cavities don't heal on their own and they don't stop progressing. A small cavity caught now costs a filling. The same cavity six months later may need a crown, or a root canal and crown if it reaches the nerve.
I was reading Helen Bond’s book ‘The Historical Jesus’ and she suggested Jesus was talking about himself whenever he referred to ‘Son of Man’. I always found that confusing as Jesus seemed to sometimes refer to ‘Son of Man’ in the third person, but sometimes seemed to apply the title to himself.
I really like the idea that the church or gospel authors adjusted Jesus words on this to make it sound like Jesus was referring to himself when in fact Jesus had another person/being in mind altogether.