Bureaucracies, Free Speech and the Right to Know
The Challenges of Transparency in Local Government - in fact any government!
My journey into the bureaucratic maze of local government has been interesting and revealing. During my team’s election campaign, there were two key principles that we enunciated:
Bad systems will beat good people 100% of the time (we believed that the bigger council area had created a “system” where poor results are inevitable), and
The people who caused the problems can’t fix them (current councillors were part of the problem rather rather than the solution).
Local voters voted for some change but eight of the 11 councillors from the previous council were elected again to the new council. It will be difficult to propose de-amalgamation to create simpler and more accountable local governance.
Our local council has an area of more than 15,000 square kilometers, which is the result of a bad “solution” applied by the New South Wales state government. The belief in most government circles is that big is better. The process then is that the government commissions an “independent” report where the deck is already stacked because the “independent” group knows what the government wants as an outcome.
In the case of three smaller councils in our region, KPMG provided a document titled: Merger Business Case: Bomala Council, Cooma Monaro Shire Council & Snowy River Shire Council. This document was written in 2015 and so I decided to examine the recommendations provided.
The essence of the document is related to the financial sustainability of the three councils. It is difficult to understand (from first principles) if there was financial unsustainability of the three councils, how a merged council that was certain to be more bureaucratic, could deliver improved financial results. The KPMG report indicated the net financial benefit was dubious unless the New South Wales government threw in a lot more cash, which they did for a short period. Of course, now there are further financial sustainability issues.
There were clear warnings in relation to a merger. The KPMG document noted:
“It is important to consider the experiences of other jurisdictions that have undertaken local government reform and note the challenges of implementing reform. There is a notable absence of comprehensive reviews examining the success of these reforms.”
“The financial analysis indicates a merged council would not meet all
the Fit for the Future financial benchmarks……and the expected net financial
benefit of the merger is unlikely to be of sufficient quantum that would enable a
merged council to invest heavily in these areas.”
“The assumptions adopted in the financial analysis are conservative and acknowledge the likely difficulties in generating efficiencies and economies of scale from the proposed merger. The three councils’ resources are already stretched and are primarily focused on front-line service and maintenance functions.”
“This indicates a proposed merger, while generating a net financial benefit to the region, is unlikely to completely resolve the financial pressures currently experienced by each of the councils’
“..a merger will lead to reduced local representation and governance, as measured by the ratio of residents to elected officials”;
The warnings were clear and the benefits illusory and theoretical. Of course, the government that was committed to the merging of councils ignored all the warnings but now local ratepayers are left with the cost and mess associated with the merger.
As a new councillor, the processes for governance are opaque and seem designed to ensure that councillors cannot find out information, while all the power resides with the senior management, who provide “advice” to the councillors. Trying to find my way through the system feels like fighting your way through blancmange (which is an unknown delicacy to younger generations!).
The Snowy Monaro Regional Council (SMRC) Meeting & Councillor Induction
The first meeting of new council meeting was held on 10 October 2024. As I wrote last week, there was a certain amount of drama behind the scenes because one of the elected councillors had been banned from in-person attendance at meetings, before the council had even met. This impasse was resolved by a legal threat to take out an injunction against the council in the New South Wales Supreme Court. It appeared that the “ban” had no legal foundation because, following the council’s own legal advice, the councillor concerned was allowed into the meeting. After obtaining this legal advice, the CEO of the council resigned.
There was a certain amount of chaos at the start of the meeting when there were differernces of opion as to how the oath of office could be taken. Eventually, there was an attempt to carry this out and there was an election for mayor by the councillors. This resulted in the previous mayor being re-elected.
The issues around the CEO’s resignation were one of the first orders of business for the new council because the Guidelines for the Appointment and Oversight of General Managers state on page 15: “The general manager may terminate the contract by giving 4 weeks written notice to the governing body of the council.”
However, the newly elected council decided by a majority vote that the councillors (the governing body of the council) did not need to see the resignation letter from the CEO because it was a “personnel issue”. Elected councillors were prevented from fulfilling their governance obligations. This raised suspicions that the “secret” resignation contained material that may be embarrassing or perhaps raised further legal issues for the council.
For Sons of Issachar readers of a more masochistic bent, you can view the video of the first council meeting at this link.
There were some clear lessons from the first meeting of the council that were evident to me:
Transparency is the enemy of the bureaucratic state. Large organisations find that information is best hidden from those who may find malfeasance. It is worthwhile remembering that it was not the Watergate break in that finished President Nixon off, it was the cover up;
Governance is a legal obligation of the whole body of coucillors but governance responsibilities are able to be prevented by a majority vote, without consideration of statutory obligations;
The welfare of those working and involved with bureaucracies will always come before the welfare of those who pay the salaries of the bureaucrats - ie look for the self-interest factors;
Breaching various parts of the Local Government Act (the overriding legislation) seems to be a second order issue to maintenance of power.
This short YouTube clip summarises the problems we increasingly find in a society where the bureaucratic state assumes more and more power. The local council is a microcosm of the broader problem - the increasing power of the administrative state and unelected bureaucrats. In the case of our local council, the problems of an unresponsive and inefficient bureaucracy were inevitable, following the decision taken (despite warnings) to amalgamate smaller, responsive councils into a larger, unresponsive one.
My journey into the dark recesses of council bureaucracy already seems to be one where it is possible to be trapped in the maze of thousands of pages of legislation that is helpful but difficult to enforce. With 11 councillors, the majority can simply vote that black is white and it becomes “fact”.
A few fellow-councillors and I are attempting to stand on core principles of transparency and the responsibilities of governance which are clearly laid out in the Local Government Act. It does look like a difficult journey and I will keep my Sons of Issachar readers updated along the way. I suspect though that it may end up like that old song: I fought the bureaucrats but the bureaucrats won!
Free Speech, Misinformation and Disinformation
The idea (probably always an illusion) of free speech is now largely being overturned throughout the West under the banner of stopping “misinformation and disinformation”. There seems to have been a coordinated program to restrict free speech in the UK, Canada, the EU, the US and now Australia. A Bill is before the Australian Parliament titled: Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation. The proposed legislation would arm a group of unelected bureaucrats: The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), to take control of our communications. The government’s “spiel” about the bill tells us:
“The bill proposes to amend the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 and would make consequential amendments to other Acts to establish a new framework to safeguard against serious harms caused by misinformation or disinformation.
The bill would provide the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) with new regulatory powers to require digital communications platform providers to take steps to manage the risk that misinformation and disinformation on digital communications platforms poses in Australia. These would include obligations on providers to assess and report on risks relating to misinformation and disinformation, to publish their policy in relation to managing misinformation and disinformation, and develop and publish a media literacy plan.”
There are various sinister elements of the proposed legislation. Of course, the primary concerns are how to define misinformation or disinformation. In Australia it was considered early in the roll out of COVID-19 “vaccination” that it was misinformation or disinformation to question any of the vaccines. Then the government itself decided that there were potential serious harms related to the Astra Zeneca vaccine, after previously promoting its safety and efficacy. So - it seems that some “misinformation” and “disinformation” is just a matter of timing.
In the new Australian legislation, there is also a very sinister part of the Act that would require “providers” to “develop and publish a media literacy plan”. This would require “providers” to identify what are accurate sources and what are inaccurate ones. It is likely that various educational institutions would come under such a plan and so sources that are deemed to be “misinformation or disinformation” could not be cited.
Orwell’s famed Ministry of Truth is coming into being before our eyes, with seemingly no way to prevent it. We would all find ourselves under the jackboot of a media overlord that determines what we can know and what we can’t.
Peta Credlin, the former chief of staff to Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott wrote this week about the dangers of the proposed Bill in an article in the Australian Newspaper. She writes:
“Make no mistake, the federal government’s Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation Bill – which it wants to ram through the parliament in time for the next election – is a dagger aimed at the heart of our democracy………
The government’s official impact analysis of the bill says “some examples of gendered misinformation and disinformation are … spreading false information … to undermine and reverse the rights of … LGBTIQ+ people by implying that these rights are coming at the expense of other groups”. So, what seems self-evident to the Albanese government would be enough, for instance, to ban from social media almost everything JK Rowling has said defending the rights of biological women….
One of the most sinister aspects of this new censorship is its selectivity. The prohibitions on information that’s deemed to be intentionally or unintentionally false or harmful won’t apply to the statements of government or the reports of media organisations, most of which lean to the left……
This is an extraordinary attack on the free speech that’s essential to a functioning democracy, including the right to say things that might be mistaken, ill-judged, impolite or even harmful – given that these are nearly always subjective judgments – and that what’s thought to be wrong today could turn out to be right tomorrow.”
Citizens everywhere should be alarmed as governments seek to tighten censorship and make the whole concept of freedom of speech - dangerous. The United Nations has been promoting the idea of the “dangers of disinformation”. The UN Human Rights Commissioner, Michelle Bachelet in 2022 said that disinformation was a symptom of global diseases:
“a symptom of diseases such as systemic inequality, which has seen “deep-seated discrimination” flourish, along with fragile institutions, a loss of trust in effective governance, and “limited rule of law”.
We are all facing a dangerous period ahead and freedom of speech is disappearing before our eyes. There have been many submissions (including mine) to the Australian Government about its draft draconian Misinformation and Disinformation Bill. However, I suspect that the government will press on despite widespread objections because controlling information is in the interests of authoritarian governments.
John and Nisha Whitehead wrote a timely article this week: Disinformation Isn’t the Problem. Government Coverups and Censorship Are the Problem. I recommend that you read the article but I will use the opening paragraph, with a quote from Hannah Arendt, who wrote after World War II, about the dangers of totalitarianism:
“What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer… And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.”—Hannah Arendt
ARTICLES THAT CAUGHT MY ATTENTION THIS WEEK
Globalists are taking the mask off
Brandon Smith writes for Alt-Markets.US and courtesy of Patrick Wood’s Technocracy News (definitely worth a subscription), I read his article this week titled: Globalists Are Taking The Mask Off And That’s A Bad Sign…
Mr Smith makes the point that the globalists were able to stage a “public health emergency” and enact various emergency laws that denied the basic rights of most countries in the West. Many people have forgotten about these events but here is an extract from his article that sets out the challenges that we face:
“Remember the last time the globalists took the mask off? It wasn’t that long ago, but some people might have already forgotten how the western world almost lost all individual freedom under the guise of an over-hyped health emergency. When globalists are honest about what they truly want, it usually coincides with an engineered calamity.
In the two years since the failure of the covid pandemic narrative I have argued that globalist organizations are trying to regroup under a new plan. The evidence suggests that these people suffered a shocking revelation after their attempt to implement perpetual medical tyranny. They’ve realized they don’t have as much control over the flow of information and public discourse as they originally assumed.
Even with full-spectrum censorship using algorithms to bury contrary data, even with the full force of the government partnering with social media to silence dissent, even with the threat of economic exile for anyone refusing to take a steady series of mRNA jabs, they still failed. The truth about covid’s minimal Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) still spread, along with data proving the uselessness of the mandates and lockdowns. There was nothing they could do about it.
Their golden ticket to total control was pushing the vaccine passport concept; the alternative media crushed that agenda like a pestilent cockroach. If the passport had been successful we would not be having this conversation now. Everyone would be in fear of having their passport rescinded. Everyone would be afraid to lose their economic access for saying the wrong thing. Everyone would be afraid of being forced into covid camps (which were indeed a real agenda). Or, we would be in the middle of a bloody civil war.
The events of 2020 were meant to initiate the ultimate coup against humanity. The globalists admitted to their plans over and over again. Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum proudly declared covid the catalyst for the “Great Reset” and the “Fourth Industrial Revolution.” They asserted that the lockdowns were just the beginning and that the sweeping restriction on our freedoms would be extended to climate change as well.
They thought they had won without firing a shot, but it’s not that easy. Far more people are awake and aware of their motives than they realized, and, at least in America, over 50 million of those people are armed. The lockdowns are now gone, almost no one took the vax boosters, far fewer people took the vaccine than the CDC claims, and the vax passports were defeated. This victory was made possible due to the efforts of alternative media platforms circumventing Big Tech censorship. It’s that simple.
This is why the next event will probably be far worse in scale and consequence, and the globalists are already attempting to rectify their previous mistake of underestimating citizen journalism. They will try to silence us if they can and they are openly admitting to it in recent conferences and mainstream articles. The mask is coming off once more and this suggests to me that something very bad is about to happen.
As I noted in 2023 in my article ‘From Covid To Climate Change: Vehicles For Global Authoritarianism’, the globalists seem to have shifted their more tyrannical efforts away from the pandemic and into the climate discourse. If you really want to know what they are up to these days, you have to watch the climate conferences.
At the end of September there was a host of climate change summits including one held by the WEF in New York called the Sustainable Development Impact Meeting. It was held by the WEF in tandem with the United Nations General Assembly. Not surprisingly, discussion often veered away from climate into “threats to democracy” as well as bitter complaints about the “spread of disinformation.”
John Kerry, former Democratic presidential candidate, former Climate Czar under Joe Biden and a longtime participant in the WEF, said the quiet part out loud at the summit. He argued that the 1st Amendment was a “roadblock” to proper governance and was preventing the elites from controlling public consensus.
……..
When political elitists and their lackey’s start attacking free speech it’s usually in preparation for a major crisis that they hope to use as a vehicle to eliminate public freedoms. Free speech is the most important liberty because it enables the populace to discern through debate what the truth is and what to do about it.
The globalists thought they had a lock on information during covid and they were wrong. They won’t make the same mistake again. Whatever the next crisis ends up being, they will definitely seek to silence the the alternative media and any rebellious social media platforms before they move forward.”
Silencing of media and alternative news voices is part of a bigger picture situation that is in play and that I have discussed above in relation to Australian “misinformation and disinformation” laws. We need to do whatever we can to resist this overreach as the globalists attempt to corral us into a zone of silence.
Report Card on the Milei Presidency in Argentina
Javier Milei was elected President of Argentina in December 2023. He came to prominence by staging some remarkable stunts during the election campaign, including holding up a chainsaw at rallies to show his intentions to cut the bureaucracy.
An article in worldaffairsbrief.com this week had a brief analysis of the first 10 months of Milei’s presidency:
“Hans-Herman Hoppe, a classical libertarian in the school of Ron Paul and Murray Rothbard, gives this analysis of Milei’s partial success as the first major libertarian president to rule in Latin America.
Internal Affairs: He abolished Rent Controls but he did not eliminate all price controls, e.g. on medical insurance. Some subsidies were eliminated, but not all. There was some privatization, but nothing major, Hoppe says.
Milei removed 70k Civil servant jobs, but many were simply shifted to other jobs in the government to avoid the backlash of unemployment. He cut some taxes but raised others, such as fuel and imports. He also introduced new taxes.
On the budget, the government budget did show a surplus, but this was used by the government and not returned to the people in the form of lower taxes. Lastly, he is still centralizing power in the federal government, rather than lessening federal power.
My comments (Joel Skousen): The reason for the latter is that these are federal regulations and national socialistic laws and they have to be undone at the federal level. Also, and most important, Milei does NOT have a majority of control in Congress, and thus can’t achieve all he may want. It is true that the stock market in Argentina is much higher, even though the economy is only marginally better. That may be because investor optimism is high for now, out of anticipation of more reforms. But if they don’t materialize in the long-term, stocks won’t stay high.
Monetary Policy: Hoppe says Milei failed to abolish the Central Bank and their monopoly on the creation of money, one of his major campaign promises. If you can’t create money to fund the government, then you are left only with taxation, which is very unpopular with the productive class, and harmful to economic growth.
Inflation has declined some, but is still over 250%! To stop this hyperinflation you have to stop printing more money and distributing it via government contracts, programs, and salaries.
In recent months there has been a rapid increase in the money supply. “Massive amounts of gold were shipped out of the country—without explanation, which concerns Hans. Argentinians have the highest per capita percentage of people with dollar holdings outside the USA—because of the high inflation.”
Milei promises to dollarize the economy, but he hasn’t made dollars official currency (legal tender). Even worse, citizens have to pay a tax penalty when you convert to dollars and when you convert back to pesos to pay bills. That keeps dollarization from occurring.
Then in the last third of his speech, he goes off on his Libertarian rant about why every country should be neutral and never go to war, which is very naive and a denial of the nature of systematic evil and why you have stop nuclear missiles before they fly. It isn’t like a nation can hunker down and wait for a conventional invasion anymore. Being non-aligned and neutral won’t deter an enemy like Russia and China.”
President Milei seems to have achieved a lot but has significant roadblocks along his road to reform. It will be interesting to see how the country is functioning this time next year. There has been some improvement in the country’s economy but there is a long way to go.
Criminalization of Prayer
The UK and US have brought in various laws that attempt criminalize prayer. It is interesting that these laws, usually proposed by atheists, seek to criminalize an activity that results in petitioning God, whom they believe doesn’t exist. Cognitive dissonance?
Jack Montgomery, writing in the National Pulse this week, highlighted issues associated with recent legislation introduced in the Scottish Parliament. He writes:
“Christian and pro-life groups are raising alarms over new abortion laws in Scotland, which could criminalize prayer even in private homes. The legislation, which took effect last month, establishes 200-meter (~656-feet) “safe access zones” around all abortion clinics, banning activities that supposedly “harass, alarm, or distress” abortionists and their patients—including silent prayer vigils.
Even people living within these zones now face the possibility of prosecution for actions people can see or hear from outside their homes. This means activities such as praying aloud or displaying religious symbols could potentially be treated as crimes.
The Scottish Government led by the left-separatist Scottish National Party (SNP)—roughly equivalent to a U.S. state government—confirmed through letters sent to residents in Edinburgh’s safe zones: “In general, the offenses apply in public places within the safe access zones. However, activities in a private place (such as a house) within the area between the protected premises and the boundary of a zone could be an offense if they can be seen or heard within the zone and are done intentionally or recklessly.”
Many Christians, for whom prayer is a personal and sacred act, now fear their private expressions of faith could be under threat from the new law. Michael Robinson, executive director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, criticized the law as “sinister and Orwellian.” He stresses that the authorities could prosecute individuals for silently praying in their gardens or displaying Bible verses in their windows.
Andrea Williams, chief executive of Christian Concern, called the law “regressive” and an example of “state overreach,” vowing to monitor its enforcement across the country.
Similar laws are set to be imposed in England following multiple failed prosecutions of Christians praying silently inside their heads near abortionists’ clinics.”
Freedom of religion seems to just be an idea now consigned to history and the “racist, sexist and misogynist” Founding Fathers!
News from Israel - Amir Tsafarti - Behold Israel
Amir Tsafarti heads an organization called Behold Israel and I have quoted him in previous Sons of Issachar Newsletters. His perspective is always valuable and I have extracted some information from his recent newsletter, published on 10th October:
“It has taken me many months to be able to accept any positive aspects to October 7, but I can now recognize at least two good outcomes. First, it quashed the inner divisions within Israel that were tearing the country apart. At least, it did for a time. There are still elements within the political, judicial, and military structure that are toxic for the nation. An even more important outcome, however, was that the attack exposed the criminal neglect of the surrounding threat on our borders. How else could Hamas have poured in the way that they did? There were over 200 places along the fence line with Gaza that allowed the terrorists and Gazan citizens to rush in, brutalize and slaughter innocent civilians, then kidnap 250 Israelis back over the border. It never should have happened, and I’m appalled that our military let it occur.
But we are in a new phase of our nation. There are no ostriches in our citizenry hiding their heads in the sand to the surrounding threats of our genocidal enemies. We woke up to the echoes of gunfire and realized that the attackers were in our own backyards. That is what has held this nation together through the harshness of the war in Gaza. We’ve done more than any other country in history to try to protect the innocent civilians. But there, undoubtedly, have been many deaths due to Hamas’s soulless habit of using their own population as human shields. Still, our country has kept fighting.
Now, the fighting has focused on the north, and that war has been nothing short of miraculous. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that Hezbollah would be crippled in two-and-a-half weeks. Hezbollah was the terrorist group that I dreaded most. It was better funded, better armed, better trained, and was fully imbedded into Lebanese society and politics. Then came the beepers, and Hezbollah lost its balance. After that were the bombs that took out the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, along with a host of other terrorists and Iranians, and Hezbollah collapsed to the ground. In less than three weeks, 85% of their feared rocket launching capabilities were damaged or destroyed. This is not the power of Israel or the United States that has done this. It is the power of God……
Now, Iran is in trouble. They are bracing for a response, as they spout off threats and even spread rumors of a nuclear test. And they are right to be scared. Israel is going to retaliate. But where? One option is to go after oil and gas facilities in a harsh economic attack. A second possibility is to hit missile and military bases. Third, we could assassinate key leaders, a skill for which we’ve shown a certain penchant. Or, four, we could wipe out Iran’s nuclear program. While I think it will likely be options one and, maybe, two, I wish it could be four. But with the current administration in the United States White House, it can’t happen. Biden and Harris are too afraid to make Iran mad, and we quite simply cannot destroy Tehran’s nuclear program without the help of the United States. The types of bombs needed, and the specific delivery systems are not part of our current arsenal.”
Israel has most of the world opposed to it and there are no good options for securing peace in the Middle East. It seems likely that before the US presidential election, there will be a major event involving Iran and Israel. The next US president will have a lot of issues on his/her hands.
The Link Between Heavy Social Media Use and Teenage Anxiety
About three months ago, I wrote about the dangers of social media that had been highlighted in Dr Jonathan Haidt’s book The Anxious Generation. Now The UK Times has reported on new research from Oxford University. The Times article notes that:
“Research has confirmed a link between social media use and anxiety ahead of legislation being introduced in parliament to limit smartphone use in teenagers.
Experts at Oxford University are launching a ten-year study into teenage mental health called BrainWaves. They say that initial data suggests that the more time youngsters spend on social media the more likely they are to suffer anxiety and depression.
The study, involving data from 7,200 students in the UK, aims to fill the evidence gap about the link between social media and mental health. It has found that some teenagers are spending eight hours a day on their smartphones.
NHS data shows that more than one million children and teenagers under 18 are in contact with NHS mental health services, with girls more likely than boys to have problems. One in five girls aged 16 are in contact with services, and mental health problems have increased significantly in the past five years………
John Gallacher, a professor of cognitive health at Oxford who is leading the study, told the Financial Times that initial results “found a linear relationship between higher rates of anxiety and depression and time spent networking on social media sites.
“In the most extreme cases, we had young people reporting they were spending up to eight hours a day using these sites.”
The article included the following graph demonstrating the increase in the number of children and young people accessing mental health services since October 2021.
Figure 1. Graph from the UK Times showing the increase in children and young people accessing mental health services
You can’t attribute this rise in mental health issues solely to social media use but it is clear from Dr Haidt’s book and this new reserach that there is a link. Parents need to be aware and also ready for the work arounds that their children and teenagers will use to maintain their access.
Your Mattress May Be the Cause of Unexplained Symptoms
A few weeks ago, I woke up and found myself almost crippled. I couldn’t work out what had happened during the night but fortunately I have an amazing chiropractor in Sydney who has put my back and spine back into position a number of previous times. I visited him and he did a number of clever (and painful) manipulations that have resulted in great improvement in my back function. At the end of the manipulations, he said: “You need a new mattress”. He told me the ideal one could cost me $25,000 but I have settled for something a bit cheaper.
Just a few days ago, I came across this interesting article in the Epoch Times by Flora Zhao. I thought it would be valuable for some readers:
“A friend of mine who is a magazine editor shared a story with me: She had been experiencing persistent discomfort, including neck and back pain, that would not resolve despite her trying various remedies. One day, on a whim, she decided to replace her 10-year-old mattress. To her surprise, her symptoms disappeared within a few days.
“A lot of people wake up in the morning and they will have a stiff back or a sore back. That may be a sign that the mattress is getting older,” Bert Jacobson, M. B. “Bud” Seretean endowed professor and regents professor at the School of Kinesiology, Applied Health, and Recreation at Oklahoma State University, told The Epoch Times.
Over the past two decades, Jacobson has led and participated in a series of studies on mattresses. He has identified a common phenomenon: When people switch to a new mattress, the symptoms that once troubled them often disappear. In his research, many individuals reported no longer experiencing stiffness and pain upon waking, feeling more refreshed and having less psychological stress.
He noted that people may not realize that all these discomforts are related to “what you sleep on.”
The Lifespan of a Mattress
“The average age of a mattress is around 10 years old,” Jacobson said.
In one of his earlier studies, 59 healthy participants who used the same mattresses for an average of 9.5 years reported mild sleep-related pain and compromised sleep quality. After switching to a new medium-firm mattress for four weeks, they experienced a 48 percent reduction in back pain, a 55 percent improvement in sleep quality, and an approximately 20 percent decrease in stress.”
Who knew that after 10 years a mattress needs replacing? I didn’t but I hope that my new mattress (due to arrive next week) will result in better sleep and a pain-free back.
Preparedness Tip: What to Do with Extra Potatoes by Andrew Skousen
World Affairs Brief had an interesting article about managing the challenge of extra potatoes. I thought that this extract from Joel Skousen’s latest newsletter may be of interest to some readers.
“When the fall crop of potatoes arrives, you only have a few short months to enjoy them before they start sprouting or turning soft and spongy. A good root cellar or re-burying them can significantly increase the time they will stay firm, but there are also a variety of other ways to preserve some of your potatoes every year that are so valuable you will want to put aside potatoes this way every year. Here are few ways to do this.
Freezing: If you like to buy bags of frozen French fries or hashbrowns consider making your own from fresh potatoes you grow yourself while they are plentiful. Not only will you save a lot of money, you avoid all the chemicals that are standard in the potato industry such as for sprout suppression (maleic hydrazide), fungicide (thiabendazole) and growth retardation (bromide)—to name just a few. Potatoes often rank in the top 12 pesticide-laden produce. You can avoid most of these chemicals when buying organic potatoes but they don’t last in your pantry very long. The better option is to preserve your own potatoes.
The key to successful freezing is to blanch or cook the potatoes first. This neutralizes the natural enzymes that breaks down the texture and turns the potatoes dark. Blanching just means dipping the cut potatoes into boiling water and then transferring them to ice water to stop the cooking process before they become mushy. Large potato wedges need 5 minutes or more, 1 inch potato cubes and French fries get 3 minutes, thin potato slices get one minute and grated potatoes for hashbrowns only a few seconds. Quickly transfer the blanched potatoes to icewater to stop the cooking and then lay them out in a single layer on a baking tray for freezing. This keeps them from clumping together. You can put multiple layers in a single baking tray as long as you have parchment paper between each layer. Once frozen they can be combined in a freezer bag.
Various forms of cooked potato can also be frozen successfully: Mashed potatoes, fully-cooked french fries, browned potato wedges and even twice-baked potatoes freeze well, especially if you can package them to eliminate air in the packaging which causes “freezer burn.” Whole baked and boiled potatoes seem to freeze better after being made into their final form as mashed potatoes, etc. because they have been mixed with butter and milk.
Freeze-drying: When your freezer is full (and most are), consider freeze drying. Everything except high fat foods like butter can be freeze dried and turned into a shelf-stable, long-term food source without the freezer burn. The Homesteading Family has a good summary of how to freeze-dry sliced, cubed, shredded or mashed potatoes. They still recommend blanching the potato pieces to preserve their color. Run them in a freeze-drier until they come out crisp with no soft or flexible portions. This site also recommends different recipes for easily reconstituting them.
Drying: If you don’t have a freeze dryer, you can dehydrate potatoes for long-term shelf storage with a standard dehydrator or in an oven turned on low. Once again, blanching is key to keep them from turning dark and losing flavor as they dehydrate. Lay them out on trays and dry at 135 deg. F. until completely hard - usually around 24 hours. Thin slices, small cubes and grated potatoes work best.
Pressure Canning: Bottled potatoes are more easily used in cooking because they don’t have to be reconstituted. Simply add them to your soup, heat and mash or drain and saute up in a frying pan. The official guidelines for canning potatoes only recommends the hot pack method—where the potatoes and the water added are boiling hot. The Modern Homestead, however, has been successfully processing potatoes for years as a cold pack method with slightly longer processing times for safety. They find it is much less work that way. We really like our automatic Presto electric pressure canner ($235), even though it only fits 5 quart jars.
Bottled plain potatoes are nice for quickly adding cooked, cleaned and peeled potatoes to a meal, but you can also bottle the potatoes together with other ingredients, such as stew, chowder or soup. The potatoes that come out of the bottling process will be so well-cooked they will be safe to eat, but I still recommend warming them up first just in case botulism somehow managed to survive. Both the spores and the toxins produced by this hardy bacteria are neutralized if the food is heated to 185 deg. F. for one minute—so it pays to warm up your bottled potatoes before eating them.
When you have more potatoes than you can eat before they go bad, consider some of these shelf-stable or freezer preservation options before they sprout or turn soft. Although it is extra work, the hardest steps (washing, peeling and slicing) are just the normal steps involved with eating potatoes—you just do it up front, and this makes them all the easier to enjoy later. In this way your harvest bounty can also become a reliable part of your emergency food storage supplies.”