The Washington Post puts it best here:

Washington veterans marvel at how much Trump has been able to get away with because he just doesn’t seem to care what anyone else thinks. The president-elect has disregarded the longstanding tradition that there should only be one president at a time. He talked to the leader of Taiwan in contravention of the One China policy; his national security adviser has been in contact with a senior Russian government official. He’s refused to fully divest his financial holdings, given his son-in-law a government job and ordered his aides to declare war on an independent ethics office that raised questions about these arrangements.

Just reading through that reminds us of how far the goalposts have moved.  This may be a failure of news reporting, although to be fair most outlets are busy trying to hold Trump accountable; there is just so much material that it's difficult to keep track.  Perhaps the big problem is the lack of obvious public discontent.  This is still the Trump who was on offer in the elections, and I guess if you thought he was suitable to be president then you are not likely to think anything he has done since is out of order.

By way of comparison, the Post referred to the case of Tom Daschle.  A former Senate Majority Leader tapped by the new President Obama to be Health and Human Services Secretary in 2009, Daschle eventually had to withdraw over an issue of unpaid taxes (which he later repaid on being nominated).  Unpaid taxes?? Donald Trump pretty well admitted he didn't pay taxes during the campaign and it's a fair bet that several of his billionaire cabinet appointees have found ways to avoid such a tedious task.  But there has been so little trasnparency from Trump and his appointees that virtually anything goes now.  The new normal is that ethics and openness are for the birds, and much of that is thanks to a Republican controlled legislature led by one of the most cynical men to adorn a democracy, which operates on an anything goes policy if it brings party advantage.

Welcome to the new normal.  Old standards no longer apply.

Happy New Year!! It's that time of year again...money pie time!! As you know, each year I recap my spending throughout the year as a percentage. I think this is a great way to see where the money is all going so that I can make smarter decisions with my money in the future years. You can find previous year's posts here: 2014, 2015.

 

As always, I did not include any savings in this chart. This is not technically "spending" although I do track it and it is part of my yearly financial plan.  

 

Home: This category includes mortgage, utilities, taxes and insurance, as well as other misc items, such as appliances and other crap that comes with owing a home. However, the bulk (about 86%) of it is mortgage, taxes and insurance, with the others trailing way behind. Also, anything I buy on Amazon, I categorize as "home" as I am too lazy to figure out what it was I actually bought. It is probably a mix between shopping, home and entertainment in actuality.   

 

Transportation: This year I bought a car. As you can see from the pie, it affected the transportation category greatly! In addition, I still spent money commuting (BART) and definitely drove more, as a friend and I started a weekly run meet up after work and I took advantage of nice summer days to get the heck out of dodge as much as possible, including a road trip to Oregon and Kings Canyon.

 

Travel: Speaking of Oregon and Kings Canyon, once again, my indulgent category was travel. Funny enough though, I actually spent less this year than last, or my calculation methods could be inconsistent. Either way, I had a great time traveling abroad as well as to several U.S. destinations and many local weekend trips.

Groceries/Dining Out: Once again, these are almost the same! This year some friends and I went out to a nice meal once a month and we took turns paying. This equates to about once every four months me spending way too much on dinner. However, it is a lot of fun, but it's not helping my "dining out" budget.

Misc: This includes personal care, toiletries, gifts and donations, credit card fees and things like that. The bulk of it is gifts. The other things are minor.

Health: This includes pre-tax deductions and any copay or charge for contact lenses etc.

Entertainment: This includes movies, baseball games, and running related (or other hobbies) expenses. This year, most of it went to race fees. I probably should shift some of my "travel" over to this category, but once again, I am too lazy to really sort it out that thoroughly.

Shopping:  This category included clothing, toiletries and items from Target that were not home or running related. This year I bought a couple of pairs of work shoes and some things from REI which could be in the entertainment category...and that is pretty much it.

So, what did I learn from this? This year I definitely spent more that last year, although a lot of that extra cost was due to my purchase of a car. However, excluding the transportation category, the biggest increases over last year belonged to the Entertainment (53%), Health (33%) and Home (26%) categories. This makes sense, as I signed up for more big ticket races, my insurance premium went up, and I was in my house for a whole year vs. 7 months last year. On the flip side, I also saved more this year, so I am pretty happy with that, as my goal from the beginning of this year was to save more if I could.

What do I want to accomplish this year? This year I hope to do a bit of deeper analysis and develop a plan regarding getting the best bang for my buck. For example, does it make more financial sense to put my money into savings or use it to pay off my mortgage quicker. I have most of the information I need; now it is time to execute! In addition, once again I would like to save more this year than I saved last year. I would like to say I could minimize the Home category, but in reality, there is always a backyard project or a broken pipe or a random thing that goes bump in the night. So, that's it!

Do you keep track of your spending habits? What is the biggest piece of your money pie? What are your financial goals this year?

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There’s a tendency in some of the reviews of 2016 which are finding their way online to praise the year as a great one.  It’s the usual form of contrariness to the oft stated maxim that 2016 has been such a terrible year, and it comes from the right of the political spectrum of course.  Because it has been a good year for “right-wingers”, no doubt about it.

But of course 2016 is neither a terrible nor a great year.  It is a year the memory of which is entirely dependent on the individual living it.  Citizens of Aleppo, or Syria generally (other than its wretched president) haven’t had a great year.  People who have suffered family or close friend bereavements haven’t had a great year.  On the other hand, weddings and births will have continued to bring pleasure to many too.  In a more general sense, citizens of western democracies are likely to have had a better year than the citizens of poor authoritarian countries such as Russia.

The purpose of a brief blog review therefore can’t possibly be to provide some sort of neat summary of the year.  What it can do is see what the year has left us politically, and whether it provides any signs of what is to come.  Which is a bad statement to make of itself since if it has done anything I guess 2016 has at least thrown up the frailty of political punditry, which has mostly been wrong even from those who may have ultimately been delighted at what has happened.

2016 hasn’t quite been the triumph of democracy that some of its enthusiastic backers are now proclaiming.  Yes, the Brexit referendum encouraged lots of people to vote – a good thing – although it provided its victors with a narrow enough margin – a mere 4% of the turn-out – to maintain the divisions that the campaign itself exposed.  In America, the scene of that other great democratic cataclysm, the ‘populist’ victor has turned out to be not quite so popular after all, winning his presidential election with a popular vote that trailed nearly 3 million or so behind the loser.  So democracy isn’t a winner here.

A certain loser could be liberalism.  Liberal nostrums have received a bashing, no doubt about it.  Liberals have been damned as establishmentarian and elitist as the newly resurgent right marauds its way across the landscape.  But even here the rhetoric disguises the reality.  There can be few more elitist people than the billionaire victor of the American presidential election, living in his gold trimmed penthouse in New York.  As if to perpetuate his elitism, his cabinet is packed with more billionaires than any cabinet in American history, his defence policy will be overseen by generals and his foreign policy by the highly elitist – and undeniably well connected – chief executive of an oil company.

In Britain, the apparently non-elitist Leave campaign was spear-headed by public schoolboys (an Old Etonian and an Old Alleynian at the two campaigns’ respective heads) and received the support of the majority of the establishment print media, edited by wealthy mandarins working for putocratic foreign-based owners for the most part.  The populist leader of the right in France, meanwhile, inherited her party from her father.  Elitism is very much in vogue, and it is on the “populist” right as much as anywhere.

Truth took a knocking though.  The Brexit campaigners paraded promises that they forsook on the day after their victory, one of their key campaigners disparaged “experts”, while the American president-elect continues to deal in fantasy even after his victory.  Facts and rational argument took back seats to fiery words, the more outrageous the better.  The reward for the fantasists has been great indeed, with one of the most prominent even gaining a $250,000 book deal from a once reputable publisher.

Internationally, Russia’s leader has played a poor hand with shrewdness, bloody-mindedness and considerable success.  The murderous thug who leads a regime of torture in Syria and has presided over a villainous civil war looks as if he has won through.  The president of Turkey has turned himself into a virtual dictator with little consequence as yet, firming up his odd foreign alliance with that other clever dictator in Russia.  The current president of America, a beacon of liberalism, leaves office with the possibility of his legacy being burned by his successor, while the Chancellor of Germany, who welcomed immigrants to her country so fulsomely, may yet be undone by the next election.

Lost of celebrities have died, but then there are lots more celebrities around.  Celebrity culture took off  around the 1960s, so it may not be surprising that its older personalities are starting to fall away.  Its younger personalities have never been noted for lifestyles that promote longer living either.  2017 is unlikely to see much of a change from that.  Meanwhile, as we mourn celebrities, unsung heroes will also pass away.  Dr Donald Henderson, who eradicated smallpox, died in 2016, receiving a public encomium finally via twitter at the end of the year.

In sum, the year has been messy and provocative.  As such, it stands little different from either its predecessor or, in all likelihood, its successor.  The means of the mess may change, but the broad thrust of flawed humanity making its ever populous way in a world it can’t mould or understand remains similar.

Happy 2017.

At the beginning of this year, I set a few goals for myself. Unfortunately, I did not do a very good job of sticking to them this time! Last year, out of about 10, I completed or partially completed 8 of them. This year, well...you shall see! I found that this year I focused more on a few specific things in my life and a lot of the other little things went by the wayside. 

1. Run a 100 mile race. As much as I hate to say this yet again, this was one goal that I Did Not Complete. I signed up for the Silverheels 100 mile race in Colorado, where the course was from 10,000 feet to 12,500 feet. I got about 60 miles into it before I finally threw in the towel. This was after a lot of nausea and a very difficult time keeping food down, hence very little energy overall. However, I learned from my time in Colorado, and I am ready to try this goal again!! 

2. Run 2,000 miles / climb 250,000 ft elevation: Completed. Last year I ran about 1,800 miles and climbed about 250,000 feet, but my goal was to train smarter than last year, because last year I got injured, which put a damper on my running. Happily, I ran approximately 2,230 miles this year and according to Strava, I climbed 413,000 feet. I will take this with a grain of salt, as my weekly running partner did about 300,000 feet. However, I probably got about 100,000 feet more than him just by hiking in the Alps. So I will call it something between 300,000 - 400,000 feet. Total win.

 

3. Read 52 books. Completed. This year I read 72 books. I also did the Book Riot Read Harder challenge, which I will probably not do again next year. I found it fun to try new things but felt pressure to complete the categories and guilt if I read something that did not "count toward something". See this post for my favorites of 2016! 

 

4. Read 12 books from my own shelves. Did Not Complete. I ended up reading 3 books from my own shelves and throwing all three away. It's not great, but if I was a baseball player, I would have a better batting average than most pitchers. 

 

5. Ride my bike to work 2 times per week: Did Not Complete. According to Strava, I biked 134 miles for a total of 57 rides or 2.35 miles per ride. Before you say that it's not so bad because that's still over 1x per week, let me remind you that a "ride" to me is to AND from the BART station, which would be about 4 miles each day. So I probably rode to work 28 times, which is an average of about once every two weeks.

 

6. Practice my Spanish: Did Not Complete. My goal was to talk to a friend for at least 5 minutes once a week,  and to study and learn at least 100 new words per week. This is a goal that I didn't really even try to make happen. My running husband is from Mexico and he would happily talk to me in Spanish, but I didn't even try. Total fail.

7. Try new things: Partially Complete. (1) Visit 12 places that I have never been before. DONE (2) Learn one new recipe a week. Did Not Do. (3) Try 6 new things.  DONE (ate Polish food, went cycling in New York city, walked over a huge frozen lake, went to a jug band party, carried chairs down the streets of Brooklyn, ate at a three Michelin star restaurant [and many more!]).

 

 8. Spend less than I spent last year: Did Not Complete. This year, although I did not buy a house, I did buy a car and so my transportation category is way inflated over last year. In addition, paying all the household bills myself rather than splitting them like I did for part of the year last year probably increased the "bill" portion of my "home" category by at least twice as much. I will be posting my annual 2016 money pie very soon and will give a breakdown of how much each category increased/decreased from last year. 

As you can see, out of the eight goals I posted, I only completed two and partially completed one. Next year I will have to think about where I could improve upon achieving my goals. I think my biggest downfall this year is lack of planning, which is not normal for me! But, in the words of good old Benny F., "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." So true. First goal of 2017: be more structured in my planning! (Side note: If you haven't listened to this episode of Freakonomics about productivity, you should do it now!)

In case you think that I am a totally negative Nellie, fear not! I have a lot of things that I am proud of from this year! I installed a ceiling fan in my room, I did a ton of work in the backyard, I did a huge purge and Goodwill run (and got rid of a ton of books etc. in the process), I had a new 100k PR and beat my old 50 mile time for one difficult race (in the snow no less), I spent a lot of good times with my friends and family and I traveled to some fabulous places! However, those items are not as easy to quantify, but all in all, I would say it was a successful year.

 

Did you make goals in 2016? Which ones were difficult for you to obtain? Do you fail to plan or are you good at seeing things through? Did you have a successful year?

Wow, this year has really flown by and it's time again for the best of the best lists! I enjoy looking back at other people's prior year's lists as well as my own and seeing how things went in years past. So I can't pass it up this year and am looking forward to checking out everyone else's posts. As much as I love all lists, the best of lists for books are probably my favorites.

This year I read 71 books and I gave five of them five stars on Goodreads. They were:

Winter of the World by Ken Follett: This is book two in the Century Trilogy. The first is about WWI, the second takes the characters through WWII. He does a great job of introducing characters from different walks of life which gives you a lot of insight into what different sides and countries were going through during the war. I am looking forward to reading the third set of the series, although these books are a bit long, so I have to space them out a little!

The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult: This was a great story of a girl working at a bakery who befriends an old man, who ends up being a former Nazi SS officer. To make it even worse, the girl's grandmother was a Holocaust survivor. This book was recommended to me years ago by Lisa and I am glad that I finally took her up on her suggestion!

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab: The first book in the Shades of Magic trilogy, this is a great step away from reality. The story takes you to several variations of London, some good, some bad, and is full of magic, kingdoms, good, evil and adventure.  The characters are likable and the second book in the series is also a lot of fun as well!

Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly: Set in WWII, this is a story about three different girls, a doctor from Germany who ends up working at Ravensbruck, a Polish girl who ends up imprisoned in Ravensbruck and an American socialite who ends up entangled in the mix. I learned a lot about the horrors that happen in the camps that I hadn't really known much about before.

In addition to these, some of my other favorites were: Aristotle and Dante Discovery the Secrets of the Universe, Circling the Sun, Between the World and Me, Ready Player One, Homegoing and Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake. See other 4 star recommendations here.

I also participated in the Book Riot Read Harder challenge, which encourages people to try new types of books. I did not finish the list of 24 categories, but I had a lot of fun exploring new categories! Below is my list. Yellow are the ones I did not complete.

1 A horror book - The Terror

2 A nonfiction book about science

3 A collection of essays - A Manual for Cleaning Women

4 Read a book out loud to someone

5 A middle grade novel - Finding Someplace

6 A biography

7 A dystopian or post-apocalyptic novel - Ready Player One

8 A book originally published in the decade you were born

9 Listen to an audiobook that has won an Audie Award - Euphoria

10 A book over 500 pages long - The Lake House

11 A book under 100 pages long - Holy the Firm

12 A book by or about a person that identifies as transgender

13 A book that is set in the Middle East - Prisoner of Tehrah

14 A book that is by an author from Southeast Asia

15 A book of historical fiction set before 1900 - The Taming of the Queen

16 The first book in a series by a person of color - Blanche on the Lam

17 A non-superhero comic that debuted in the last three years

18 A book that was adapted into a movie, then watch the movie

19 A nonfiction book about feminism or dealing with feminist themes - Spinster

20 A book about religion - 1000 Lashes

21 A book about politics, in your country or another

22 A food memoir - Cleaved

23 A play - Death of a Salesman

24 A book with a main character that has a mental illness - Tender Points

How was your year of reading? What was your favorite book of 2016? Did you participate in any reading challenges this year? 

You know how sometimes you go into a motivation rabbit hole and you just can't climb back out into the light?  I have been going to work earlier than normal and it's dark all the time and a glass of wine and a movie has been sounding way more appealing than suiting up and going running. Not to say that nothing is getting done. I have been revamping the backyard, which is my excuse for not running on some days (cross training!) and there is a never-ending supply of leaves to be raked. And I've purged the closets again and again. And now it's December, the month of parties and friends and eating and merriment and although fun, it sometimes gets a little overwhelming! I look forward to January, when things quiet down and I get back into the running groove. Until then, here's what's been happening!

Running: In October, I ran 167  miles. I am actually surprised at this number, as I was sick for a couple of weeks and went home to visit my parents one weekend. In November I ran 125 miles, which doesn't surprise me, as I was sick (again!) and I had my Mom in town one weekend. My longest run was the Quad Dipsea (28 miles) and man was I sore afterward! As for the biking plan, it's pretty much gone out the window, as I got a flat and I have been lazy about fixing it! I need to get back on track with that for sure! However, I have already reached my 2,000 mile running goal for the year and have way overshot my 250,000 ft climbing goal (I have about 400,000 feet of climbing so far this year)!

Reading: In October and November, I read 5 books each month, the best being Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, which talks about aging and having too much stuff and life in general. It was a quick and easy read that, although I am not of the same age, I could relate to a lot of the author's tales. Otherwise, a lot of them were just so-so and I especially was not a fan of The Nest, which got great reviews or A Little Life, which was really depressing and just went on and on.

Travel: Having traveled a lot during the summer and then gone on vacation in September, October and November were more like decompression months, where I stayed home a lot and worked in the yard and/or around the house. I did get up to see my brother a couple of times in Santa Rosa, I went to visit my parents once and I took a couple of smaller trips to Auburn, Sacramento and Tahoe. I found a great video game arcade and bar in Sacramento that has all of the old games, like Donkey Kong and Mrs. Pac Man. Along with pizza and beer and the fact that the games still cost a quarter, it can't get much better than that!!

December is almost over and Christmas is nearly upon us! I hope that you and yours have a great time wherever you are and I will see you all next year!!

What do you like to do when the weather gets cold and its dark outside? What are your plans for the holidays?

Political parties are the heart and soul of our democratic system.  They are the crucial interface between voters and professionals, providing the space for hard-pressed volunteers who may not wish to become professionally involved in politics to nonetheless become active agents in the body politic.  They have also been facing significant decline over many years.  While there has been a slight recovery in the UK since 2013 – especially for Labour and the SNP – the overall figures are depressing. 

The website Democratic Audit estimates that only 1% of the UK population is a member of a political party.  In the 1950s, parties famously calculated their members in the millions.  The Conservatives were dominant with their 3 million or so members, but Labour garnered some 1 million too. 

Labour is now the dominant party with half of their 1950s figure – 515,000 members according to a House of Commons Library briefing.  The Conservative figure is more difficult to get hold of – many of the constituency parties  don’t file complete returns, and the party still runs quite a federalist structure with significant opposition to centralising party membership.  Nevertheless, figures published in 2013 suggest the Conservatives have a mere 149,800 members.  The Lib Dems have some 79,000 members.

Party membership decline is evident across Europe, although it remains most marked in Britain.  The Democratic Party (PD) in Italy has some 500,000 members, while the two behemoths of German politics – the CDU and SPD – have around 477,000 members each.  To that figure the CDU could add those of its ally, the separate, Bavarian only CSU party which has over 146,000 members. 

Why does this matter?  Because the health of the parties is a major indicator of the health of a representative democracy.  Parties provide a key focus of engagement for citizens.  It allows them to meet with their elected representatives, have a role in choosing them, gives them a chance to offer themselves for election at local and national levels and offers a platform to change party policies. 

This is about much more than simply attaching oneself to a single cause, as offered by the pressure groups.  This is about a full and broad involvement in the democratic process.  This is about committing to action and nailing political colours to a mast – any mast. 

Parties are the foundation stones of any representative democratic system, and they depend utterly on members for both financial resources and the all important human resources.  It should come as little surprise that a growing national disengagement with politics has been accompanied by such a decline in party memberships.   Interestingly, as the memberships get smaller, the relative importance of the remaining members gets bigger.

Labour saw a spike in numbers as a result of their leadership troubles, with the Momentum movement organising effectively to get sympathisers to join and confirm Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the party.  Party memberships have always tended to be more radical than their outward-facing elected representatives, but as those memberships decline so the impact of a hard-core radical few makes even greater waves across the national party.  For Labour it has been the election of its most left-wing – and polling suggests unelectable – leader ever.  For the Conservatives, it gave euro-scepticism a crucial place in the party’s bloodstream and led to the Brexit referendum. 

Party memberships can absolutely define politics on the wider stage.  They can also make life difficult for specific representatives.  MPs may represent up to 100,000 people in their constituencies, but their attention can often be dragged towards the few who are members and office holders in their own party.   Labour’s MP for Brighton and Hove, Peter Kyle, faced serious de-stabilisation in September when one of his local members, briefly elected as Vice-Chairman, started agitating against him for not supporting Jeremy Corbyn.  Today, the deputy chairman of Loughborough Conservative Party went on the BBC’s “Sunday politics” to denounce his own MP, Nicky Morgan, for criticising Theresa May.  The two party office holders speak only for themselves, where Morgan and Kyle represent thousands of voters of differing hues, but that hasn’t stopped a brief but strong media focus on those party critics.

There are signs of a resurgence in the importance of party membership.  Labour’s spike – increasing its membership from 270,000 to 515,000 in less than a year thanks to the leadership election – is seen in other parties too.  The Liberal Democrats saw their membership rise significantly after their crushing General Election defeat, as liberal-minded voters sought to engage once again in a liberal fight-back, seen most recently in the success of Sarah Olney – a member of just one year’s standing – being elected as MP to the former Conservative held seat of Richmond Park.  The SNP saw a spike in membership after losing the independence referendum.  It is interestingly Conservative party membership which appears to have been least affected, even though its political bias has probably had the single most important impact on British politics in over 40 years.

As the importance of party members re-asserts itself, so elected representatives become more responsive.  The Observer’s Andrew Rawnsley notes that Labour MPs, since the re-election of their bete noir Jeremy Corbyn as leader, have been quietly re-working their constituency parties to ensure the election of supportive office-holders.   The internet supporters of Momentum have been less inclined to go the extra mile in attending local party meetings, and as Rawnsley notes, it is at these unglamorous occasions where real power can be wielded. 

The larger the membership of a party becomes, the more it can reflect the different shades of opinion in the society from which it grows, and the more effective an interface it is between ordinary voters and the professional politicians.  A larger party base, too, increases the range of talents available to parties in selecting their elected representatives, and ultimately their leaders. 

The health of a democracy, after all, plays out in the health of its parties.