Learning Chinese is difficult because there are so many characters to learn. Tones are hard to master for a native English speaker. Learning characters takes a lot of focus and energy. Holding the characters in your memory requires a lot of repetition.

The Chinese language never stops to amaze me at how beautiful and rich it is. Each character has so much inner meaning. Looking at Chinese characters makes me feel good. I have been studying Chinese since the summer of 2001, but I haven’t made as much progress as I would have liked to.

I need to dedicate myself more to studying Chinese with more consistency. Studying Chinese requires a fundamental fresh look at communication and culture.  One that can’t be understood using the mechanics of the English language.

I’m trying to understand what I need to do to learn Chinese. Do I have enough determination? Do I spend enough time on it? Have I been focused enough? Should I listen to more Pimsleur Mandarin Chinese audio lessons? Or should I attend a class where I’ll need to engage and participate? Perhaps I should try speaking more at home. 

I enjoy the ABC’s of Chinese app but haven’t been very consistent with using it. I’ve downloaded the app on my iPad, and have bookmarked the site in my web browser for easy access. Memorizing the characters has not been easy. Handwriting the characters in long form seemed to be one of the more effective methods I’ve tried.

The first signs of an unfavorable trade deal for Canada came just after the G7 press conference. Donald Trump announced “That’s going to cost a lot of money for the people of Canada.” in reference to Justin Trudeau pushed back on Trump’s proposed tariffs.

Another mistake in North American Free Trade Agreement negotiations by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland on September 10th. She joined an anti-Trump panel discussion in Toronto.

The “Taking on the Tyrant” panel opened with a video of populist world leaders and authoritarians including Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán, Bashar al-Assad. However, the video was clearly aimed at Trump.

“Taking on the Tyrant” was another resistance effort, in a long list of events targeting Trump last week. Like the Bob Woodward book, The New York Times anonymous op-ed, and the Chief Resistant Officer Barack Obama breaking tradition and speaking out against his successor.

Why would the head negotiator on a deal representing 25% of the Canadian economy, participate in a discussion labeling our greatest trading partner a totalitarian tyrant?  

Participating in an anti-Trump event and insulting her chief negotiating partner may not have been the intent of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Or perhaps things are not going as expected in the negotiation, and that was exactly the purpose of attending. 

Could you imagine the Mexican officials, who worked hard for weeks straight to craft a deal, break off from the negotiations to attend a conference that slammed their political ally?

For a foreign minister to participate in this event, at such a critical moment of the negotiations, supports the premise that the Liberal Party is vying to win anti-Trump votes as a strategy heading into the 2019 Canadian Federal election.

Signs of stalling

Before the “Taking on the Tyrant” event there had been other signs that the Liberal government was being insincere in the negotiation or stalling for time.

The two original directives for Canada in the NAFTA negotiation were firstly the five-year sunset clause. And secondly, that no deal would be done without Mexico. With these two elements off the table due to Mexico making a bi-lateral deal, Trudeau began to place emphasis on a dispute settlement clause.

The emphasis on the dispute resolution mechanism (known as Chapter 19) seems out in left field since this clause has little useful effect. In essence, the sticking point for Trudeau on Chapter 19 is having the appeal process done by a bi-national panel instead of the proposed the U.S. judicial system.

Trudeau was quoted saying in a radio interview. “We need to keep the Chapter 19 dispute resolution because that ensures that the rules are actually followed and we know we have a president who doesn’t always follow the rules as they’re laid out”. 

This statement on Chapter 19, labeling Trump as a president who doesn’t always follow the rules, actually exhibits a mistrust to the U.S judicial system. No president has jurisdiction over trade disputes happening in the court system. Some trade experts agree that Chapter 19 is an inconsequential objection to raise.

Unfortunately for Canadians, it’s not looking good when Trudeau warned this week of potential ‘massive disruption’ to the Canadian auto sector. Trump warned us months ago. “I actually like Justin, you know, I think he’s good, I like him, but he shouldn’t have done that. That was a mistake. That’s going to cost him a lot of money” in an interview with ABC in reference to Trudeau’s comments made at the G7 summit in June.

Treating your best friend like a tyrant is not the way to win-win negotiations. Especially when that good friend is working hard to tame the real trade threat from China.

Sitting in the front row at the National Press Clubs annual meeting in Montreal, Maxime Bernier paid close attention to the man at the podium. Dr. Jordan B. Peterson captivated the audience by expounding on the fundamental and profound importance of freedom of speech.

Bernier was one of the first in the audience to rise for the standing ovation after Peterson’s keynote speech ‘On the Vital Necessity of Free Speech’. Could this powerful speech have inspired Bernier to speak his mind and renounce his membership in the Conservative party?

Likely still suffering from the narrow defeat in the Conservative leadership race, an inspiring message on power of the sovereign voice may have struck a deep cord with Bernier.

Your freedom of speech, that’s not about you being able to speak truth to power, that’s about you being able to chart your destiny in the world. 

Jordan B. Peterson

After the event, some people on Twitter were encouraging Bernier to run as an independent and chart a new course.

Challenges ahead

Bernier called the Conservative party ‘intellectually and morally corrupt’ at his press conference. This public riff presents a new challenge for the Conservative party and my end up splitting the vote. 

If your going to have a conversation about something that matters… everyone is going to be offended by that. 

Jordan B. Peterson

Both Bernier and the Liberals could exploit the moderate politics played by the Conservatives.

Bernier’s message resonates with a part of Canadians. Whether his campaign has enough sophistication to sweep the nation in victory is a long shot. It’s splitting the vote that have conservatives concerned. the conservative vote giving Justin Trudeau another four years as PM? By calling out the Conservative party Bernier’s may push them to take a more vocal stance on issues important to conservatives.

Members of the Conservative party reacted to Bernier’s announcement by calling him a sore loser. And that all he did was give the Liberals an advantage next year. The chance of Bernier winning the election in 2019 is a long shot. But when asked by the CBC on his chance of winning he said anything is possible – citing Emmanuel Macron’s independent victory in France in 2017.

Strategic positioning 

The situation with Canada and the U.S. in the NAFTA negotiations looks like Donald Trump is helping Canadian conservatives. By putting Trudeau’s team in a weak and vulnerable position over NAFTA, Trump is weakening faith in the Liberal government.

The Conservatives should support and align with Trump’s achievements. Trump’s tough stance on the Liberals like during the NAFTA talks put Trudeau and Freeland through an embarrassing media show. The Conservatives will get a boost from this that makes up for any losses caused from the Bernier split and win in 2019. 

Showtime’s new series ‘The Fourth Estate’ provides a rare and partial glimpse into the newsroom at The New York Times following the victory of Donald Trump after the 2016 Presidential election.

Director Liz Garbus captures the dynamic of the newsroom.  Journalists on a steady supply of Starbucks coffee chasing big stories. Editors making decisions before publishing content online through their custom-built content management system. And management handling unprofessional behavior of staffers are all part of life at the Times. 

“I think it’s (covering Trump) going to be a huge test for us in a lot of ways. 

Dean Baquet, Executive Editor of The New York Times‘The Fourth Estate’ doesn’t touch the deeper political bias that blinds the Times from being able to cover Trump objectively. The culture of the left and political alliances are what has given rise to the fake news phenomena.

Covering politics in Washington when it’s in a meltdown because of a Donald Trump presidency will be complicated. The long-standing political establishment including The New York Times has basically become irrelevant overnight.

Russia Witch Hunt by The Fourth Estate

With more reporters than any other news organization on the plant, how can they still publish false reports on the Russian Collusion narrative? According to a statement made by former FBI Director James Comey under oath, their reporting was mostly false. 

According to Baquet, the Russian Collusion story is the most competitive story of the year. The Times assembled a special Russia team to investigate it. The casual viewer may be lead to believe that this type of investigative reporting is “really expensive” and a great service to democracy.

The investigative team was duped into taking a fake dossier, paid for by the DNC and Clinton campaign, as credible evidence.  A big (false) story like this needs to be reported aggressively otherwise the Times will be beaten by their competition. Being first to report a negative story about Trump seems more important than being right.

Baquet leads you to believe the perfect storm of competitive journalists trying to be first on complex investigative stories, combined with the declining ad revenues is the cause of the faulty reporting. These are only superficial factors that barely scratch the surface.

The documentary doesn’t explore the Times overt political endorsement of Hillary Clinton leading up to the 2016 election. Dean does admit they were wrong in the first episode.  Maggie Haberman also questions the validity of the poll that ran daily on the front page showing Hillary had a +80% chance of winning.

All the Dupes Fit to Print

According to David Horowitz and Paul Kengor, Ivy league educational institutions produce student journalists with a far-left worldview. These people are incapable of looking at Trump in a fair and rational way. The Fourth Estate is basically full of dupes.

Tech companies have a complex problem – how to decide what content to allowed on their platforms?

When Alex Jones was removed from 5 digital platforms, within 24 hours on August 6th and 7th, it raised a big question on how exactly big tech firms evaluate and interpret their community guidelines.

Some experts say that this now opens big tech into an infinitly complex realm of content evaluation that will be extremely exhaustive on resources tasked with reviewing the plethora of content being uploaded to their platforms every day.

After big tech firms removed Alex Jones from their platforms on August 7th, the search volume and downloads for Infowars Official app increased a lot, putting it into the top 5 news apps on the App Store. 

Racist remarks made on Twitter or in any public forum should not be tolerated.

Compare the NY Times reactions over racist tweets made by Rosanne Barr vs. newly hired editorial board member of The NY Times Sarah Jeong.

Mike Huckabee points out “the Times ran an editorial staunchly defending the canceling of Roseanne Barr’s show over one tweet.  The writer’s argument was that her firing was justified because it wasn’t merely offensive, it was racist, and racism is intolerable.” from his article “NY Times condones racism”.

Similarly, when Sarah Jeong exhibited multiple racist tweets on Twitter the Times stood by Sarah Jeong and emphasis being a victim of online harassment.

Our statement in response to criticism of the hiring of Sarah Jeong. pic.twitter.com/WryIgbaoqg

— NYTimes Communications (@NYTimesPR) August 2, 2018

If you are against racism, you’re against racism. Why not hold Sarah Jeong to the same standard as Rosanne Barr? These two reactions clearly show a double standard.

Super fans of Alex Jones may be up in arms preparing for the next civil war after the news broke that Jones Infowars had been removed from the major digital content platforms all within a 24h period.

Alex Jones was the top trend on Twitter today, after having been shut down by four major digital distribution platforms including Apple, Facebook, YouTube, and Spotify. Alleged violations of the platforms community standards, who are citing hate speech as one of the factors that lead to the removal.

According to a statement from Facebook, which describes in detail the step by step process applied to the Alex Jones pages, the pages exceeded the allowable number of strikes against them and were therefore taken down.

Coordinated Strike

Social media companies have the right to police their sites for inappropriate content. But to see four digital platforms all taking action on the same day raises some questions. What specific content was in violation? And how do they define hate speech?

Jones mentioned that a coordinated effort is at play, where a group of activists are deployed to flag content that is in opposition to their ideology. This should be a concern for other publishers, especially ones with a more right-wing perspective. What would happen if activists saw this tactic was effective organized more attacks by mass flagging content of another publisher?

Losing content distribution on four major channels on the same day is going to disrupt user access to InfoWars but users can still access the content on www.infowars.com.

InfoWars doesn’t appear to rely on traffic for advertising to support its business model, which makes sense given the difficulty presented in attracting mainstream advertisers due to the controversial nature of the site.

If there was a coordinated effort to censor Alex Jones, the publicity surrounding the event today may actually end up help extend his audience.

The InfoWars app also began trending immediately after the news broke that he was purged from the major big tech platforms.

The New York Times Effect describes the influence this newspaper organization has in setting the global news agenda. With 1,300 newsroom staff and long history, The New York Times has been at the top of the news media dominance hierarchy for decades.

The influence The New York Times has over society is well beyond its own 4 Million readers.

When The New York Times runs or ignores a story, many other new outlets follow suit, thus amplifying the editorial position on a grand scale. “The Times, still to a remarkable degree, does set the agenda.” said Michael Hischan in the Page One: Inside the New York Times documentary.

The New York Times effect, also known as the “Gray Lady effect,” refers to the tendency of other news organizations to follow the lead of the New York Times on a particular story. The Times is known for its thorough and in-depth reporting, and its journalists are often the first to break major news stories. As a result, other news outlets may follow the Times’ lead on a story and report on it, giving the Times significant influence in the news cycle.

The Times’ influence can also be seen in its editorial decisions, such as which stories to cover and how to cover them. The Times’ editorial choices can set the tone for how other news outlets approach a particular story, and can even shape public opinion on certain issues.

In addition to its influence on other news organizations, the New York Times also has a significant impact on stock prices. Its financial reporting is closely followed by investors and can often cause stock prices to rise or fall based on the information it presents.

The New York Times Effect according to Pareto Distribution

The Pareto principle was originally used to described the phenomena of a small fraction of the population controlling a large portion of wealth. Also know as the 80-20 rule, the Pareto principle occurs naturally across leading professionals in the arts, business, and sports.

Take Opera singing for example. Luciano Pavarotti was one of the greatest Italian tenors at the top Opera world for many years. Like Pavarotti, The New York Times has been at the top of the news hierarchy for many decades.

New York Times Liberal Bias

One example of the Times’ liberal bias can be seen in its coverage of political issues. The Times often covers stories and events from a liberal perspective, and its reporting and editorial commentary often reflect this perspective. For instance, the Times has been critical of conservative politicians and policies, and has frequently endorsed liberal candidates and causes.

Another example of the Times’ liberal bias can be seen in its coverage of social issues. The Times has often taken liberal positions on issues such as gun control, climate change, and social justice, and has frequently published articles and editorials that support these positions.

In addition to its political and social bias, the Times’ liberal bias can also be seen in its choice of sources and experts. The Times often relies on liberal sources and experts for its reporting, and may downplay or ignore alternative viewpoints. For instance, the Times may quote liberal politicians and activists more frequently than conservative ones, and may give more weight to the opinions of liberal experts and academics.

The Demise of The New York Times

The incredible power to influence society makes the news business a hot topic for discussion. The pending demise of The New York Times has fascinated media observers and the general public for decades. Today you still hear media pundits repeating with excitement the familiar narrative that “the Times will be bankrupt in 6 months”.

Plenty of evidence suggests the traditional newspaper business model is at the end of its life cycle. Yet an institution like The New York Times seem to hang on. For how long – no one knows.

Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 Presidential Election surprised many people. Especially readers of The New York Times, who trusted the poll on the front-page suggesting Hillary would win by a large margin. Not only was the poll wrong, it forced The New York Times to issue an apology to readers for their willful blindness. 

The results of the election sparked a wave of Google searches on the term “Fake News“. A term coined by incumbent President Donal Trump to describe the dishonest mainstream media. Since then President Trump has called for much higher standards from The New York Times.

Quality and Quantity Equation

Producing timely reports from around the world requires a large operation of professional journalist. With a news staff of 1,300 people around the globe, the Times has one of the largest newsrooms in the world.

To appeal to a large audience a news organization needs to produce content on many topics. The quality and depth of such content must also be high to appeal to the upper levels of society.

Financial ability to support a global news operation

Wages and benefits for newsroom staff cost the Times $362,750,000 in 2017. Maintaining this newsroom, when print advertising revenues continue to drop, is likely one of the greatest challenges for management.

The Geographic Advantage

Being in the center of the business world in New York City brings a geographic advantage. Location is an important factor for the Times to hold its leading position.

Staying Ahead of Competition

Decline in Advertising