Caracas Chronicles

A guest submission by Daniel Lansberg-Rodríguez, live from the Windy City.

Yesterday, at DePaul University in Chicago, the following event was presented by the local Venezuelan consulate:

The primary speakers were — rather fittingly — a couple of Cubans empowered by our consulate to speak for us (and, allegedly, vote for us as well). Content-wise it was basically what one might have expected from this sort of thing:

Now I’m not going to spend any time feigning shock at their arguments. We know the government by now and we know that they don’t do the whole “tone it down a bit for the international audience” angle of diplomacy. If the whole: “Capriles is a sinister fascist/terrorist” story is the official line what good is my opinion on the matter? After all Chávez Redentór created us in his image and we are what we are.  Fine.

What I can’t get over is the catastrophically unprofessional way that this “information” is being presented. Here is a version where I’ve taken the liberty of making some corrections:

Note that this may not even be a comprehensive list. I gave the corrections a solid try but, as both Quico and Juan can personally vouch, I’m not a particularly good editor. So consider this the bare minimum of what could be wrong with this train wreck of a slide. And feel free to point out any more in the comments.

Now I understand that there can be legitimate reasons why this would happen: maybe the person who made the slide had a crazy-hot English teacher whose smile is itself directly adverse to the didactic process But this is as an unacceptable way to present ourselves before the world.

And at the risk of further entrenching my budding reputation as the Andy Rooney of Caracas Chronicles … I just felt I had to say something.