With this post I’m going to straight up tell you that it is completely borrowed from an entry I found here, a blog or website called qiibo.com, which professes to be about technology, cinema, and Puerto Rico. What they did was post a photo of a glass (half full, half empty) and then two videos that have come out almost simultaneously: Luis Fortuño’s long-form campaign ad for his re-election run and Al Jazeera English’s report on what’s been happening the last six months on the island.

So, for the English-dominant crowd, I’m going to post them in similar fashion here.

I have no idea who’s doing the voiceover–it’s certainly not the guy who narrates the Caribbean Cinemas announcement before the movie starts at San Patricio mall, but it appears to be delivered as a décima in spots. I’m not going to compare it to Leni Riefenstahl either because that kind of name-calling is getting tired. But it’s hard to imagine something so mawkishly detached from reality. Its manipulation of numbers can be interpreted as sinister.

Now this piece from Al Jazeera English is pretty well balanced serious journalism that perhaps should not be compared to a campaign ad, explicitly a propaganda vehicle. It occasionally goes for strong stuff in non-gratuitous, if slightly manipulative fashion. It puts to shame most reporting from the island by both the mainstream and liberal-left press, connecting the dots between the RNC, Fortuño, the Wisconsin austerity plan, and the unemployment/civil rights/crime/union-busting crisis enveloping the island. (Not news to you if you’ve been following this blog or much indymedia.) Plus some stuff on the Vieques aftermath. One slight quibble: the interview with McClintock does not mention that even though he is in lockstep with Fortuño, he is technically a member of the Democratic Party.

So, is the reality somewhere in between the two? I’m thinking you know what time it is.