Mexico and Blu-Ray: FACTS

BluRay movies launched about two years and a half years ago. Providing visual and audio quality that matches and even surpasses theaters sometimes, many movie enthusiasts were quick to make the jump from DVD and SDTVs to Blu-Ray and HDTVs. How's the situation here in Mexico?

1.- The cheapest Blu-Ray you can buy is around $400.00 M.X.P... and that's buying in Mercado Libre (the Mexican alternative to eBay). The same Blu-Ray can be adquired in Best Buy for $100.00 less.

2.- If you want to buy your Blu-Ray player the safe way (in a big retail such as Walmart or Costco), expect to pay another $50.00.

3.- BluRay movies prices oscilate around $30.0-$35.0... depending on how old they are. Catalogs are extremely limited, and you'll only find big releases such as Spiderman 3, Superman, Heroes... etc. It takes from one to three months for Blu-Ray releases to launch here.

4.- Most Blockbusters don't carry Blu-Rays yet... although the biggest ones do. Their collection is somewhat limited but it is quickly increasing... and there is only one copy of each movie. Among the pics you can find are: Casino Royale, 300, 1000 B.C., Spiderman 3, Harry Potter (1-5), etc.

5.- Blu-Ray penetration is around 4% in the US (as of April of this year). There are no official figures, but they must be around 0.1%... I only know one person who bought a Blu-Ray player and an HDTV set. Most of the people I know has either a PS3 or a HDTV, but most of the times they don't have both / aren't interested in Blu-Ray. As a background fact, HD movie downloads are far from being well known here, but iTunes holds most of that market.

Racism: inevitably a part of our lives

I was on my way to the gym when I heard on the local news something that made my blood boil: Rigoberta Menchú, winner of the 1992 Nobel Peace Price and candidate to the presidency of Guatemala, was kicked out of the Mexican hotel "Corel Beach" in Cancun, because, according to the hotel guards, she was a "jewelery seller". Rigoberta's part of the story, though, is more credible. She says that she was victim of men favoritism and racism, and that because she looks (proudly) like a native American person she gets "special treatment".

Legally speaking, the hotel did nothing wrong because they just asked her to leave, and actually, if it was a misunderstanding, it's quite understandable. Why on earth should Corel Beach accept traveling salesmen in their hotel? It's also quite understandable from the salesmen's point of view, since who would want to buy their products? Tourists. And where do tourists stay? Hotels. And would tourists go to places like Cancun if it weren't for the traveling salesmen? Probably not to the extent they are right now! This makes a circle, one that the Mayan governors once tried to hide from their people:

The proletarian can't live without the proletariat.
Hotels can't live without tourists - Tourists can't live without salesmen - Salesmen can't live without hotels (because there would be no tourists).

So weren't the Mayan people the first to classify a part of their society as inferior? Didn't they held the working class as the one of the lowest possible class you could belong to?
So is it, in a way, the Mayan's fault that they are victims of racism?
It gives you something to think about, doesn't it?

P.D.: I by NO MEANS agree with what Corel Beach did, I think it was an exponential form of racism that cannot be justified in any way (after all, did anyone see Rigoberta making any business? Selling any jewelery? Offering herself to make "trenzitas" to anyone?), yet, I do find racism highly ironic in this case.