Laserdiscs and Sacred Cows
Transcript read by a machine from the typewritten page. The typos are mine or the machine’s.
I sold my first laserdiscs yesterday. Two anine discs that were worth $50 each. I have almost payed for the shippimg on# one o f the shipments from Japan, Still, I see this collection as a hugely expensive endeavor from which I will never "break even". But, that ism't why I started collecting andit certainly isn't why I still have over 1000 discs. But, as I said to the man who came to my house to buy 5 discs and who stayed for 30 minutes to look at many of the rest, I have no sacred Cows,
It is a phrase that I8ve now said twice in tro days. It means that there is nothing that currently exists within what I have that I am not willing to give up should the right conditions be met. I meant it about the laserdiscs because there is a price by which I would relinquish each and every one. I do not care for things as much as someone else might. And although I care for money even
I recognize that fleeting happiness. I recognize within someone else the #* quest for something and the ability to have it withir your grasp.
The other instance of using the pirase was in reference to my ability to give up parts of my work and the processes by which we might recruit and evaluate ##* students for our Universityr I was saying that there is nothing in there that isn't up for debate. That we have been doing things in# specific ways and for specific reasons, but that I was open to reevaluating everytning. In this exchange of old for new, it isn't quite the same as the exchange of goods for money, but the priciple still holds. Everything is on the table. It isn't that there aren't things I will fight for or that my beliefs and experiences count for nothing. Rather, it is simply that I feel fully able to be convinced by othera# that there are better ways of navigating, that there are things I hatent thought of or imagined. That there are new solutions to he same old problems, and that there are still lots of things to learn.
There are no sacred cows for my things or for my processes. But, that isn't true for belief. You cannot sacrifice thefundamental value of human life. ######## All humans, There is no money that would be exchanged that would make it true. There is no new argument that could be made to convince me that human rights arelthe very ground upon which we stand. We are the sacred cow. Humans, the ones doing the sacriticing and the ones being sacrificed. And I will fight for us. If and until I am placed on that altar and set ablaze.