123 Meme
Dave Schuler of The Glittering Eye tapped me with the 123 Meme. The Rules of the 123 Meme are as follows:
1. Pick up the nearest book ( of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.
Dave had a fine selection, a book`that coincidentally sits closely nearby on my own shelf. As a result, I decided to go with what was nearest in terms of the unshelved,” handy”, unread bookpile from which I pick up and read at odd moments or choose from to read seriously from start to finish. At the top of the pile is Robert Dallek’s Nixon and Kissinger:Partners in Power. The anecdote has an eerie timeless quality about it:
When Nixon and Kissinger told Hoover that the May 9 and earlier leaks”were more than damaging, they were potentially dangerous to national security,” Hoover began tapping the phones of three national security officials identified by Henry – Henry Davidson, Morton Halperin, and Hal Sonnenfeldt – and one other Defense Department officer, Colonel Robert Pursley, a Laird assistant. Within days, two other NSC staff members came under scrutiny as well: Richard Moose and Richard Sneider. FBI agents also began listening to the phone conversations of four journalists- Beecher and Hedrick Smth of the Times, and an English correspondent based in Washington, Henry Brandon of the Sinday Times of London, and CBS newsman Marvin Kalb.
By the power vested in me by the 123 Meme, I infect the following bloggers:
Shane Deichman of Wizards of Oz
Bruce Kesler of Democracy Project
Dave Davison of Thoughts Illustrated
Cheryl Rofer of Whirledview
Dr. Daniel Nexon of The Duck of Minerva
February 3rd, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Mark: While I appreciate your tag, I usually decline these tag chain letters. so while I probably won’t "pass it along", I did accept your 123 meme challenge for the book on my desk: The Canon by Natalie Angier.
Page 123, sentences 6-9.
"On earth, under our conditions, we have lots of chemistry. WE have temperature conditions where molecules can exist in three different states, as solid, liquid or gas, and where, with the input of energy,from the liight of the sun or the heat of a fire, those molecules can change into other molecules,into other complex assemblages of atoms.""What a dull world it would be if there were only 115 of us, and what a dull world it would be if there were nothing more than the 115 elements, 115 different types of atoms, end of Story."" Hoffman said. "" But that isn’t how our world works. From the 115 elements you can build a near infinity of molecules, of any type you need, to get all the structural and functional diversity you can ask for. There are at least 100,000 different molecules in the human body……Chemistry is a truly anthropic science."
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RE the 123 Meme challenge it represents a version of what Stanford Professor BJ Fogg calls Massive Interpersonal Persuasion ( MIP) which was the focus of his wild and crazy course last semester where students developed Facebook apps – some of which reached over 10 Million FaceBook "friends" in less than 6 weeks. He is studying the Facebook virality phenomenon to better understand MIP and apply his findings to a new project he calls PeaceTech.
Maybe the 123 meme could achieve the Facebook style of virality with the "tag 5 friends" invitation. The subject matter is a good deal more interesting than tagging friends on FB or Twitter with what one of Fogg’s students termed " viral drivel".
Nevertheless, I choose not to engage in MIP for 123. I am breaking the chain.
Cheers
Dave
February 4th, 2008 at 1:24 am
When you say "book," do you mean, like, a "real" book? (As in, printed and supplied from a real publisher [coming from a bookstore or a library].) Or could it be, like, one’s personal notebook? (Like, say, a commonplace book [or something…])
February 4th, 2008 at 3:28 am
Zen, Done: http://oz.deichman.net/2008/02/123-meme-co-zenpundit.html .
February 4th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Posted.
February 4th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Did Hoover first obtain court order allowing for this tapping? Convictions or the usual Nixon scare stuff?
February 16th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
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