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In 1964 students at the State University of New York at Buffalo pulled off an extraordinary prank.
While cramming for a botany final in late 1963, one student stumbled across the phrase “the thallus of Marchantia,” referring to a stem-like structure on a moss-like plant. Deciding that the phrase sounded like an Arab title of royalty, this student and his friends decided to send the local paper a press release telling them that the Thallus of Marchantia was coming to Buffalo on a state visit.
The prank snowballed from there, and by the time it was over the organizers had sent a student to New York City, flown him back to Buffalo dressed as the fictional potentate, staged a massive protest upon his arrival at the airport, and secured a limo and a police escort to take him to a meeting with the mayor.
The full story of this bizarre escapade can be found here.
We mentioned yesterday that MTV will be broadcasting from Barack Obama’s Youth Inaugural Ball next Tuesday, in a program that will feature musical performances and live coverage of Obama’s remarks to the ball’s attendees.
This morning the Washington Post is reporting that MTV paid $650,000 for that privilege.
According to the Post, the Obama inaugural committee sold exclusive broadcast rights to four inaugural events to four different networks — three of them on cable.
The most expensive event was Sunday’s Lincoln Memorial concert, which HBO paid $2.5 million to carry. HBO says it is “encouraging” cable and satellite providers to make the event available free of charge to non-subscribers, but many households will be unable to view it even so. Some providers carry the network on digital cable channels only, further restricting access.
In the creepiest bit of merchandising, the committee sold the rights to a prime-time Monday children’s concert to Disney. Michelle Obama and Jill Biden will host the concert, at which various Disney Channel stars will perform.
Ew.
January 21 Update: Obama’s remarks at the youth inaugural can be seen here.
MTV has cancelled its planned inaugural ball, and will instead broadcast live from the official Obama youth ball on inauguration night.
The MTV special, “Be the Change: Live from the Inaugural,” will feature live footage of Obama’s remarks at the Youth Inaugural Ball, as well as musical performances from that event.
Be the Change will run simultaneously on all American MTV networks at 10pm Eastern time on Tuesday, January 20, and will be made available to all of MTV’s affiliates worldwide as well.
January 17 Update: Turns out MTV paid the inaugural committee more than half a million bucks for the exclusive rights to Youth Ball footage.
January 21 Update: Obama’s remarks at the youth inaugural can be seen here.
About four hundred Greek police officers gathered in Athens on Thursday to the strains of the Beatles song “Let It Be, “carrying a banner that read “No To Violence.”
“We are protesting because we are part of society,” one officer said. “Violence against the Greek police is violence against Greek society. We’re against any kind of violence.”
Student and youth riots have convulsed Greece since the December police shooting of fifteen-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos.
The Thursday police rally took place not long before one thousand students staged their own protest in central Athens. Although some of those protesters threw rocks and oranges at police, there was no police response and the march ended without violence or arrests.
Okay, it’s a bit of a made-up stat. But as the Washington Post reports, there are going to be a lot of students at the inauguration next week.
studentactivism.net 
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