Ivory Tower Movie

     I went to see a movie, Ivory Tower, at the Uptown Theater in Minneapolis. It was about the increasing cost of a college education. Some of it apparently is due to funding cuts by government agencies to state universities. It covered the relevant history well, like the G.I. Bill at the end of World War Two. Then there was the legislation from the 1960s that created Pell Grants, which helped me attend college. It goes back even farther, to the land grant college act during the Civil War known as the Morrill Act. Many colleges were created due to it. I also liked how it covered businessmen who funded schools like Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Stanford. The fourth, Cooper, I wasn't familiar with, but Cooper Union in New York City was covered a lot. Same was true with Harvard, America's oldest college. There was coverage of a local school, the U. of Minnesota, and spoke of the cost of their new football stadium. It will likely leave some angry at President Reagan, as it was said many of the funding cuts to education goes back to his time in office, not just as President but also as Governor of California. California's current governor, Jerry Brown, does appear in it. There were no real solutions offered, but it is sad to hear about those who are graduating with a mountain of debt. One of those profiled claims to have a six-figure debt.
    I also went to an event in the evening, after doing errand running like to get a baseball ticket for a game next week. I tried to redeem an award at Super-America, but my card is worn from plenty of use and the card number is hard to read now. The solution offered was a replacement card, this one I am told is laminated so I shouldn't have the same problem. I also got two CD's at Cheapo near the theater. One was Train, as it was cheaper than seeing them at Basilica Block Party. It was 'California 37', which has 'This will be my year'. I like it as it goes through recent history, and I did write about the song before, since the title of the entry was the lyric 'Oldsmobile joins the cassette'. The other was 'Global Warming', by Pitbull. I like having it as it has 'Feel this moment'. I like it as it has the line 'Still undefeated like Shula', in reference to the football coach.
    The event I went to was a fundraiser for an upcoming Fringe show, next month. I was a raffle winner for the final item, Nintendo artwork. I also got a ring of honor photo with the roller grill comic, who is in this play. I understand he rooms with another comic, who works as an airport bartender and moved from Arizona. I liked hearing the Mason City native talk about music while there and I did show a photo from the Ramsey County Fair this weekend, it was about the band Aerosmith. He said he wants to be known as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, I said then do a joke about it. Plenty of food there, I had some of the popcorn and tortilla chips as well as what I call 'Rapper cookies'- M and M cookies, or actually this one was Reese's Pieces. Video games were being played, a tournament. So there had to be a guard to prevent people from walking through while the game was happening.