@nfl #packers #scabs #paytherefs

The big news this morning is the absolutely terrible call made last night in favor of the Seahawks.  This is the image that best sums up the situation:

Photo courtesy of Rachel Nichols twitter feed, @Rachel_Nichols

At the heart of the matter is the fact that these referees are not as well trained as the refs who should have been on the field last night.  Those refs are currently on strike due to contract disagreements. People who take jobs from striking workers are called "scabs" - and this word is supposed to bring out all the negative connotation you can imagine.  Those two in the picture are scabs, doing their job badly.

Scabs have a long and colorful history in our country. One of the most infamous incidents is called the Haymarket Riot.  After a prolonged and bitter strike where the scabs were given the working conditions that the union had demanded, some union members had attacked scabs and the police ended up killing two men and wounding many others.  On May 4th, 1886, what was supposed to be a peaceful gathering ended up killing seven police officers, four men, and countless wounded.  May Day is now used as a commemoration of this.

Image taken from PBS's History of US:   http://www.pbs.org/wnet/historyofus/web09/features/see_it_now/1880.0093.html

Read a first person account of the Haymarket Riot from an eyewitness
Read a first person account of the Haymarket Riot from a police officer, titled "Anarchists were flying everywhere"

For more information on the history of unions, striking, and scabs, Lane Library has tons of books, here are just a few:

                    

Here are more books on the history of the labor movement available at Lane Library

Thanks to PBS for information on the Haymarket Riot

#yougetwhatyoupayfor

Traveling the globe via postcards

Our main job here at Lane Library is to help our students get the most out of college, usually that means helping out with research.  One thing that is so particular and important to the college experience is the opportunity to travel abroad.  It is truly a priceless experience in every respect and we want to encourage everyone to take this rare opportunity!  

It is in the spirit of encouraging our students to travel that we joined up with Postcrossing.com. For every card we send out telling people all about Ripon, Wisconsin, we receive one in return from a randomly chosen location across the globe.  So far we have received 7 from across Europe and Asia.  All of the postcards we get are hanging in the copier room at the library next to a map with numbered pins in the area the card is from.  Here are digital images of the postcards we've received so far:  

The first one we got was from a teacher, Inna, in the Ukraine 

From Vatsala in Pune, India celebrating her country's badminton bronze medal winner in this year's Olymipcs

A beautiful seascape from Tatyana, in Tomsk, Russia

From Matylda in Bialystok, Poland, one of Poland's largest cities with 3 major universities

From Verna in Hong Kong, who wrote all about the amazing food in her city (as if we need ANOTHER reason to go!)

From Xu in China, who wrote "Welcome to China" on the back in Chinese (thank you to Ray, our circ worker for helping with the translation)

From Winni in Funkstadt-Nauen, Germany, home of Deutsche Welle and Radio Berlin

We love getting postcards from around the world and look forward to building quite a collection.  Next time you are printing something out, take a moment to flip through the cards and check out the map.  If you are interested in learning more about Postcrossing, visit Postcrossing.com.  Happy Postcrossing, Lane Library!