Because of my grandparent’s interest, when I was a child,  my parents took me to visit the Workmen’s Circle Camp in Ashland, Massachusetts a few times.  (I didn’t even remember it was in Ashland until some relatives just reminded me where it was.)

I have done a little web research and have come up with a few items. Does any reader have anything else to add?

Ashland Historical Society – Workmen’s Circle

I say the Workmen’s Circle’s past is complex because until 1979, there was not a lot of documentation available from a single source until Gordon E. Hopper who wrote “Hopper on History” from the Milford Daily News researched the area extensively and published a series of articles for the News in 1979. Working with people with first hand knowledge of the area, the Ashland Historical Society, and others, Hopper compiled a 41 page summary of the events of the area from 1720 to 1979. It is not my intention to go into every detail of Hopper’s research due to the vastness of space required, so I will attempt the Reader’s Digest version.

Guide to the Records of Boston Workmen’s Circle-Brookline, Mass., undated, 1927-1999

In 1927, the Boston District bought land in Ashland, Massachusetts, where it established the Golden Ring camp. In 1957, the Ashland camp was destroyed in a fire and moved to Pembroke, Massachusetts. This camp was modeled on New York’s summer camp and resort in Hopewell Junction, New York.

American Jewish Historical Society Center for Jewish History

Boston Workmen’s Circle

“The Workmen’s Circle is my Jewish community because it allows me to express all the different aspects of my Jewish identity in one place. It’s where I act for change while being part of a larger, inter-generational community.”

Robert Reich’s article Trigger Happy: Why Deficit Cuts Should Be Triggered Only When Unemployment Reaches 5 Percent introduces the idea of deficit cuts only when the unemployment level drops sufficiently.

The President (remember him?) is still hawking his $450 billion jobs bill, but he’s having a hard time being heard above the deficit-reduction din — in large part because he himself is simultaneously calling for deficit reduction, and most people outside Washington can’t make sense of how we do both.

The public is confused because they don’t get it’s a matter of sequencing. We need to do more spending now in order to bring back jobs and growth, then do less spending in the future — after the economy is once again generating jobs and growth.

That’s why it make more sense for Democrats to propose a deficit reduction plan that goes into effect only when jobs are back. The trigger should be the rate of unemployment — and a 5 percent rate would signal we’re back on track.

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So the best of all worlds is to have a big jobs plan now, and also commit to automatic cuts triggered when unemployment falls to 5 percent.

Can anyone imagine such an insane idea as to have economic policy response tied to actual economic conditions?  (Warning:  The previous comment is meant to be sarcastic.)

Here is Aaron Task in Taken to Task: A Poverty of News, an Embarrassment of Media.

I get that poverty is a depressing topic and a change to how it’s measured is a complicated story to tell. But I’ve never had a viewer tell me they want LESS depth or more ‘infotainment.’

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Bashing the press is great fun. But the fault, dear Brutus, is not entirely in our media stars or their corporate overlords.

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In these difficult times, and especially on Veterans Day, it’s important for all of us to be aware of the messages we’re sending to the media in the stories we watch, share, favorite and Tweet about.

Those among us — journalists and civilians alike — who ignore the hard realities of American life and get lost in what should be the minor distractions. You’ve been taken to task.

According to the Truth Out article Former Guantanamo Chief Prosecutor: “A Pair of Testicles Fell Off the President After Election Day”.

“There’s a pair of testicles somewhere between the Capital Building and the White House that fell off the president after Election Day [2008],” said Davis, an Air Force colonel who spent two years as the chief prosecutor of Guantanamo military commissions, during an interview at his Washington, DC, office over the summer and in email correspondence over the past several months. “He got his butt kicked. Not just with Guantanamo but with national security in general. I’m sure there are a few areas here and there where there have been ‘change,’ but to me it seems like a third Bush term when it comes to national security.”

Even some friends of Dick Cheney can see what is going on:

In January 2009, Susan Crawford, the retired judge and a close confidant of Dick Cheney, who, until last year, was the convening authority for military commissions at Guantanamo, said al-Qahtani’s interrogation met the legal definition of torture and, as a result, she would not allow a war crimes tribunal against him to proceed.

After attending Elizabeth Warren’s volunteer convocation yesterday in Worcester, I suspect that perhaps she has found the missing items.

This interview IAEA Iran Report Spins Intelligence comes from The Real News.  The report is pretty devastating in my opinion.  You have to wait till near the end of the interview to hear the source of this latest “intelligence”.

Why is the Obama administration playing into the hands of the war mongering Republican presidential candidates by promoting this hogwash? Has Hilary Clinton got something incriminating on Obama, or is he really like his bellicose foreign policy?

The article Do Iran’s Objections to the IAEA Report Deserve Consideration? adds further details to what is in the above interview.

The quote below is just one of the added details.

…just how far-fetched are Iran’s claims that the IAEA Directorate General is politically compromised?

…as evidenced in this 2009 diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks, the U.S. had secured the support of IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano in its campaign against the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program as a quid-pro-quo for American support of his candidacy in the wake of Egyptian Nobel Laureate Mohammad El-Baradei’s resignation.