Passover robots and MDAR firsts

We bring extra springtime in the studio today, now that it's warm! We welcome Ashley Randle, the first female-identifying commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR). She tells about some of the department's plans, raising cows, and farming across the baystate both rural and urban. Then we get into the not-so-Jewish past of Springfield with editor and podcaster Mark Oppenheimer of the podcast Unorthodox. He also keys us into some of the new traditions folx might see in their Passover festivities. (Chag Sameach to those celebrating!) And Rep. Jim McGovern sidesteps the indictment debacle. With that much needed breath of fresh air, we instead learn how he's on the congressional robotics caucus advisory committee, that the robotics caucus exists, and how his work on that committee lead to a recent visit to Worcester Polytechnic Institute. And then an alarming amount of Star Wars references happen. They may or may not be acronym related.