Hammer Mill Days

Not a real good bookkeeper, I admit it. Never have been particularly good with numbers. Don't know much about geometry. (There's a song in this somewhere.) So what happened to the March podcast? Well, as you've guessed if you follow our various pointless postings in cyberspace, we have moved to a bi-monthly format, given the production demands of Ned Trek, particularly the musical episodes. We're currently producing five or six songs for what will ultimately be the June episode, and we should be recording the April episode in a week or so. So ... production is moving forward, but like Issa's snail climbing Mount Fuji, it is proceeding "slowly ... slowly." My illustrious brother had a cold for a couple of weeks, like half of humanity up here in the great frozen north country. He spends a good deal of his day outdoors, feeding and entertaining all manner of wild critters. Not so different from being in the restaurant business, actually, and you know how

Big week in news, both domestically and internationally. As is my habit, I will comment briefly on a couple of items, run off at the mouth, and probably write way too much than is good for anyone. But what the hell - here goes. Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The debate over the state versions of this legislation has focused on the opportunity for discrimination against LGBT patrons of businesses in the relevant states, and understandably so. Still, I can't help but feel the media outlets and activists are burying the lead on this issue. There appears to be some correlation between the people pushing this legislation and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which provides model, usually conservative legislation to state representatives. Whether or not ALEC is involved, these RFRA-like bills appear to build on the Hobby Lobby decision handed down by the Supreme Court last year. This is a broader effort to extend religious freedom protections to corporate "p