Think Out Loud

Kintsugi is the traditional Japanese art of repairing ceramics with lacquer and gold dust. The idea is to highlight the imperfections of a piece and celebrate its new form, rather than hide its chips and cracks. Artist Naoko Fukumaru wasn’t initially interested in kintsugi — as a conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts and other institutions, she was fo...

In October, Lane County signed a contract with Eugene-based Bulk Handling Systems to create a state-of-the-art recycling center unlike any other in Oregon. It will sort garbage and commingled recycling and produce methane from the organic waste, generating renewable natural gas. According to the county, it will be ​“the most technologically advanced waste processing facility in the country,...

Over 100 years ago, a Missouri-based lumber company built what became known as Maxville, a segregated logging town in northeastern Oregon. In September, archaeologists and students from Southern Oregon University dug to find artifacts from the town’s lost Black neighborhood. Now, the students are working to process and understand what they found. Mark Axel Tveskov is a professor of anthropol...

The Federal Railroad Administration, which is part of the U.S. Department of Transportation, is investing more than   $40 million in rail funding for Oregon. Projects span the state and include work in Linn and Lake Counties and Coos Bay.   Prineville is getting funding specifically allocated for rural communities. The grant will help the city restore its rail line and improve safety. Pr...

Marie Tosa, a postdoctoral researcher in the department of botany and plant pathology at Oregon State University, spent two and a half years trapping and tracking the movements of western spotted skunks across thousands of acres in forests in the western Cascades, roughly 60 miles east of Eugene.   Little is known about the small, nocturnal carnivores which weigh between one and two pounds an...

Democratic congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez defeated a challenge from Trump-identified Republican Joe Kent in Washington's 3rd District — despite the fact that Trump won that same district. Gluesenkamp Perez told the New York Times that result was because she refused to nationalize her local race and had solid support from working class voters, who she says her party needs to do a much...

“Think Out Loud” is joined by the “Politics Now” podcast team on the air and on video livestream. Dirk VanderHart, Lauren Dake, Bryce Dole and Alex Zielinski join us to discuss the outcomes of key races and ballot measures across Oregon and Southwest Washington, what implications they may have and how they might affect the lives of Pacific Northwest residents in the year to...

Author Tim O’Brien is best known for his book “The Things They Carried,” about the Vietnam War. His latest book is a compilation of anecdotes and reflections on becoming a parent in late middle age, and what he wants his young children to know about him before he dies. This conversation was recorded in front of an audience at the Portland Book Festival in the fall of 2019.

From homelessness to a budget crisis, Portland officials will have a lot to navigate as they take office. This year, Portlanders used ranked choice voting to decide the next mayor and council. And the city council has expanded from five seats to 12 across four geographic districts. We check in on how the election went and what’s next for the city with Alex Zielinski, OPB’s Portland cit...

On Wednesday, three Portland Commissioners - Mingus Mapps, Rene Gonzalez and Dan Ryan - decided to pull an ordinance they had filed to end the city’s 8-year partnership with Multnomah County to fight homelessness. The decision was made as Portland is poised to elect Keith Wilson, the owner of a trucking company as its next mayor, who opposes the city leaving the Joint Office of Homeless Serv...

 After the second release of preliminary election results from Multnomah County on Wednesday night, Keith Wilson maintained his lead in the mayoral race. The Oregonian has already called the race, and opponents Carmen Rubio and Rene Gonzalez have both conceded to him. Wilson is the CEO of a local trucking company and ran on a platform to end homelessness by 2026 by expanding shelter capacity...

The general election is now over, wrapping up months of planning, assistance and coordination among the state’s 36 county clerks. They are responsible for mailing off ballots, registering voters and overseeing elections in local, state and federal races in Oregon. More than a third of them this year also administered a presidential election in Oregon for the first time.    County c...

Republican Cliff Bentz has won his reelection for Oregon’s 2nd Congressional District, the largest congressional district in Oregon that represents around two-thirds of the state, comprising everything east of the Willamette Valley. We hear from Bentz and others in response to this week’s election results. Meghan Moyer won a position on Multnomah County Commission, representing Distric...

Members of OPB’s politics team join us to provide analysis and share the latest updates on Oregon races in the general election. They’ll discuss the results of statewide ballot measures and analyze some of the congressional district races, as well as the latest developments in Portland’s historic elections to choose a new mayor and expand the city council from five seats to 12. W...

In the 1970s, some scientists proposed that Earth and its life forms are a single, self-regulating system. At the time, the "Gaia hypothesis" was widely criticized. But since then, the concept of Earth as a vast interconnected living system has gained acceptance. Portland-based science writer Ferris Jabr’s new book, “Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life,” describes how the...

The BPA owns 75% of the transmission lines in the Northwest. It has proposed 13 new projects to upgrade and expand the region’s power grid to accommodate growing energy needs. Oregon and other Northwest states have ambitious carbon emissions reduction targets that they can’t hit unless the power grid expands. Those goals will be impossible to meet without much more energy generated fro...

Oregon recently launched a pilot program to provide liability coverage for prescribed burns that don’t go as intended. The program covers up to $1 million in damages per burn. It’s being managed in tandem with the state’s certified burn manager program, which provides training on how to safely and effectively use prescribed fire on a variety of landscapes. Taken together, the two...

Newport is the first city on the Oregon Coast to adopt a new estuary management plan in more than 40 years. The city jointly manages the Yaquina Bay Estuary with Lincoln County and the city of Toledo. The three entities use the plan to determine what kind of development can happen in what parts of the estuary.  The updated version requires developers to perform climate vulnerability assessmen...

Misinformation around election season has been spreading, including false claims that  Donald Trump is not appearing as a candidate on Oregon’s Voter Pamphlet to some Pennsylvania ballots being destroyed. Stephen Prochaska is a doctoral student at the University of Washington Information School and a graduate research assistant at the Center for an Informed Public. He joins us to share...

Astoria’s Billie McBride was crowned Miss Trans Oregon earlier this year. That means she’ll be vying for the Miss Trans USA title at the national pageant in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from Nov. 7-10. A former business owner and an avid figure skater, McBride now spends her time advocating against anti-trans legislation. She joins us in the studio to talk more about her life and how she hope...

This week, a coalition of over 100 elected officials, arts organizations, labor unions and chambers of commerce signed a letter urging calm and “thoughtful civic engagement” on election day, and to preserve the “hard-won but still fragile progress” in Downtown Portland.  Amid rising concerns about possible civil unrest next week, Portland Police Chief Bob Day said ther...

Derek Greenwood is an adjunct faculty member at Columbia Gorge Community College and a certified drug and alcohol counselor. As someone with lived experience, he credits having a safe space he could go to socialize when he was recovering from drug addiction as a young adult. But finding safe, sober spaces to form those connections with other people in recovery can be a challenge, especially in rur...

The weeklong Bureau of Land Management’s annual Bat Beauty Contest closes, appropriately enough, on Halloween this year. Voting has taken place on the BLM’s Facebook and Instagram accounts. The competition features photos of bats taken primarily by government biologists who survey and work with bats on public lands in 12 western states, including Oregon. There are 15 species of bats na...

Menopause can present a wide range of symptoms, from hot flashes and sleep disturbances to brain fog and loss of bone density. Though several safe and effective therapies are available, many patients still aren’t receiving the help they need. A new study from Oregon Health & Science University found that more than 60% of respondents with moderate to severe menopause symptoms weren’...

For researchers, endangered and threatened birds like the Northern Spotted Owl and the Marbled Murrelet can be incredibly hard to find and study in the wild. Now new research shows that  artificial intelligence may be able to help. As first reported in Hakai Magazine, researchers have been training AI to correctly identify elusive species of birds in the wild through sound. Matthew Betts is a...