Think Out Loud

Three-quarters of adults over the age of 50 want to remain in their homes as they age, according to the American Association of Retired Persons. But for some older adults in Portland, current infrastructure presents some serious physical and social challenges. A new draft report from Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability lays out some recommendations to address these issues. The A...

Oregon’s Measure 110 — which decriminalized drug possession and directed more money into substance use disorder treatment   — was modeled after Portugal's drug policy approach. New York Times opinion writer and neuroscience journalist Maia Szalavitz has studied what’s happened over the last 25 years since the country began decriminalization. She’s written many ar...

Erika Hayasaki’s book “Somewhere Sisters: a story of adoption, identity, and the meaning of family” explores a very complicated multi-family, multinational story. At the heart of the book are sisters: identical twins born in Vietnam. One was adopted by a wealthy family in the U.S., one was raised in rural Vietnam. We spoke to Hayasaki in 2022 in front of an audience at the Portla...

When you look at a painting in a gallery or museum, you can’t always tell how much of what’s portrayed is accurate or how much artistic license has been taken. But a new study from Oregon State University shows that some 19th-century landscape paintings are accurate enough to aid scientists who are researching historical forest systems.  Dana Warren is an associate professor of fo...

The first Tibetans came to the Pacific Northwest to work in the lumber industry. Then, in the early '90s, more refugees were resettled here. Earlier this month, The Northwest Tibetan Community Association celebrated 30 years of Tibetan language and cultural programming.  Jampa Nyendak Lathsang and Dechen Bartso, both volunteers in the community, join us to talk about the Northwest’s Tib...

TOL VMs from listeners about favorite memories of Damian Lillard, following announcement of his trade to the Milwaukee Bucks

Tanya Barham, the CEO of Community Energy Labs, is featured on the Grist 50 list of leaders in the U.S. who are working on solutions for a sustainable future. Grist states that it reviews thousands of nominees before whittling down the final list. Barham’s company works on helping schools and other public agencies create more energy efficient buildings.  Barham joins us with details of...

The Sunrise Movement and more than 50 high schools from across the country are working on the Green New Deal for Schools Campaign. The proposal has several demands including safe and clean school infrastructure, pathways to green jobs, and climate disaster planning. We learn more about the new deal proposal from Adah Crandall, an organizer with the Sunrise Movement and graduate of Grant High Schoo...

Portland Community Football Club is like a lot of sports organizations for kids. It focuses on soccer, provides coaching, training and opportunities for kids of different ages to play competitively. But the PCFC is unlike many otherwise similar organizations in its mission to serve kids regardless of their gender or their family’s ability to pay. Founder Kaig Lightner says his love of sports...

Julian Saporiti found a lot of Asian American songs and musicians when he was doing research for his PhD in American History. But the lack of popular understanding of that history was frustrating. In response, Saporiti founded No-No Boy, a Portland-based music and multimedia project that combines vivid narrative storytelling with Asian American history. Saporiti joins us to play songs from his new...

Earlier this month, Nike told the Soul District Business Association that the company would be closing its store in Northeast Portland permanently. Ron Herndon was one of the people who brought that store to NE Portland in the 1980s. As a leader in the community organization Black United Front, Herndon helped convince Nike to support and invest in the Black community. We talk to Herndon about the...

The Portland Association of Teachers’ nearly 4,500 union members are currently working without a contract. The union has been in mediation with Portland Public Schools since late August, and both parties have repeatedly stated they would like to avoid a strike. Angela Bonilla, president of the Portland Association of Teachers, tells us what teachers and coaches are hoping for, and what the s...

For the first time in four years, Oregon State Hospital is in compliance with a federal order requiring that certain patients be admitted to the hospital within seven days. Emily Cooper is the legal director of Disability Rights Oregon. She joins us to share more on what changed at the hospital and its future looking forward.

Oregon is the third state in the nation to seek federal approval for a basic health plan under the Affordable Care Act. Last week, the Oregon Health Policy Board unanimously approved the state’s blueprint for the program. Dave Baden is the interim director for the Oregon Health Authority. He joins us to share more on BHP, who could potentially qualify and what makes this program different th...

Kate Beaton gained an international following for “Hark, a Vagrant,” a quirky, satirical, historically informed comic strip. Beaton’s newest book takes a very different turn. It is a deeply personal graphic memoir called “Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands" about the time she spent working in the oil industry in Alberta, Canada in the mid-2000s. The book is a brutally honest...

On Monday, a coalition that includes Max Williams, a former director of the Oregon Department of Corrections and former state lawmaker, announced it had filed paperwork for a ballot measure to  “fix and improve” Measure 110. A key provision includes re-criminalizing the possession of hard drugs, like fentanyl and heroin, which were decriminalized with the passage of Measure 110 in...

Western gray squirrels are getting harder and harder to find in Washington state. They are the largest species of tree squirrels, and traditionally make their homes in low to mid-elevation forests, where historically they could find plenty of oaks, pines and Douglas firs. That habitat is disappearing and changing due to timber harvests, wildfires, land conversion and climate change. Mary Linders i...

One of Portland’s most established and storied professional theatres, Artists Repertory Theatre, announced a series of financial setbacks this summer. First, ART suspended its 2023-2024 season as it was getting ready to start rehearsing its first show. That was followed by major staff layoffs: the already lean organization laid off four of its 10 administrative and support positions. Aiyana...

Hikikomori is an extreme form of social isolation first recognized in Japan in the 1990s. It’s distinct from similar conditions like anxiety or agoraphobia and is characterized by sustained physical isolation, often at home. The condition is still gaining traction in mental health spaces, but a research team led by Oregon Health & Science University has developed a new evaluation tool to...

The University of Oregon is leading a collaborative effort to study earthquakes and conduct research focused on the Cascadia Subduction Zone. Participating institutions include the University of Washington, Stanford University and Virginia Tech. We hear more about the new Cascadia Region Earthquake Science Center from Diego Melgar, an associate professor of earth sciences at the university and a d...

Talking to people we disagree with can be difficult, but it’s also unavoidable. A group of students at Willamette University is learning to facilitate and engage in those conversations to foster understanding and connection. The Conversation Project is a two-semester course that aims to teach students listening, grounding and compassion skills. Students then partner with community organizati...

The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission has voted to ban hunting contests for coyotes and other mammals on public lands in the state.  This new ban however does not prohibit these contests on private land and doesn’t restrict hunters and ranchers from killing predatory animals like coyotes. Collette Adkins is the carnivore conservation program director at the Center for Biological Diver...

This month, Oregon became the latest state to start paying out benefits under its new paid leave program. Workers can take up to 12 weeks of paid leave for family, medical or safe leave, which is available to victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and harassment. Workers applying to take paid leave for pregnancy may be eligible for an additional two weeks of benefits. Although self-employed...

The United Auto Workers are the latest group to join what’s been called the “summer of strikes.” Members of the Writer’s Guild of America continue their monthslong strike, along with the actor’s union SAG-AFTRA. Several Pacific Northwest organizations have gone on strike this summer as well, from teachers to nurses to bookstore employees. Meanwhile, Oregon’s une...

When Oregon became the first state in the country to legalize the supervised use of psilocybin, thousands of people from all across the country expressed interest in the service. One of them was an 88-year-old woman in Woodburn. Vivian Anderson has been living with PTSD that resulted from childhood abuse when she was 13 years old. Over the decades, she has tried many forms of therapy, but none of...