Think Out Loud

Earlier this month, Liv Rainey-Smith became the first Oregonian to win a World Fantasy Award for “Best Artist.” Rainey-Smith now joins a pantheon of World Fantasy Award-winning writers and visual artists that includes Stephen King, Edward Gorey and fellow Oregonian Ursula K. LeGuin.

Oregon ArtsWatch recently profiled Rainey-Smith, whose achievement is all the more notable for the thousand-year-old artistic craft the Portlander specializes in. Rainey-Smith uses blocks of wood that she carves by hand, coats in ink, covers with paper and then rolls through an etching press to make prints featuring mythological creatures or otherworldly scenes laden with skulls, ravens and other macabre symbolism. 

Six of her original woodcut prints and descriptions she wrote for them are included in “The Dagon Collection,” an anthology published last year that was nominated for a 2025 World Fantasy Award and inspired by a short story from pioneering horror and fantasy writer H.P. Lovecraft. Rainey-Smith talks to us about her award-winning art and the childhood health struggles she overcame that inform and inspire her work.

Oregon lawmakers passed the Plastic Pollution and Recycling Modernization Act in 2021, but the changes just went into effect on July 1, 2025. It’s a sweeping, multi-pronged approach to reduce waste, and many of the changes the law drives are the responsibility of producers and manufacturers. New recycling centers are one element of the Act, the first of which came online this fall. At the RecycleOn Center in Ashland, more kinds of plastic can be recycled, along with shredded paper, aluminum foil and other material that often ends up in landfills or contaminating recycling picked up by curbside collectors. Kim Holmes is the executive director of Oregon’s Circular Action Alliance, the producer responsibility organization that co-operates the Ashland facility. She joins us to tell us more about the impact of this center and the other 143 planned for the state.

Vancouver-based Educational Opportunities for Children and Families serves more than 400 participants enrolled in Head Start. The free federal program provides child care, early learning, nutrition and health screenings for low-income children and their families. Nearly 300 children in Southwest Washington either lost access to their Head Start programs or had their hours cut back on Nov. 1 because of the government shutdown, which ended on Wednesday evening. 

On Monday, EOCF’s board of directors and its parent policy council voted to approve accepting a private donation to replenish the nonprofit’s savings it had been using to keep open three Head Start centers in Vancouver for families with the highest needs. EOCF has now reopened its Head Start center in Yacolt, four centers in Vancouver and restored program hours cut at five other centers. The donation has also helped EOCF to bring back more than 90 employees who were partially or fully furloughed on Nov. 1 when it didn’t get its scheduled federal funding. 

EOCF CEO Rekah Strong says it could take weeks before its grant funding resumes because of the backlog in grant applications from other Head Start providers across the nation who also had to cut services during the shutdown. She joins us to share the struggles her organization has recently faced, along with Chantel Martin, a Head Start parent whose 5-year-old daughter attends the reopened EOCF center in Yacolt.

In 2020, the Almeda Fire ripped through Jackson County. The catastrophic blaze destroyed more than 2,600 homes between Ashland, Talent, Phoenix and Medford, according to Jefferson Public Radio.

The “Think Out Loud” team traveled to Southern Oregon during the spring of 2025 and talked to residents about how they’re thinking about fire in their communities now.

In Ashland, the city and the forest are tied together. The watershed, which provides the source of Ashland’s drinking water, is more than 15,000 acres of potentially combustible forestland. Chris Chambers is the city’s forestry officer. He’s been a member of Ashland Fire And Rescue since 2002 and has worked on the city’s wildfire planning efforts.

Along with city, federal and tribal partners, the Ashland-based Lomakatsi Restoration Project focuses on ecological resilience in Oregon and Northern California. Its restoration projects are spread throughout the region. Marko Bey is the executive director and founder of the organization. Belinda Brown is the tribal partnerships director.

Chambers, Bey and Brown shared how they think about wildfire resilience and how they approach their work in their communities during a conversation we recorded with them and first aired in June 2025.

Percival Everett has made a career out of exploring the nature of absurdity. You may have become aware of Everett in the last few years when his novel “Erasure” was adapted into the movie “American Fiction” in 2023, or when his book “James” won the Pulitzer prize last year. But Everett has written 24 novels since 1983 along with several books of poetry and short story collections, each of them tackling a different genre of writing and a different angle on nonsense, absurdity or irony. As he says, “to accept the absurdity of a situation is to accept the humanness of it.” We talk to Percival Everett in front of an audience of students at McDaniel High School in Portland.

Floyd Skloot’s newest collection of poetry, "Dancing in the Cosmos, New & Selected Poems, 1973-2024," covers the span of his career, including the best of his previously published poems and a section of new poems about his experience living with Parkinson's disease. We spoke to Skloot along with his daughter, the author Rebecca Skloot, in front of an audience at Powells.

A new report in the Journal of the American Medical Association lays out a range of evidence-based initiatives to reduce firearms deaths in the U.S. by 2040. The article comes out of a large interdisciplinary conference earlier this year that was chaired by researcher Fred Rivara, pediatrics professor in the University of Washington’s Medical School. He says professionals in the fields of public health, criminology, public policy and gun manufacturing discussed what has worked all over the country to bring gun deaths down. He says the idea was not to do away with guns or the Second Amendment, but to encourage the wider implementation of policies that have already been proven effective — and use emerging technologies — to reduce deaths.

Rivara joins us to tell us more about the research into gun violence as a public health crisis, and what he hopes policy makers and the general public take from it.

Twenty years ago, Third Rail Repertory Theatre launched itself onto the Portland theatre scene with a production called “Recent Tragic Events,” set just after the attacks of 9/11. That play, written by Craig Wright, put Third Rail Rep on the map, winning a number of local theatre honors. While many theatres have come and gone in that time, Third Rail is among those that were able to survive the pandemic and other economic pressures. It’s celebrating 20 years by reprising that first show, “Recent Tragic Events.” We talk with director Scott Yarbrough, who was also the company’s founding artistic director, about how the play resonates today.

Last Friday morning, Oregonians were able to begin accessing their full monthly benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to fully fund the federal food aid program which serves more than 42 million Americans. But many of those households face new uncertainty after the Supreme Court granted on Friday night the Trump administration’s emergency appeal of the ruling. In a statement, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said the state had acted lawfully in sending out the SNAP payments and vowed to fight the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s demand that states “undo any steps” they took to issue  the full November SNAP benefits.

Food pantries across Oregon, including at William Temple House in Portland, have mobilized in recent weeks to help people like Elaine, one of the more than 750,000 Oregonians who are SNAP recipients. To protect her privacy, OPB is identifying Elaine only by her first name. She says SNAP has been a lifeline to her for nearly 20 years while being unable to work fulltime because of a disability and experiencing periods of homelessness. Elaine joins us to discuss the restoration of her SNAP benefits after nearly a week without them, and the uncertainty about the program’s future. 

The leading cause of death for Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers is COVID-19 followed by cancer linked to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center,according to a Mother Jones report. ICE data reviewed by the outlet showed that deaths and assaults at the agency are not outsized compared to other law enforcement, despite the Trump administration’s claims that their work is exceptionally dangerous. Noah Lanard is a reporter for Mother Jones and covered the story. He joins us with details of what he found in the data.

New data from Downtown Clean & Safe shows a growing number of pedestrians visiting Portland’s downtown. Compared to last year, the total number of visitors from January to August was up by 5.6%, making it the strongest year for downtown since the pandemic. But those numbers still have not caught up to what they were pre-lockdowns -- and are still just half of what they were in 2019. We’ll hear from various community leaders to hear how they view downtown. Todd Zarnitz is the president of the Northwest District Association. Sarah Shaoul is the founder and CEO of Bricks Need Mortar. And Ryan Hashagen is the founder of Icicle Tricycles, director of the Steel Bridge Skatepark Coalition and an adjunct professor at PSU. And we get thoughts from community members, visitors and business owners we gathered on a recent visit to downtown.

Protests at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in South Portland have been largely peaceful, despite President Trump’s attempts to send National Guard troops to the site. Local law enforcement has successfully managed conflicts among protesters and counter-protesters and made arrests for those who commit property or other crimes.

In September, Portland Police Chief Bob Day said on “Think Out Loud” that the bureau’s approach to these protests is consciously different from the one it took in 2020. He cited the use of Dialogue Liaison Officers who are “embedded” early on. “These are officers that are clearly identifiable with white shirts,” he said. “They’ve had additional training, and they go early on and try to establish communication and understanding.”

We learn more about this approach from Sergeant Daniel DiMatteo and Officer Jessica Ruch. They are among the approximately 10 Dialogue Liaison Officers the bureau deploys to protests.

There are more than 150 parks, and over 11,000 acres of land maintained by Portland Parks and Recreation. Parks play a role in providing a community gathering space, an area for exercise and more for communities. And recently, Portland voters cast their ballots on whether they support an increase to the Portland Parks levy. But how have parks changed over the years and which ones have we lost along the way? To answer these questions and more, Catherine McNeur joins us. She is a history professor at Portland State University and the author of two books, “Taming Manhattan” and "Mischievous Creatures." Her new course, Parks & Portland, will be offered this spring and explores the history of the city’s parks and the ways they have changed culturally, physically and environmentally over the last two centuries.

Last week, the Salem City Council voted 6-3 in favor of accepting a $180,000 donation from the Salem Chamber of Commerce and Salem Main Street Association to address concerns about livability and crime. The donation will be used to double the size of the Salem Police Department’s Homeless Services Team from two to four officers. The team responds to unsanctioned homeless encampments and helps connect unsheltered people to wraparound services. In a letter sent to the city council, Salem police chief and the city manager, the business groups said they would consider making another $180,000 donation in six months after “evaluating the effectiveness of this investment.” 

The city council had already approved last month spending more than $600,000 to expand the size of the HST and have it operate seven days a week instead of four. The plan also includes adding mental health specialists to respond to certain emergencies and increase trash pickup to seven days a week. The donated funds will now help offset those costs. 

The council’s divided vote to approve that largely anonymous donation comes amid controversy over Salem Mayor Julie Hoy’s decision to join an effort to repeal HB3115. The state law requires local governments to keep regulations on camping on public property “objectively reasonable.”   

Salem Statesman Journal city reporter Whitney Woodworth joins us for more details.

Portland’s public camping ban went into effect over the weekend. Police can now issue citations for people living in vehicles or camping in parks, streets and other public spaces if “reasonable shelter” is available. The ordinance originally passed in 2024, but Mayor Keith Wilson said in February he would pause enforcement until the city could open more shelter beds.

Meanwhile, Portland voters had until Tuesday at 8 p.m. to decide on a controversial ballot measure to raise property taxes to fund a new city Parks Levy after the old one expired.

Alex Zielinski covers Portland city government for OPB. She joins us to talk about election results, how camping enforcement is going so far and what the ban means for people living outside.

In 1908, Oregon voters approved a statewide ballot measure allowing proportional representation to be used in voting across the state. More than 100 years later, Portland voters used ranked choice voting for the first time, while Oregon voters overall opposed a switch to adopt ranked choice voting statewide. A new analysis from Sightline Institute looked at voting methods across the state and found that current election methods lead to a “pattern of misrepresentation.” Shannon Grimes is a senior researcher with the think tank’s democracy program. She joins us to share more on what she sees is wrong with Oregon’s current voting practices and suggestions she has to improve it.

On Monday, the Trump administration announced that it will partially restore funding for the Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program, but only at half the amount recipients of the food aid program would normally get this month. In separate rulings on Friday, two federal judges had ordered the Trump administration to tap billions of dollars in emergency reserves to continue to fund the program which 42 million Americans rely on, including 1 in 6 households in Oregon. .

SNAP recipients will likely still face delays, which could last weeks, as state agencies scramble to account for the reduced November benefits. Oregon and Washington were part of a coalition of 25 states and the District of Columbia that had sued to prevent the loss of monthly SNAP benefits beginning Nov. 1 after the Trump administration said it would halt funding for the program during the federal government shutdown. Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson and Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek last week authorized millions of dollars in state funds to support food banks in their respective states.

Roughly 930,000 people are enrolled in SNAP in Washington state. Sixty thousand of them reside in Clark County, according to Emily Straw, president of the Clark County Food Bank. She says there has been increased demand from clients in the past week or so at the two pantries the food bank operates in Vancouver.  

Straw joins us to share how her organization has mobilized to help vulnerable Clark County residents facing hunger.

On Monday, the Trump administration said it would partially restore funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in response to two federal judicial rulings last Friday that ordered it to use contingency funds to pay for the federal food assistance program. Oregon and Washington were part of a coalition of 25 states and the District of Columbia that had sued to prevent the loss of monthly SNAP benefits on Nov. 1. The 42 million people across the nation who rely on SNAP will now only get half the amount they would normally get for the month and will likely face delays to access their partial benefits. 

About 1 in 6 people, or roughly 757,000 households, receive SNAP benefits in Oregon. Last week, Gov. Tina Kotek announced sending $5 million in unspent state funds from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families to help Oregon food banks. Her executive order also declared a 60-day food emergency and called on Oregonians to donate or volunteer in their communities “to help neighbors from going hungry.” 

Gov. Kotek joins us to discuss this situation along with the impact of other actions by the Trump administration, including the possible deployment of the National Guard to Portland, which has been blocked until Friday, when a final ruling by a federal judge is expected.

The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians recently opened its first affordable housing development in Salem. The city is the second-largest population center for tribal citizens outside of Siletz, according to tribal housing officials. As reported in Underscore Native News, the complex includes two- to four-bedroom homes, with half of the 39 units reserved for residents who make below 80% of the area's median income.

Vera Vasquez just moved into a home in the development, known as Kloshe Illahee Haws. Sami Jo Difuntorum is the executive director of the Siletz Tribal Housing Department. They join us to talk about the importance of creating affordable housing and fostering tribal culture outside of the Siletz reservation on the Oregon Coast.

The Vancouver-based Pink Lemonade was started in 2010 by two doctors Allen and Cassie Gabriel, a plastic surgeon and an anesthesiologist. They saw a gap in non-medical, emotional support for women being treated for breast cancer in the Portland-metro area. They began offering retreats and support groups locally, eventually adding a mentorship program where breast cancer survivors who have gone through treatment mentor others who have more recently gotten a diagnosis. And 15 years later, the nonprofit serves people in all 36 Oregon counties and six in SW Washington.

Susan Stearns is the CEO of Pink Lemonade and was its first staff member who was also a survivor. Tina Sixberry has been a mentor since 2019 after participating in other programs. Miyuki Yaegashi met Sixberry and became her mentee earlier this year, shortly after she was diagnosed. All three join us in studio to talk about creating connections and community, and making sure those facing breast cancer diagnosis and treatment know they are not alone.

Demand for protein powders and shakes has soared in recent years as influencers and health gurus have touted the nutrient’s benefits for weight loss and muscle gain. But the benefits could come at a cost. A recent Consumer Reports investigation found unsafe levels of lead in many popular protein supplements. More than two-thirds of the products tested had more lead in a single serving than food safety experts say is safe to consume in an entire day.

Hannah Cutting-Jones is a food historian and assistant professor in the University of Oregon’s global studies department. She’s written about the rise of protein as a diet trend and joins us to talk about what it’s meant for consumers.

Kimberly King Parsons debut novel, “We Were the Universe” received the Oregon Book Award’s Ken Kesey Award for Fiction earlier this year. The novel explores grief, trauma and psychedelic experiences as readers follow young mom, Kit, through journeys both physical and emotional. Parsons joins to discuss Texas, motherhood, loss and more.