Think Out Loud

Getting a divorce can be one of the most difficult experiences a couple goes through. While mediators and family law attorneys are a well-known part of many legal divorces, a number of lesser known-services can help make the process easier and less conflict-laden. Certified divorce coaching is one of those services.

It’s different from therapy, but it is also for both couples and individuals who need support and guidance outside the legal arena. We talk with Gwendoline Van Doosselaere with Artemis Divorce Coaching and DeLynn Shogren with A Better Way Divorce Solutions, who is also a certified divorce financial analyst. They share more about the kinds of clients they see, the services they provide and how their practices fit into the divorce system as a whole.

PROMO: Divorce can be one of the most difficult experiences a couple goes through. While mediators and family law attorneys are part of the process, lesser-known services -- like divorce coaching -- are also available to provide support and guidance outside the legal arena. We’ll hear from two divorce coaches about their services and how they fit into the system as a whole.

The Department of Energy has continued to fight the workers compensation claims of workers who got sick from radioactive material at the Hanford nuclear reservation in southeastern Washington. The energy department contends that something other than exposure to the nuclear waste at the site was the cause of their cancers, neurological diseases and respiratory illnesses. The DOE has filed more than 500 appeals to prevent benefits for workers and their survivors. Reporters Lizz Giordano and Brandon Block recently filed a report on the plight of these workers for Cascade PBS and ProPublica. Block joins us to share more details about their reporting.

 Several of Oregon’s new mayor-elects, who were voted into office in last week’s midterm election, are under the age of thirty. 

That includes Adam Marl, 26, Oregon City’s mayor-elect; Ben Simons, 26, mayor of the city of Drain; and Will Anderson, 25, mayor-elect for the city of Milwaukie. 

We’ll hear about why they ran, what they hope to accomplish, and their visions for Oregon’s future.

One year ago, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut issued a permanent injunction that blocked the Trump administration from deploying National Guard troops to Portland. The ruling capped a month-long trial that had thrust Portland into the national spotlight amid aggressive immigration enforcement in Oregon and across the nation. 

OPB’s 3-part documentary series, “The Crackdown,” reveals the broad sweep of immigration enforcement in Oregon, from protests outside of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland last year to legal questions over the limits of presidential power that are very much still alive.

The documentary also shows the toll immigration enforcement has taken on people like Kenia Jackeline Merlos. The Portland business owner was arrested in Washington in June 2025 and held in immigration detention for four months before she was reunited with her U.S.-born children. 

OPB’s public safety reporter Troy Brynelson and legal affairs reporter Conrad Wilson have extensively covered the Portland-area immigration detentions, protests and court cases that have made headlines here and around the world. Brooke Herbert is an OPB cinematographer, editor and producer. Brynelson and Herbert join us to discuss their collaboration on “The Crackdown,” which aired its final episode last month.

In March 2014, “Think Out Loud” spoke with author Phil Klay about his collection of short stories, “Redeployment.” The book draws on Klay’s experiences serving in the U.S. Marine Corps as a public affairs officer in Iraq from 2007 to 2008 and his return to civilian life. He wrote about terror on the battlefield and rootless anxiety on the homefront. 

“Think Out Loud” Host Dave Miller interviewed Klay shortly after the publication of "Redeployment," which was written from the perspective of frontline foot soldiers, military officers, a chaplain and a U.S. Department of State employee. The interview was conducted in front of an audience of Oregon veterans who also served in Iraq and Afghanistan and faced struggles on and off the battlefield. 

In honor of Veterans Day, “Think Out Loud” listens back to this conversation with Klay and Oregon military veterans.

That’s because Oregon law deems the community potluck an illegal event, for food safety reasons. It says that if an event is open to the public, it’s recognized as a “single event temporary restaurant,” and homemade food cannot be served. If a potluck is invite-only, or only marketed to a specific group, it’s all-clear. As reported by the Oregon Journalism Project, Childress and her husband, Watt, decided to do something about it by meeting with their local lawmakers and officials at the Oregon Health Authority. They even delivered homemade pies to legislators and Governor Tina Kotek.

We hear from Jennifer and Watt Childress about their zeal for community potlucks and their hopes for changing the law that restricts them.

Over the last couple of months, business owners and government officials in downtown Astoria say they haven’t been regularly receiving their mail. Residents in nearby Warrenton and Gearhart have also reported issues with mail delivery. Local officials’ attempts to meet with the Astoria Postmaster have been unsuccessful, and a letter from three of Oregon’s federal lawmakers to the U.S. Postmaster General has yet to receive a response. 

Reporter Fox Perez has been covering these developments for The Astorian. He joins us with more details.

 ”Wildwood,” the long-awaited stop-motion animated film by LAIKA Studios, opened last month in theaters across the U.S. Critics have praised its wondrous visuals and its triumphant tale of a 13-year-old girl who leaves her Portland home on a quest that takes her deep inside an enchanted forest to rescue her baby brother.  

An album of original music inspired by “Wildwood” has also been released by LAIKA. “Wildwood Sessions” is not the film's soundtrack. Instead, it’s an eclectic mix of songs made by Portland artists such as Aminé and The Decemberists, whose frontman Colin Meloy wrote the novel the movie is based on. 

Portland composer and multi-instrumentalist Harlan Silverman is the co-executive producer of “Wildwood Sessions.” He also co-wrote and performed on three of the album’s tracks with musicians such as Graham Jonson, who performs under the name Quickly, Quickly. 

Silverman and Jonson join us for a studio performance and interview to share their collaboration and the film’s themes that inspired them. 

Probably no animal is more associated with the state of Oregon than the beaver. After all, the semiaquatic rodent adorns our state flag and is found across much of the state, including urban waterways in the Portland area. 

In July 2024, a law went into effect that changed their classification in Oregon from “predator” to “furbearer.” The change meant that private land owners could no longer kill a beaver for simply being a nuisance because it damaged trees or caused flooding on their properties. Instead, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife encourages coexistence with beavers and requires private landowners to get a permit for their removal.  

A new Portland State University study reveals public perceptions of urban beavers at three sites in the Tualatin River watershed: Springville Creek in Portland; Fanno Creek in Beaverton; and Chicken Creek near Sherwood. The PSU researchers surveyed nearly 200 people who lived or recreated near these sites for their attitudes about urban beavers and what management practices they support to coexist with them.  

Matt Guziejka is an environmental researcher and the lead author of the study. He joins us to share details about his findings and the ecological benefits and the tradeoffs of living with these iconic animals.

Fruit growers say that abandoned orchards are on the rise in Oregon. The unpicked fruit and untended trees attract pests that can spread to neighboring orchards, increasing their management costs. As reported in the Capital Press, Columbia Gorge Fruit Growers is working with the Hood River Soil & Water Conservation District, the Oregon State University Extension Service and the Oregon Department of Agriculture to catalog abandoned orchards and find ways to address the issues they create.

Lesley Tamura is a fourth-generation pear grower and chair of the Columbia Gorge Fruit Growers. She joins us with more details about what’s behind the problem and the efforts to solve it.

The Drive-By Truckers have been churning out Southern rock anthems for three decades. The band hails from Athens, Georgia, by way of Alabama, but for the last 10 years, co-founder Patterson Hood has called Portland home. The band is celebrating with a weekend of shows at Revolution Hall from Nov. 12-14. The showcase is modeled after the band’s annual “Heathens Homecoming” in Athens, which began in 2000.

Hood joins us for a performance and conversation about his 30 years on the road with the band. 

Nicole Ybarrondo is a mother of a first grader and a fourth grader who attend Silver Rail Elementary in Bend. On Oct. 15, they were inside the school when a 16-year-old former Silver Rail student shot and killed three children and a teacher. The teen also critically injured two others before he was fatally shot by Kaylub Giamanco. It would be hours before Ybarrondo was reunited with her children on what she says was the worst day of her life. 

Ybarrondo and her family and many others within the Silver Rail community are grappling with grief, trauma and feelings of isolation. To help with needs both immediate and long-term, Ybarrondo created the Silver Rail Children’s Fund. Since its launch on Oct. 23, the grassroots nonprofit has collected more than $35,000 in donations from individuals and local businesses to pay for outings and services for Silver Rail survivors, their families and school staff. Those include field trips to pumpkin patches; a pizza-making and arts and crafts event; and child drop-off at a gymnastics center so that caregivers could attend a virtual meeting with Gov. Tina Kotek’s office.

Ybarrondo joins us to discuss more details about the fund and her thoughts about the district’s plans to reopen Silver Rail on Nov. 12. 

“Think Out Loud” continues our monthly conversations with Meg Samples, general manager of member-supported KMHD Jazz Radio. Each month, we’ll hear about artists to add to your playlist, along with concerts and community events to attend. 

In November, that includes the third annual Save the LP Record Show at the Patricia Reser Center for the Arts in Beaverton. The Nov. 14 event is organized like two sides of an album. During the day, analog audiophiles will thumb through rare vinyl and other vintage music merchandise from more than 50 vendors. 

At night, KMHD co-presents a concert in the Reser’s theater by Jimetta Rose. The L.A. vocalist and producer will perform her album “MettaSun,” a musical tribute to jazz visionary Sun Ra. Portland-based The Cosmic Tones Research Trio will join Rose on stage for a performance that reimagines the Afrofuturism aesthetic and sonic spiritual dimensions of Sun Ra’s music.

KMHD General Manager Meg Samples joins us to share more details about the concert and other jazz highlights.

A tax gap is the difference between the taxes individuals pay versus what they actually owe. According to a new analysis from the Oregon Center for Public Policy, 77% of the state’s tax gap comes from people underreporting their income. By closing the gap, Oregon could receive $2.7 billion over 10 years. Daniel Hauser is the deputy director for the organization. He joins us to share more on what it would take to close the gap and the impacts it could have.

The Columbian previously reported on the Landing Pad, which opened in August and is staffed 24/7 by peer mentors from the Coastal Community Action Program. They have lived experience with incarceration and provide transportation from the jail to the Vancouver facility and help connect new arrivals with services they might need, including permanent housing and substance use treatment.  

Jennifer Sumait is the reentry program manager with the Coastal Community Action Program. She and Lookingbill join us for more details about the Landing Pad and the impact it’s having. 

The Eagle Cap Wilderness at the base of the Wallowa mountains in Eastern Oregon encompasses nearly 360,000 acres. It’s on the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, and for filmmaker Cody Sheehy it’s  one of the most beautiful places on earth, maybe the most beautiful. He grew up in Wallowa county and lived elsewhere for 25 years. But six years ago, he returned to his roots and began thinking about how to best contribute to the local community. 

Sheehy met  Zach Halpern, a medical doctor and founder of the Oregon Psychedelic Institute. He discovered they had a shared love of community and film and together they launched the Eagle Cap Film Festival that runs from Nov. 5 - 7. Sheehy’s new documentary is one of the nine films showcased in Enterprise.

We talk to Sheehy and Halpern about the event. We also get a preview of “The Last Dive,” which tells the story of a manta ray and the scuba diver and his unique friendship with one particular manta ray.

Editor's note: This post has been updated to reflect that the films at the festival will only be shown in Enterprise.

Democrats swept elections all across the U.S. and Oregon and Washington were no exceptions. Oregon U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley easily won reelection. Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek has won a second term as Oregon governor.

In Washington, incumbent U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez has defeated Republican state Sen. Minority Leader John Braun. A measure to repeal an income tax on millionaires was behind on election night, while a measure to ban transgender students from competing in girls' sports was leading on election night.

For nonpartisan races in Portland, city council incumbents seem likely to keep their sets. In Multnomah county, Sharon Singleton is leading in the race to be the next county chair.  We get the latest results and analysis from OPB political reporters Lauren Dake, Dirk VanderHart, and Alex Zeilinski, and Sarah Mizes-Tan, political reporter for KUOW and KNKX.

Joyce Tischler has been called "the mother of animal law." When she began studying law in the 1970s, the area of animal rights law was nonexistent.

For the last 50 years, Tischler has devoted her career to championing the field. She founded the Animal Legal Defense Fund and helped develop and taught at the Center for Animal Law Studies at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland.

She was recently awarded the Lifetime Excellence in Animal Protection award by the nonprofit Animal Grantmakers.

We’ll sit down with Tischler to hear more about her extensive career.

From camping gear to gorpcore, consumers may not realize that the functional, tactical and practical clothing worn today has deep connections to the U.S. military. In autumn 2025, “Articles of Interest” host and producer Avery Trufelman took listeners on a journey to learn more about how civilian and military fashion intersect and the ways in which the uniforms of soldiers have influenced the outdoor apparel industry. Trufelman joined us on Dec. 5, 2025 to share more on the history of military gear, the civilian-veteran divide, Portland’s Functional Fabric Fair and more.

The Hermiston Herald reported in September that Cummings is retiring as the lead chaplain and chaplaincy program services coordinator for the Umatilla County Fire District #1 and Hermiston Police Department. He helped launch the program in Hermiston 15 years ago and today oversees four other chaplains, including two Spanish speakers. 

Cummings joins us to share his work and the importance of being there for first responders and others on their darkest days.

The Lullaby Project was created more than a decade ago by the Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute. The program pairs singer-songwriters with parents who are incarcerated or experiencing homelessness, and together they create a lullaby.  In Oregon, those songs are arranged for the Oregon Symphony and then publicly performed. 

Ada McGraw was one of the first women to participate in this program after it expanded to the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility last year. While serving her sentence, McGraw was paired with singer-songwriter Bre Gregg. The lullaby they wrote was for her son Legend and included a poem from Legend’s father.

Jessica Katz is the director of The Family Preservation Project and facilitated their meeting. We talk with Katz, Gregg and McGraw to hear about this creative process and learn more about the larger impact of The Lullaby Project. 

On Thursday, musicians drove down to Coffee Creek to begin work on the next set of lullabies with women in custody. We’re rebroadcasting this segment that first aired live on May 5, 2026 to kick off Staff Picks, an occasional series highlighting some of our production staff’s favorite segments 

 As the need for critical minerals like lithium and magnesium grows, scientists are looking for new ways to extract them. Rather than trying to pull them out of the ground, researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Lab are working to pull those minerals out of seawater. The team has created a system to extract magnesium hydroxide from seawater, which can then be processed into magnesium metal for cars, airplanes and construction materials.

Chinmayee Subban is a chemist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. She joins us to share more about the effort to mine ocean water.

Election Day arrives in just four short days, with mail-in voting already underway in Oregon and Washington. The Trump administration is continuing to challenge the country’s ballots, methods of voting and state voter rolls all around the country. Trump is sending federal election observers to Oregon, Washington and a handful of states. In Washington, the state has also been dealing with allegations that the state’s voter rolls are rife with noncitizens.  

Washington’s Director of Elections Stuart Holmes joins us to talk about the accuracy and security of the state’s voter rolls and election system more broadly in this political moment. We also get an update from Tim Scott, director of the Multnomah County Elections office, about Election Day observers and recommendations for where and how county residents can cast their ballots.