Think Out Loud

Yabusame is a form of Japanese horseback archery that dates back centuries. The sport has traditionally only been practiced in Japan, but in recent years, students outside the country have been allowed to participate — including in Oregon. As reported in Eugene Weekly, Carey Norland participated in one of the first yabusame clinics outside Japan last summer. He then traveled from Eugene to Japan to compete in the World Yabusame Championships in October. 

Norland is now set to become one of the first certified yabusame instructors outside of Japan. He joins us to talk about bringing the sport and its spiritual practice to students in the Pacific Northwest.

The Portland-based Innovation Law Lab was in federal court Wednesday, challenging the ICE policy of arresting immigrants and U.S. citizens without warrants and without due process. If successful, Oregon would join Washington, D.C. and Colorado in preventing this tactic. 

From warrantless arrests to unlawful use of force to arresting of journalists and other violations of civil rights, Portland constitutional law scholar Steve Kanter says these federal unconstitutional actions threaten democracy itself. Kanter joins us to put these actions in the context of the fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments. Jordan Cunnings, legal director of the Innovation Law Lab, also joins us to share details about the federal court hearing on warrantless arrests in Oregon.  

What do we lose when we don’t maintain our trails? What do these trails across the country, and in Oregon, tell us about our history? And what challenges do staff and volunteers maintaining these routes face today? Dillon Osleger is a writer and public lands analyst. His forthcoming book “Trail Works” releases in May and he had a recent story in RE:PUBLIC and High Country News. He joins us to answer these questions and more.

A vast amount of our built environment is made of concrete. It’s largely affordable, durable and easy to make. It’s also responsible, by some estimates, for roughly 8% of global CO2 emissions.

But the U.S. is also facing a significant housing demand shortage, and since concrete is one of the primary building materials for houses and apartments, scientists are working to make it more sustainable to produce.

Late last year, a research lab at Oregon State University made a breakthrough when they created a more environmentally friendly concrete derived from soil instead of cement. Besides emitting less CO2 during production, it’s strong, dries fast and it can be 3D printed more rapidly.

Devin Roach is an assistant professor of manufacturing and mechanical engineering at OSU. He joins us to share more about how the concrete was made, why it’s useful and the possibilities for commercial use.

 Last year, when Kaarin Knudson became the mayor of Oregon’s third-largest city, her plan was to revitalize downtown Eugene, build more housing and shrink the city’s roughly $10 million budget gap for the 2025-2027 biennium. 

The goalposts haven’t shifted much, except now there’s a growing problem. Knudson says many of her constituents are concerned about federal law enforcement in their communities, especially after a surge in Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity across Oregon last fall. 

Now, Knudson’s mayorship has turned into a balancing act: tackling housing supply, transportation infrastructure and public safety, all with the city’s eyes on Knudson and her office as they navigate ongoing federal uncertainty. 

Mayor Knudson joins us to reflect on her first year in office and share how she’s thinking about the road ahead

 Over the weekend thousands gathered to peacefully protest in S. Portland to speak out against  increased immigration enforcement across the country. But demonstrations did not stay peaceful as federal agents near the ICE facility deployed tear gas that traveled several blocks, affecting many who gathered, including families, children and elderly people.

Soon after these events, Portland Mayor Keith Wilson released a statement, asking for those who are working for ICE to resign and said that the city will “swiftly” work to enforce an ordinance that passed earlier this month, which would fine the detention center for using chemical munitions. Alex Zielinski is OPB’s Portland city government reporter and joins us with more details.

A few months ago, Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny guest hosted an episode of “Saturday Night Live” where he appeared in a skit as a Spanish nobleman from the Middle Ages wearing an inky blue robe with gold threading on the collar and sleeves. The costume he wore didn’t come from the show’s wardrobe department. Instead, it was shipped overnight by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Costume Rentals department in Talent. 

As profiled in a recent article in Oregon ArtsWatch, for more than 20 years, OSF Costume Rentals has been making costumes and accessories that were created for its productions available to rent by local theater companies, academic institutions, film and photo shoots and TV shows like “SNL.” The vast digital inventory is searchable online and spans more than 30,000 costumes and accessories, from elaborate Elizabethan gowns and silky Regency dresses to velour smoking jackets and butterfly-collared shirts. 

OSF Costume Rentals supervisor Celina Gigliello-Pretto and OSF Director of Productions Malia Argüello share how OSF is preserving its costumes and helping other productions reimagine their possibilities.

The podcast “Conspirituality” digs into the conspiracy theories arising at the intersection of health, wellness and spirituality. As reported in Willamette Week, the show’s three co-hosts combine their expertise in health journalism, psychology and cult research to "discuss the stories, cognitive dissonances, and cultic dynamics tearing through the yoga, wellness, and new spirituality worlds.” 

Portlander Derek Beres is one of the co-hosts of “Conspirituality.” He joins us to talk about analyzing and debunking pseudoscience in a time of unprecedented health misinformation.

After the murder of George Floyd, federal law enforcement agencies banned the use of chokeholds during arrests. But new reporting from ProPublica found more than 40 cases where immigration agents used these banned practices, including in Portland. Nicole Foy reported on this story and joins us to share more.

The 2026 Winter Olympics kick off next Friday in northern Italy, with nearly 3,000 athletes from more than 90 countries vying for a medal in events ranging from figure skating to curling. Twelve athletes from Oregon and Washington have qualified for Team USA’s roster competing in Milan, Cortina D’Ampezzo and a handful of other sites where skiing and snowboarding events will be held.  

Yoav Dubinsky, an associate teaching professor of marketing at University of Oregon, will also be there to attend matches, do research and help organize an Olympic studies symposium in Naples. Dubinsky is also the operational director of the Olympic Studies Hub, which he helped launch within the UO’s business college in December 2024. It’s part of a network of more than 80 Olympic Studies and Research Centers recognized by the International Olympic Committee. 

Although this is the sixth Olympics Dubinsky will attend, which he first did as a former sports journalist, it will be his first Winter Olympics. We’ll talk to him about what events he plans to attend and his research interests, including the marketing and branding opportunities host nations seize on to promote their culture and polish their image with visitors and viewers worldwide.

 A 2022 study from the Oregon Coast Visitors Association found that 90% of seafood sold on the Oregon coast wasn’t locally caught. In fact, much of the seafood caught in Oregon is exported to other countries. The OCVA estimates that Oregon's coastal communities lose roughly $252 million a year because of seafood exportation.

There are many challenges with trying to keep Oregon seafood in Oregon, including a lack of workforce and existing infrastructure. The OCVA and the Oregon Ocean Cluster are working to address this. This weekend, the group will be hosting its 2nd annual Blue Food Forum where consumers, researchers and industry professionals can get a taste of local products and learn more on the latest challenges facing the industry today. Marcus Hinz, director of the OCVA, joins us to share more.

In 2010, environmental advocates, elected officials and executives from TransAlta, a Canada-based electricity supplier, assembled a plan to close down Washington’s last remaining coal-burning power plant by the end of 2025. The 15-year long project was a sort of benchmark for transitions of this kind – it included comprehensive financial support and educational opportunities for employees and their families. It eventually lent itself to Washington’s clean energy goals passed in 2019, one of which declared that all state utilities must cease purchasing and using coal-powered energy by the end of 2025.

But late last month, when the plant was on track to shut down its operations, the Department of Energy issued an emergency order, ruling that the plant must remain operational for another 90 days. This posed many questions for the future of the plant, due to the long-term effort to close its doors and the lack of customers for coal-powered energy because of the Clean Energy Transformation Act. The plant remains shut down despite the emergency order, but its future hangs in limbo. Joining us to discuss the details is Amanda Zhou, a climate and environment reporter at the Seattle Times.

On Monday, Oregon state lawmakers will convene in Salem to start the 2026 short legislative session. They’ll have just 35 days to tackle their legislative priorities, including the future of transportation funding, housing and rebalancing the state budget, which is facing a nearly $900 million shortfall due to an estimated loss in state revenue from tax changes under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have also seized on growing concerns around affordability and the cost of living, although with different views on what’s to blame. Also expected on the agenda is legislation Gov. Tina Kotek is sponsoring to accelerate job growth and ease business permitting as part of a multi-pronged effort that Kotek recently unveiled and appointed former state Senate Republican leader Tim Knopp to lead. 

House Minority Leader Lucetta Elmer, R-McMinnville, and House Speaker Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, join us to share their perspectives and priorities for the legislative session.

Editor’s Note: This description has been updated to accurately reflect the source of the nearly $900 million state budget shortfall. We also mischaracterized the source of this shortfall in the on-air conversation. OPB regrets this error.

Southern Oregon artist Crystal Proffitt has always had a connection to hair. As a dancer, she grew comfortable styling her own hair for performances, and later worked as a professional hairstylist. But she’s also had strangers approach her to touch or tug her curls unsolicited, an experience she says isn’t uncommon for people of color. 

Proffitt channeled those experiences and others into the art installation “Don’t Touch My Hair: An Interactive Crowned Experience.” It features portraits of local models accompanied by audio descriptions of their own experiences with their hair. The installation will be on display at the Rogue Gallery & Art Center in Medford through Feb. 27.

Proffitt joins us to talk more about the installation and the ways hair can convey beauty, culture, memory and identity.

Hand-in-hand with Jefferson High School’s planned expansion comes a change in boundaries for Portland’s school districts. Portland Public Schools voted earlier this month to end the dual-assignment policy, which for the last 15 years has allowed families to let their student opt-out of attending Jefferson High School and instead choose to attend one of three other high schools in the area.

This dual-assignment policy has led to steadily declining enrollment rates for the public high school in North Portland. Jefferson High school currently enrolls just under 400 students. Grant High School has an enrollment of over 2,000, McDaniel High School has over 1,600 students, and Roosevelt High School enrolls over 1,400. The new boundary plan aims to even out enrollment between the three schools by 2030, with the $465 million expansion set to open in 2028.

Joining us to discuss the changes are Michelle DePass, vice-chair of the Portland School Board, and Lakeitha Elliot, Jefferson High graduate and former PTA member

Indigenous affairs reporter Toastie Oaster dug into the history and significance of the phrase for High Country News. It was part of the magazine’s larger issue on “deep time” in the West. Oaster joins us to share what they learned.

Music and science don’t often overlap, but University of Oregon professor Leif Karlstrom is making it happen with the Volcano Listening Project. Karlstrom turns datasets from the volcanoes he studies every day into sound, then uses those soundtracks to make music with a wide array of musicians. The project will be on display at a pair of upcoming shows in Portland and Hood River on Jan. 28 and 29. 

Karlstrom joins us to share music from the Volcano Listening Project and what it takes to turn data into song.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, or NAGPRA, requires museums, universities and other institutions that receive federal funding to return Native American ancestral remains and cultural items to their original tribes. Though the law passed nearly 35 years ago, many institutions have failed to fulfill its requirements.  

Oregon State University recently opened a new facility designed to advance its NAGPRA obligations. The two buildings house a records room, a laboratory and a space to consult with tribal members as they move through the repatriation process. The new buildings are also better equipped than the old facility to store cultural items and remains of tribal ancestors awaiting return.  

Dawn Marie Alapisco is the director of the NAGPRA Office within OSU’s Office of Institutional Diversity. She joins us to share more about the new facility and how institutions should be approaching their NAGPRA requirements.

 Clark County resident Wayne Sutton was only 7 or 8 years old, he says, when his father, who worked in the logging industry, helped him buy his first chainsaw. That was 60 years ago. Today, Sutton is the founder and curator of Wayne’s Chainsaw Museum, a private museum located a few miles outside of Amboy in Clark County that is free and open to visitors by appointment. 

The Columbian recently profiled Sutton and his museum which is big enough to display only about half of the 4,000 or 5,000 chainsaws he has amassed over the years and continues to collect, or have donated to him. Sutton opened the museum in 2000 when he started working for Stihl, the world’s leading maker of gas-powered chainsaws. 

Sutton retired from Stihl in 2024. Although his museum boasts hundreds of models made by his former employer, it also showcases other brands and rare, decades-old examples that serve as a time capsule of the evolution of this power tool that is inextricably tied to the logging history of the Pacific Northwest. Sutton joins us to share his love of chainsaws and future plans for sharing his massive collection with more enthusiasts.