Think Out Loud

Keizer-based nurse Yvonne Groenhout has decades of experience as an intensive care unit nurse. She’s officially retired, but fills in at a local hospital in Southern Oregon when the need arises. Groenhout has also volunteered her medical expertise in Chicago, Los Angeles, Ukraine and, most recently, Gaza. As reported in the Salem Reporter, she recently spent five weeks in Rafah in a demilitarized area where she and her fellow volunteers with the nonprofit International Medical Corps had set up a field hospital. She joins us to share more about what she saw there, and what drives her to donate her time and professional expertise in this way.

For many Indigenous people, it isn’t a question of whether Bigfoot exists, but whether you have seen him. A new exhibit at the High Desert Museum in Bend features the work of many Indigenous artists exploring a relationship with Sasquatch. Phil Cash Cash and Frank Buffalo Hyde are two artists featured in the exhibit. They join us to talk about their work.

According to a recent Pew Research Center report, nearly half of adults in the U.S. use Instagram. The social media platform is also popular with influencers who amass a large online following around a particular interest, like health and wellness. They can then leverage that popularity to profit from the sale of products and services they promote through their accounts.  But some influencers on Instagram are also profiting from the spread of misinformation, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Washington. The study looked at three Instagram influencers who spread vaccine misinformation with messaging that appealed to users with varying interests, from fashion to homeschooling. Those influencers posted content that linked to products such as essential oils they falsely claimed would cure colds, viruses and other ailments. Rachel Moran is the lead author of the study and a senior research scientist at the Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington. She joins us to share her findings. 

As housing costs rise, older adults are experiencing homelessness more often. The National Alliance to End Homelessness found that nearly one in four people experiencing homelessness were over the age of 55, based on data from 2023’s Point-in-Time count.  In Oregon, advocates recognize that the problem is growing. Laura Golino de Lovato is the executive director of the Northwest Pilot Project, a nonprofit that advocates for low income people over the age of 55. The organization helps them find and keep affordable housing. She joins us with more on what this issue looks like in Multnomah County and what she would like to see to better support this population moving forward.   

Even in the midst of great suffering, humans continue to live and love. Two new books from Louis Alberto Urrea and Alice Winn focus on the human relationships that take place in the midst of War. Winn’s novel, “In Memoriam,” tells the story of two gay British soldiers coming to terms with their relationship during the brutal trench warfare of WWI. Urrea’s book, “Goodnight, Irene,” chronicles the life of a woman serving on the front lines of WWII as a “Donut Dolly.” These heroic Red Cross volunteers served coffee and donuts to American soldiers to keep up their morale. OPB’s Geoff Norcross talked to Urrea and Winn at the 2023 Portland Book Festival.

Singer-songwriter James Dean Kindle was born and raised in Pendleton. He’s been making music for decades and says he likes to blur the boundaries between country, folk, jazz, and Latin genres. He may be best known for his work with the Eastern Oregon Playboys, but he’s about to release his first solo album, and his first in six years.  “Trailmix” was inspired by his time hiking in the Umatilla River Canyon. He’s also immersed in music on an entirely different level as well, as the executive director for the Oregon East Symphony, a nearly 40-year-old institution that he’s helped grow over the last 10 years. Kindle joins us for an in-studio performance and interview. The official album release of “Trailmix” will be held in Pendleton on Saturday, April 6.  

SB 1537, which Gov. Tina Kotek asked lawmakers to introduce, will make advances for more housing by allowing cities to expand their urban growth boundaries. An earlier version of this bill that failed last year would have given developers automatic exceptions for various zoning rules, including things like parking requirements for apartment complexes. Michael Andersen, the director of cities and towns at the Sightline Institute, wrote about this “missing piece” of the current bill. He joins us with more details.

Eastern filbert blight, a fungal pathogen that kills hazelnut trees, first made its way to the Northwest in the 1960s. Since then, farmers have managed the fungus by pruning infected trees and spraying orchards with fungicide. But the most successful intervention has been a disease-resistant cultivar that’s been bred into newer hazelnut varieties. A new strain of the blight has overcome that disease resistance, however. As reported in the Capital Press, the strain originated in an Oregon orchard and now threatens thousands of acres of newer trees in the state. Ken Johnson is a professor in the department of botany and plant pathology at Oregon State University. He joins us with more details on the new strain and what it could mean for Oregon’s $90 million hazelnut industry. 

An area that’s nearly half the size of New Jersey in southern Oregon was recently named the world’s largest Dark Sky Sanctuary by DarkSky International. The nonprofit works to combat light pollution through advocacy and conservation, including a program that has certified more than 200 places around the world to protect the night sky. The Oregon Outback International Dark Sky Sanctuary spans 2.5 million acres of mostly public land in eastern Lake County, and could eventually grow to more than four times that size to include parts of Harney and Malheur Counties. To win certification as a Dark Sky Sanctuary, the applicants had to work with numerous stakeholders to draw the site’s boundaries, monitor night sky quality, inventory outdoor lights and retrofit more than 60 light fixtures on public and private lands. Dawn Nilson is a natural resources planner, amateur astronomer and the project manager of the Oregon Outback International Dark Sky Sanctuary. She joins us to talk about this conservation effort and future expansion plans for the sanctuary. 

You may have heard that various kinds of invasive plants and animals create problems for the species that are native to an area. In the case of the quagga mussel, which only grows to the size of a thumbnail, its effects extend beyond the natural ecology and into the built environment. Not only can it take food away from juvenile salmon and other fish, but the mussels can clog all sorts of water systems, from municipal water to irrigation and hydropower. The quagga and the related zebra mussel came from Eastern Europe to the Great Lakes in the 1980s. In the last dozen years or so, quagga been found in California, Nevada and Utah. They also appeared in Idaho last year along the Snake River. Rick Boatner, the invasive species coordinator at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, says inspections and monitoring could keep the quagga out of the Columbia River Basin, but probably not for more than a few years. He says once they get in, quagga mussels will forever change how we use water in Oregon. He joins to tell us more about what’s needed to slow their spread and to highlight a few of the other invasive species on the agency’s radar.