Think Out Loud

Over the weekend, protesters gathered in the buff to speak out against the Trump administration’s attempts to mobilize the National Guard. Last week, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited Portland’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and met with high-profile leaders, including the city’s mayor Keith Wilson. Mayor Wilson urged the defense secretary to stop the use of chemical munitions and force against protesters. At the same time, Mayor Wilson’s one year promise to end unsheltered homelessness in the city is fast approaching. Mayor Wilson joins us to share more on his response to the continued protest, the ongoing threat of the National Guard and where things stand now with the city and homelessness.

With its focus on characters and narratives outside the mainstream, horror is considered by some to be an inherently queer genre. According to the founders of the Stage Fright Festival, horror has “a special and symbiotic connection to queer culture.” The festival celebrates that connection with a lineup of performances that range from campy to creepy to chilling. This year’s festival will take place Oct. 9-19 at the CoHo Theatre in Northwest Portland.   Amica Hunter and Jeff Desautels are the co-founders of the Stage Fright Festival. They join us to talk about how the festival has evolved since it launched in 2022 and what makes horror so queer.  

Nearly 30 years ago, Newport resident Kent Gibson headed out with his dog to the beach one day to look for agate and jasper, types of gemstones he collected as a hobby at the time. He picked up what looked like a baseball-sized rock, threw it for his dog to fetch and then took it home for his dog to play with. But it turns out it wasn’t a rock. It was a fossil of a skull from a porpoise that lived 20 million years ago.    That discovery sparked a new calling for Gibson as an amateur fossil collector. The Salem Statesman Journal shared that story and more in its recent profile of the retired Newport harbormaster and his amazing skill at finding fossils, mostly of prehistoric marine mammals and fish. Gibson estimates his collection now numbers between 5 and 6,000 fossils, some of which he can spend 100 hours or more painstakingly cleaning to reveal skulls, vertebrae, ribs or other prehistoric bones encased in sediment and rock.  Gibson hopes to donate his collection some day to the Condon Fossil Collection at the University of Oregon’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History, but the facility doesn’t currently have the space to house it. Gibson joins us to talk about his amazing paleontological finds and tips for fellow fossil hunters.

 By law, emergency rooms must ensure that individuals receive appropriate care regardless of their ability to pay when coming into the ER. But, new reporting from ProPublica shows that more than 90 psychiatric hospitals, including one in Oregon, are turning away or discharging patients too early and are breaking this law. Eli Cahan is a pediatrician and investigative journalist. He joins us to share more.   

The Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution in Pendleton won five awards last month, including top honors for its newsletter and magazine at the 2025 American Penal Press Contest. Twenty-one prison publications in nine states, including Oregon, submitted entries to the contest which is organized by the Pollen Initiative and Southern Illinois University.    A staff of six adults in custody at EOCI write and edit the content published in the prison’s monthly newsletter, The Echo, and its quarterly magazine, 1664, as part of a prison work program. East Oregonian reporter Berit Thorson serves as the program’s advisor, offering feedback on articles and teaching journalism training sessions on skills such as how to conduct interviews.   Philip Luna is the editor-in-chief of The Echo and 1664. Kurtis Thompson is a staff writer who joined the EOCI news team last year. The Echo and 1664 won first place in the “Best Newsletter” and “Best Magazine” categories of this year’s American Penal Press Contest. Recent examples of Luna’s and Thompson’s writing can be found in the  “Artist in Custody” edition of 1664, which includes profiles of an incarcerated former music producer who teaches music at EOCI and a band of women musicians at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville. Luna and Thompson join us to talk about their award-winning work and how journalism is helping them amplify voices within incarcerated communities.

Mary Flower finally convinced her parents to buy her an acoustic guitar when she was around the age of 12, growing up in Indiana more than six decades ago. Inspired by the folk stylings of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, Flower taught herself to play and was good enough to teach the instrument while still in high school. She continued to perform and teach while in college, which she left to embark on a career as a professional guitarist and singer-songwriter based in Denver.    In 2004, Flower moved to Portland, where she continued to gain acclaim for her albums and performances, including being nominated three times for a “Blues Music Award” from the Blues Foundation and being inducted into the Cascade Blues Association’s “Muddy Award” Hall of Fame and the Colorado Music Hall of Fame.     This Saturday, Flower will receive the 2025 “Best of the West Artist Award” from Folk Alliance Region-West in recognition of her contributions to folk music in the region and her ability to “build bridges between traditional genres.”   Despite her busy performance and touring schedule, Flower continues to find time to instruct and mentor fellow guitarists. Earlier this month, she wrapped up Blues in the Gorge, a 5-day acoustic blues guitar camp for adults in the Columbia Gorge she started 12 years ago. Flower  leads the workshops with the help of several other musicians she chooses each year for their ability to both perform and teach.   Flower joins us to discuss her expansive career and extensive collaborations with other artists in musical genres spanning from blues to jazz.  

Heather Douglas loves making zines, both long and short, big and small, about subjects both serious and lighthearted. The zine — its name a shortened form of magazine and is pronounced “zeen” — has been around for decades, and can refer to a single sheet of paper folded into multiple panels and hand drawn, or multiple sheets of paper folded in half, similar to a chapbook.   The zine arguably saw its zenith in the late '90s and early 2000s, before the rise of social media and the ubiquity of internet platforms that provided a million digital forms for self-expression. But for many cartoonists and zinesters, like Douglas, the physical, analog nature of the form is one to be treasured and the fact that it brings people together — offline, in real life — is one of its many appeals. That’s one reason she approached her fellow Astorian, Kirista Trask with the Cambium Gallery about creating a Zine festival, something she said as a lifelong Astorian, she’d never seen before in the city.   Trask was enthusiastic, and by chance had just put out her own zine about the gallery. They created the “Astoria Zine Festival,” which takes place at the gallery this weekend. Douglas and Trask join us, along with BB Anderson, a Portland zinester and co-organizer of the long- standing Portland Zine Symposium. They all share more about the enduring appeal of the art form and why they consider it more vital than ever.  

The definition of digital literacy has changed dramatically over the last couple of decades. Although one report found that teens spend about seven hours a day on their phones, employers have learned that some young people have a lack of computer skills. Eric Magidson is an IT consultant and professor of Computer Information Systems at Central Oregon Community College. He recently wrote about this issue and why policymakers should step in. He joins us with more on the changes he wants to see.

A panel of federal judges heard arguments Thursday over whether the Trump administration can send federal troops to Portland.    Last Saturday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the president from mobilizing 200 federalized Oregon National Guard troops. The same judge issued another order a day later barring the president from sending any federalized National Guard members to Portland after he signaled he would send troops from California and Texas.    The administration appealed the first decision to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. OPB legal affairs reporter Conrad Wilson watched the hearing and joins us with more details.  

The start of the new school year brings the usual set of challenges for students as they navigate new schedules, lesson plans and social dynamics. Those changes can also take a toll on a student’s mental health. A survey conducted in 2023 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found, for example, that 40% of high school students nationwide reported depressive symptoms - an increase of more than 10% since 2013. Former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued an advisory in 2021 warning about worsening youth mental health, exacerbated by the pandemic and excessive use of social media.     The Ballmer Institute for Children’s Behavioral Health at University of Oregon is working to help address this crisis of youth mental health. Launched in 2022, the institute is pioneering the first program of its kind in the nation to educate and train a new class of healthcare workers: child behavioral health specialists. The 4-year program provides an alternative to the additional years and cost a student would typically have to spend in graduate school to become, for example, a school psychologist or social worker. Instead, the undergraduates in the program obtain 700 hours of applied training that starts their junior year with internships at Portland area schools, clinics and community organizations. While they can’t provide diagnoses or conduct psychological evaluations, the interns can help prevent and mitigate behavioral health challenges by teaching, for example, problem-solving strategies or coping skills kids can use during stressful situations.     Joining us for more details are Cody Ghion, an assistant clinical professor at UO’s Ballmer Institute for Children’s Behavioral Health; Sophia Morgan, a UO senior and child behavioral health intern who is currently working at a high school in Portland for students in recovery from substance use; and Anne Libby, who is also a UO senior and child behavioral health intern currently working at a pediatric clinic in Hillsboro.