Think Out Loud

This week, a coalition of over 100 elected officials, arts organizations, labor unions and chambers of commerce signed a letter urging calm and “thoughtful civic engagement” on election day, and to preserve the “hard-won but still fragile progress” in Downtown Portland.  Amid rising concerns about possible civil unrest next week, Portland Police Chief Bob Day said there would be increased police presence, with officers canceling days off and working 12-hour shifts. A special unit of officers under the recently reconstituted Rapid Response Team will also be deployed for crowd control. Portland Police Chief Bob Day joins us to share more details about the agency’s preparedness for election day, what lessons it learned from its response to the 2020 racial justice protests and an update on what the police know about the suspected arsonist who placed incendiary devices into ballot boxes in Portland and Vancouver recently. 

Derek Greenwood is an adjunct faculty member at Columbia Gorge Community College and a certified drug and alcohol counselor. As someone with lived experience, he credits having a safe space he could go to socialize when he was recovering from drug addiction as a young adult. But finding safe, sober spaces to form those connections with other people in recovery can be a challenge, especially in rural communities.  That challenge motivated Greenwood and others to launch an effort to help people recovering from drugs and alcohol in the Columbia Gorge. As first reported in the Oregon Capital Chronicle, the Gorge Recovery Center received a $2 million grant this summer from the state’s opioid settlement funds. The center, which does not yet have a physical location, is expected to open sometime next year. It will offer an array of services seven days a week, from peer support mentors to recreational opportunities and classes on parenting, financial literacy and other life skills. Joining us to talk about their plans and the challenges of navigating recovery in a rural community are Gorge Recovery Center board president Derek Greenwood and fellow board member Katrina Mace, who also works as a drug and alcohol counselor at Mid-Columbia Center for Living

The weeklong Bureau of Land Management’s annual Bat Beauty Contest closes, appropriately enough, on Halloween this year. Voting has taken place on the BLM’s Facebook and Instagram accounts. The competition features photos of bats taken primarily by government biologists who survey and work with bats on public lands in 12 western states, including Oregon. There are 15 species of bats native to Oregon, including eight whose numbers are declining or at-risk, according to the state’s wildlife agency.  Bats from Oregon have won the contest for two years in a row. Last year’s winner was a Townsend’s big-eared bat photographed by Emma Busk, a wildlife technician in the Ashland field office in the Medford district of the Bureau of Land Management. Busk entered photos of two bats in this year’s competition, including a bat named Hoary Potter and the Guano of Fire which made it to the final round of judging. She joins us to talk about Oregon bats and the vital roles they play in our ecosystems. 

Menopause can present a wide range of symptoms, from hot flashes and sleep disturbances to brain fog and loss of bone density. Though several safe and effective therapies are available, many patients still aren’t receiving the help they need. A new study from Oregon Health & Science University found that more than 60% of respondents with moderate to severe menopause symptoms weren’t receiving any treatment. The primary reason they reported not engaging in treatment was that their clinician hadn’t recommended it to them. Maria Rodriguez is a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at OHSU and the director of the university’s Center for Reproductive Health Equity. Sara Cichowski is the university’s vice chair of gynecology and an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology. They both join us to talk more about the barriers to accessing menopause care in Oregon.

For researchers, endangered and threatened birds like the Northern Spotted Owl and the Marbled Murrelet can be incredibly hard to find and study in the wild. Now new research shows that  artificial intelligence may be able to help. As first reported in Hakai Magazine, researchers have been training AI to correctly identify elusive species of birds in the wild through sound. Matthew Betts is a professor and chairs the Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society at Oregon State University. He coauthored the study and joins us to share more about the development of this AI and its implications for future research.   

Research into domestic violence has found that when a professional football team has an unexpected loss in its hometown, intimate partner violence can increase by 10%. A new analysis from researchers at the University of Oregon found that this effect is amplified in states with legalized sports betting. Sports gambling is currently legal in 38 states, including Oregon and Washington. Thirty states – including Oregon – also allow mobile sports betting, which researchers found further increased the chance of a spike in intimate partner violence. Kyutaro Matsuzawa and Emily Arnesen are both economics PhD candidates at UO. They join us with more details on their analysis. 

The Oregon State Land Board recently approved a plan to enroll the Elliott State Forest in the voluntary carbon credit market.  The forest spans more than 80,000 acres in southwestern Oregon near Coos Bay. Oregon is the second state behind Michigan to dedicate an entire state forest to storing harmful carbon emissions and selling the credits. State officials say the plan will help the state meet its conservation and carbon emission goals, but it isn’t without controversy. Critics say the voluntary market lacks sufficient government oversight and regulation, and Oregon State University and the Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians dropped out of the project late last year. Brett Brownscombe is the Elliott State Research Forest transition director at the Oregon Department of State Lands. He joins us with more details about the plan. 

Even if you’re among the county’s most engaged and informed voters, there’s a lot to keep track of this election cycle. And that’s not even counting the recent fires at ballot drop boxes in Oregon and Washington. With Election Day less than a week out, we invited Multnomah County Elections Director Tim Scott on to give us the latest about ballot security, ranked choice voting returns and updates, how to make sure you’re meeting the postmark deadline and to answer other frequently asked questions.

From grocery stores to breweries, we are taking our pet dogs to places more and more. But do our furry companions actually enjoy being dragged alongside our own adventures to cafes and bookstores? Tove Danovich is a Portland-based writer and author of “Under the Henfluence.” She wrote a recent opinion piece arguing that maybe we should leave our dogs at home more often. She joins us to share more on her reasoning and the effects taking a dog to public spaces can have not only on our dogs, but the world around them. 

Sam Adams and Shannon Singleton are in a runoff to represent North and Northeast Portland, District 2, on the Multnomah County Commission. Neither candidate got over 50% in the May primary. The seat opened up when Susheela Jayapal stepped down last fall to run for Congress. Sam Adams is a former mayor of the city of Portland and previously held a position within Mayor Wheeler’s office. Shannon Singleton, a trained social worker, is the former interim director of the Joint Office of Homeless. They join us to share why they’re running and what they want to accomplish if elected.