Think Out Loud

Three-quarters of adults over the age of 50 want to remain in their homes as they age, according to the American Association of Retired Persons. But for some older adults in Portland, current infrastructure presents some serious physical and social challenges. A new draft report from Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability lays out some recommendations to address these issues. The Age and Disability Inclusive Neighborhoods Action Plan advocates for creating age-friendly centers, increasing accessible public spaces and providing more support for those wanting to age in place. Alan DeLaTorre is an adjunct professor in the College of Urban and Public Affairs at Portland State University and the former Age-Friendly City program manager for Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. He is also the main author of the new plan. He joins us to share the challenges facing Portland’s older population and what it would mean to make the city more age-friendly.

Oregon’s Measure 110 — which decriminalized drug possession and directed more money into substance use disorder treatment   — was modeled after Portugal's drug policy approach. New York Times opinion writer and neuroscience journalist Maia Szalavitz has studied what’s happened over the last 25 years since the country began decriminalization. She’s written many articles and books on the subject of addiction, most recently “Undoing Drugs: How Harm Reduction is Changing the Future of Drugs and Addiction.”  She joins to tell us how and why decriminalization worked in Portugal and the lessons she believes it holds for Oregon — and the U.S. as a whole.

Erika Hayasaki’s book “Somewhere Sisters: a story of adoption, identity, and the meaning of family” explores a very complicated multi-family, multinational story. At the heart of the book are sisters: identical twins born in Vietnam. One was adopted by a wealthy family in the U.S., one was raised in rural Vietnam. We spoke to Hayasaki in 2022 in front of an audience at the Portland Book Festival.

When you look at a painting in a gallery or museum, you can’t always tell how much of what’s portrayed is accurate or how much artistic license has been taken. But a new study from Oregon State University shows that some 19th-century landscape paintings are accurate enough to aid scientists who are researching historical forest systems. 

Dana Warren is an associate professor of forestry at OSU. Peter Betjemann is an English professor and the Patricia Valian Reser Executive Director of Arts and Education. They collaborated on the study, and join us with more details on how art and science can serve each other.

The first Tibetans came to the Pacific Northwest to work in the lumber industry. Then, in the early '90s, more refugees were resettled here. Earlier this month, The Northwest Tibetan Community Association celebrated 30 years of Tibetan language and cultural programming.  Jampa Nyendak Lathsang and Dechen Bartso, both volunteers in the community, join us to talk about the Northwest’s Tibetan community.

TOL VMs from listeners about favorite memories of Damian Lillard, following announcement of his trade to the Milwaukee Bucks

Tanya Barham, the CEO of Community Energy Labs, is featured on the Grist 50 list of leaders in the U.S. who are working on solutions for a sustainable future. Grist states that it reviews thousands of nominees before whittling down the final list. Barham’s company works on helping schools and other public agencies create more energy efficient buildings.  Barham joins us with details of the company.

The Sunrise Movement and more than 50 high schools from across the country are working on the Green New Deal for Schools Campaign. The proposal has several demands including safe and clean school infrastructure, pathways to green jobs, and climate disaster planning. We learn more about the new deal proposal from Adah Crandall, an organizer with the Sunrise Movement and graduate of Grant High School in Portland.  

Portland Community Football Club is like a lot of sports organizations for kids. It focuses on soccer, provides coaching, training and opportunities for kids of different ages to play competitively. But the PCFC is unlike many otherwise similar organizations in its mission to serve kids regardless of their gender or their family’s ability to pay. Founder Kaig Lightner says his love of sports began when he was in grade school. He said while he was bullied for not fitting into traditional gender roles, as he was raised a girl, sports was where he felt at home, first with softball, then with basketball, soccer and volleyball. He started coaching at 15.

Lightner started PCFC in 2013, mainly serving kids in first and second generation immigrant and low-income families. His mission is to serve everyone who’s interested.and more broadly to “liberate sports.” The teams are not organized by gender and the cost is sliding scale. PCFC will even provide the uniforms and cleats if needed. He also decided to come out to his players as a transgender in 2017 and received more support than he could have hoped for. He joins us, along one of the PCFC players, Saidu Yillah, a high school senior who also referees.

Julian Saporiti found a lot of Asian American songs and musicians when he was doing research for his PhD in American History. But the lack of popular understanding of that history was frustrating. In response, Saporiti founded No-No Boy, a Portland-based music and multimedia project that combines vivid narrative storytelling with Asian American history. Saporiti joins us to play songs from his newest album, “Empire Electric.”