Think Out Loud

With the departure of the University of Oregon and the University of Washington from the Pac-12 conference, athletics at Oregon State University face an uncertain future. OSU is one of four remaining schools in the conference, along with Washington State University, Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley. OSU President Jayathi Murthy has said the university is doing everything in its power to “stabilize and rebuild” the conference, but with Stanford and Cal rumored to be in talks with the North Carolina-based Atlantic Coast Conference, the path forward remains unclear. Meanwhile, UO has promised to prioritize “long-held traditions,” including competition with OSU. But what that competition will look like still remains to be seen.  

OSU Athletic Director Scott Barnes joins us to talk about the future of the Pac-12. We’ll also hear from Tyler Bilodeau, a forward on OSU’s men’s basketball team, about how the realignment will impact student-athletes. 

PHAME, an experiential arts academy designed for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities, has been around for decades. Students take classes in visual art, photography, improv, voice acting and much more. The academy has put on plays, musicals and even rock operas before, but it’s never undertaken anything quite like this weekend’s show, says Jessica Dart, who co-directs “Stop Making Sense” with her husband and PHAME teaching artist Jason Rouse. The show recreates the Talking Heads' classic 1984 concert film. Like the film, the PHAME show includes music, dance and videos. PHAME student JJ Ross is the show’s choreographer and dances in the show as well. Ross, Dart and Rouse join us to talk about this unique collaboration.

The acute lack of public defenders in Oregon has been nothing short of a constitutional crisis. An American Bar Association study released last year confirmed the state had only a third of the public defense attorneys it needed to ensure the civil rights of those accused of crimes. There were about 600, but about 1,300 more were needed. Defendants have had to be released because there were no public defenders available to take their case, and others are still in jail awaiting representation.

A year and a half later, the nearly $100 million that state lawmakers allocated to hire more attorneys and help restructure the system is beginning to have a positive effect. That’s according to the executive director of the Oregon Office of Public Defense Services, Jessica Kampfe. She joins us to talk about the progress and what’s still needed to ensure defendants’ civil rights.

 In 2020, Oregon voters passed Measure 109, a ballot initiative that made Oregon the first state in the nation to legalize the use of the psychedelic drug psilocybin. It directed the Oregon Health Authority to create a framework to regulate and issue licenses for the manufacture, testing, sale and use of psilocybin in supervised settings. Clients 21 and older can buy and consume psilocybin in licensed service centers in Oregon without a doctor’s prescription. In 2021, the Oregon Health Authority Psilocybin Advisory Board reviewed clinical trials, medical studies and other scientific data on the use of psilocybin and concluded that it “holds promise as an option to address mental health issues,” but it remains classified as an illegal drug at the federal level. 

In May, EPIC Healing Eugene became the first licensed service center in Oregon and began seeing clients in June. Satya Therapeutics in Ashland is another licensed service center and also has a license to manufacture psilocybin to its clients whom it started seeing in July. We hear from Cathy Jonas, the owner of EPIC Healing Eugene, and Andreas Met, the co-founder and CEO of Satya Therapeutics, about their client experiences so far operating in the uncharted business of offering psychedelics as a service.  

Kwame Alexander has written many books and picture books for children, tackling a range of different topics. His newest book, “The Door of No Return,” is the first in a trilogy starting in Ghana in the 1800’s when white colonizers began the slave trade. The book is written as a series of poems, following a young boy, Kofi, who is captured and sold into the slave trade. Kwame Alexander joins us to talk about the 10-year process of working on this book.

We spend the hour with one of Oregon’s most celebrated writers and thinkers, Barry Lopez. His new book, “Horizon,” knits together his decades of travel all around the world. It’s a book full of wonder and sadness, hope and despair, about the natural world… and the way humans are changing it.

The Portland-based Northwest Classical Theatre Collaborative has a mission of bringing the art to underserved communities and performing in nontraditional spaces — like prisons and homeless shelters. And it’s deliberately financially accessible as well, with $10 ticket prices well below most admission prices for similar kinds of productions. Its new show “Happy Days” is a 1961 classic by Samuel Beckett, the late playwright best known for “Waiting for Godot.” Northwest Classical’s production is in a space that was once a Victoria’s Secret at Portland’s Lloyd Center shopping mall. Director Patrick Walsh joins us to talk about the production and the theatre’s mission, along with lead actress Diane Kondrat, who’s on stage for the entire 90-minute play.

California firefighters have come to Oregon to help battle blazes. The Bedrock Fire continues to burn in the Willamette National Forest and evacuation orders are in place. The governor has declared an emergency conflagration over the Lookout Fire in Lane County which allowed resources to be quickly dispatched to affected areas. Meanwhile, the Oregon State Fire Marshal’s office released a report detailing the progress it’s made with wildfire funding from SB 762. We check in with Alison Green, the Oregon State Fire Marshal public affairs director.   

The wildfires that rampaged through Maui began last week, killing more than 100 people and destroying over 2,500 acres on the island, including homes and businesses of the historic town of Lahaina. Ka’Aha Lahui O’Olekona Hawaiian Civic Club of Oregon and SW Washington has been taking donations to aid in relief efforts. Currently they are only accepting gift cards to Safeway, Costco and Target. Leialoha Ka’ula is the executive director of KALOHCC. She joins us to share more on the efforts being made so far and how Oregonians can help. 

The Oregon Sweet Cherry Commission recently sent a letter to Gov. Tina Kotek asking her to issue a State Disaster declaration for the cherry industry. The commission’s request for assistance follows a similar appeal made by a state lawmaker on behalf of growers in Hood River and Wasco Counties, as reported earlier by the Oregon Capital Chronicle. A wet, cold spring impacted cherry growers not only in Oregon but throughout the West, and led to a glut of cherries from California, Washington, Oregon and British Columbia reaching the market at the same time. According to the Oregon Sweet Cherry Commission, some farmers in Wasco and Hood River Counties decided to forego harvesting as much as 40% of their crop because of plummeting cherry prices. Ian Chandler is the Chair of the Oregon Sweet Cherry Commission and a cherry farmer in The Dalles. Mike Omeg is a cherry farmer and the director of operations at Orchard View in The Dalles. They share details about this year’s harvest and how a disaster declaration could help the industry cope with recent challenges.