Think Out Loud

For most of the last three years, Tracy Schlapp and Danny Wilson have been working with a group of writers incarcerated at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem. Schlapp and Wilson’s writing program comes out of their nonprofit Bridgeworks Oregon, which is focused on art and music in prison.

Some of the writers in custody are serving long sentences, life sentences without the possibility of parole. Some have children -- and grandchildren -- they won’t likely ever see on the outside. More than 70,000 children in Oregon are impacted by incarceration.

The storytelling group is called Ground Beneath Us, and it uses prompts that come from school children’s questions - questions they may be too uncomfortable or afraid to ask an incarcerated family member directly.
Some of the men’s essays and poems are published in the new anthology called “Prisons Have a Long Memory.” Schlapp is the creative director of Bridgeworks Oregon. She edited the anthology with Wilson, and she joins us to tell us more about the program and the process.

Kyle Hedquist’s essays appear in the book, and he served on the editorial board. He now works as a lobbyist with the Oregon Justice Resource Center after being granted clemency by Governor Kate Brown last year. He also joins us to share about how he spent his time the 28 years he served, his writing and his commitment to creating community.

Methane is a greenhouse gas that is roughly 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere, making it a key target of global efforts to fight climate change. Dairy cows and beef cattle are a significant source of methane, which is released as a byproduct of food digestion in the stomach of cows and other hoofed animals. Kangaroos, like cows, also have microbes in their gut which aid in digesting plant material. But these microbes release acetic acid instead of methane. Scientists at Washington State University collected gut bacteria from zoo kangaroos, and then introduced cultures of the bacteria into a solution mimicking a cow’s stomach. The bacteria quickly flourished and replaced the community of methane-producing microbes. Birgitte Ahring is a professor in the Bioproducts, Sciences and Engineering Laboratory at Washington State University. She joins us to talk about the research, which is described in a paper recently published in the journal Biocatalysis and Agricultural Biotechnology, and how it could help the agriculture sector curb a potent greenhouse gas.

The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry aims to create a hub for science learning, arts and culture. The plan includes a waterfront education park, more than a thousand units of housing and public green space. The proposal recently received approval from the City of Portland Design Commission. We hear more about the proposal and next steps from Erin Graham, the CEO and president of OMSI.

The Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación, also referred to as CJNG, is a Mexican drug cartel with cells throughout the United States. Cartel members lived in Oregon and distributed fentanyl, meth and other illicit drugs in the state and across the country. The pockets of activity affected Portland and Hillsboro but also smaller communities like Oregon City, Seaside, and Hood River. Beth Warren is an enterprise and investigative reporter for the Courier Journal in Louisville, Kentucky. She reported on drug trafficking in Oregon and CJNG's efforts to expand its drug smuggling operations throughout the U.S.

Graffiti is not new to Portland. The term can include everything from a simple tag or initials to artistic murals on building walls. Whether it's words or pictures, graffiti has a documented history in the city that dates back to the late 1940s. As businesses deal with defaced property and unpermitted art, the city is moving on plans to expand deployment of contracted cleaners. But some advocates are looking to a different answer: a free wall. This would be a designated space for artists to gather, create and share ideas. As a part of our series on graffiti, we hear from Tiffany Conklin, the executive director of Portland Street Art Alliance. She joins us to share what a free wall would mean in Portland and the history of street art in the city.

Rachel Mackenzlee Mayta had to have one of her eyes removed when she was 2 years old. For many years after that, she wore a prosthetic eye that matched her other eye. But in Portland, she found an ocularist who started to create ‘fun eyes’ for her. The eyes are made of gold leaf, feature glow in the dark heart irises, can be silver or are filled with crystals. She uses her ‘fun eyes’ to talk openly on social media about surviving cancer and using prosthetic eyes. Mayta joins us with more on her experiences.

A proposed pump storage project near John Day Dam would store excess energy and could provide power to half a million homes. But, as the Yakama Nation and other tribes argue, the proposed location would destroy sacred gathering sites and resources that are irreplaceable. Toastie Oaster is a staff writer for High Country News and has been covering this issue. They join us to share more about what is at stake and the fight against the project.

The Portland city council voted last month to indefinitely table a proposal from the city auditor to create a new Transparency Advocate position. Instead, they passed a different transparency resolution introduced by commissioner Dan Ryan. We talked with Portland City Auditor Simone Rede following that vote, and she told us more about the city’s Charter Commission the proposal came out of and the community engagement process that led up to the council’s actions. Ryan joins us to share his perspective on efforts to improve transparency in the city council, explain what his council-passed resolution would do and what he hopes to see from the auditor’s office in the coming months.

Since she took office in January, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek has moved to address the state’s homelessness and affordable housing crises, detailed education and behavioral health spending in her first budget plan and navigated a scandal within the state Liquor and Cannabis Commission. She also kicked off a statewide tour of areas where she received the least support in the November election. We sit down with Kotek to talk about her first months in office and her priorities for the rest of her term.

Part memoir, part investigative journalism, Portland journalist Casey Parks’ new book, “Diary of a Misfit,” explores themes of religion, identity and family as she embarks on a mission to find a figure from her grandmother's past. As a child, Parks’ grandmother lived across the street from a “woman who lived as a man.” His name was Roy Hudgins.

Hudgins was many things. He was a country singer, a landscaper, a devout believer and a friend to some. Park’s book follows her decade-long journey on uncovering who Roy was as she explores not only his past but her own. Parks joins us to share what she learned about Roy and what it meant to be queer in the South.