Think Out Loud

There’s a course being taught at the University of Oregon that’s unlike any class offered there before — and possibly the first of its kind in the nation, according to UO. Now in its second year, the course on hostage diplomacy is attracting undergraduates interested in pursuing careers in journalism, public relations and advertising. 

The students hear from guest speakers, including family members of current and former hostages and experts who’ve helped negotiate the release of hostages and journalists who have been wrongfully detained by foreign governments. In the spring, students travel to Washington, D.C. to meet with Congressional staffers, U.S. State Department officials and NGOs like The James W. Foley Legacy Foundation and HostageUS. 

The course is being co-taught by Jason Rezaian, the 2026 Eric W. Allen Faculty Fellow at UO and The Washington Post’s Director of Press Freedom Initiatives. While reporting in Tehran for The Washington Post, Rezaian was arrested by Iranian authorities in 2014 and wrongfully imprisoned for 544 days before the U.S. government secured his release in January 2016.

Rezaian joins us, along with three UO students who share their experiences with the course: Maren Fullerton, a senior double majoring in advertising and political science; Taylor Parker, a sophomore double majoring in advertising and cinema studies; and Aishiki Nag, a senior double majoring in political science and global studies.

When you open your eyes in the morning, become aware of the world around you and have your first thoughts about the day ahead … what exactly is happening inside your brain and body? What are the actual mechanisms of consciousness? And how did we go from single celled organisms to conscious beings? Or, for that matter, are single celled organisms conscious? All of these questions and more are addressed in Michael Pollan’s new book “A World Appears.” We talk to Pollan in front of an audience at Revolution Hall in Portland.

PeaceHealth Oregon has decided to use the Atlanta-based company ApolloMD to staff its emergency departments in Lane County, ending a decadeslong contract with Eugene Emergency Physicians. The decision led the group to hold a no-confidence vote in PeaceHealth leadership, which the hospitals’ medical staff supported overwhelmingly. In a statement, PeaceHealth said it selected ApolloMD based on “Lane County’s future emergency medicine needs and the type of resource required to meet increasingly high patient volumes and medical complexity.”

Margaret Pattison is the emergency department medical director at PeaceHealth RiverBend in Springfield and a member of Eugene Emergency Physicians. She joins us to talk about the decision and how the group is responding.

Snowpack in the West is facing a historic drought, and new research from the University of Washington shows that forest thinning with modern tools cannot only reduce wildfire risk, but it can also increase the snowpack in winter by up to 30%. The researchers suggest this could help recover lost water and safeguard future water supply.

Forest thinning involves shredding and mulching small trees, shrubs and brush -- vegetation that is least resistant to fire. Creating more gaps between trees opens up sections of the forest floor that are shaded by the remaining forest. Snow that's on shaded ground faces less sun exposure, preserving snowpack more efficiently than when the snow is caught by trees.

Cassie Lumbrazo, a research scientist at the University of Washington and the University of Alaska Southeast, joins us to explain the wide range of benefits these thinning methods can have on forest ecosystems and the impact these findings could have during a record-low year for snowpack in our region.

An unassuming house in Southeast Portland’s Buckman neighborhood was recently added to the National Register of Historic Places. Once known as “Juniper House,” the building served as one of the first end-of-life care homes for AIDS patients in the Pacific Northwest in the late 1980s. An OPB documentary at the time explored the lives of some of the patients in Juniper House and the neighboring Assisi House, which provided a range of care for patients with HIV/AIDS. Jan Weyeneth is one of the co-founders of Juniper House. Cayla McGrail is a former associate project manager for Portland’s LGBTQ+ Historic Sites Project, which sponsored the house’s listing. We first spoke with Weyeneth and McGrail in April 2025 about Juniper House and the importance of documenting queer history in Portland.

Rodger Deevers knows he’s a lucky man. He’s a financial advisor in Eugene with all his basic needs met — and then some. But in 2023, after he and his wife took a vacation to the island of Curaçao off the Venezuelan coast, he wanted to bring some of the sense of community and vibrant public art back to the Eugene-Springfield area — and contribute to area nonprofits.

 He says he didn’t know quite how to begin, so he just started with an idea for one mural, at nonprofit NextStep Recycling, and decided to see if people were interested in helping him paint it. Dozens of people showed up — and the nonprofit was thrilled to have a mural on a space that would otherwise have remained unadorned. Deevers calls the project Lucky Enough Social Club, and now has a system of sorts, and volunteers who show up to paint. But he does most of the legwork, outreach and designing of the mural, in collaboration with whatever nonprofit is getting painted.

He says he’s seen the transformative power of creativity in the people who show up to volunteer, and calling attention to mental health and suicide prevention is one of the biggest motivations driving him. We first spoke with Deevers in July 2025 about the creation of the club and how he hopes to see it grow in the future.

Lakayana Yotoma Drury is an educator, social entrepreneur, community advocate, writer, poet, filmmaker—and now an editor-in-chief. He’s published a new magazine-formatted publication with a collection of essays, poems, and photographs he calls a “defiant anthem of Black joy and resilience against a backdrop of gentrification, community violence, miseducation, and white supremacy.” It’s called “503” and Yotoma Drury says the magazine is dedicated to Portland youth and also describes it as a “love letter to Portland.” We sit down with him to hear more about this new collection and its compelling themes — including Black history and stories, educating Black children and youth, and “Black Portland transplants” and their relationship to historic Black Portland.

The Trump administration attacked Iran over the weekend, bringing the US into a now widening conflict in the middle east. Airstrikes have killed leaders and senior officials in Iran, including the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 

Gatherings were held in Portland over the weekend to both protest and celebrate the military action in Iran. On Saturday, protesters gathered to condemn the US involvement in a war in Iran. On Sunday, hundreds of Iranian people in Portland gathered to celebrate the death of Khamenei, and to support the US and Israel’s military action against the Iranian government.

Samira Sahebi is the secretary of the board of directors at Free Iran PDX, a community support organization for Iranians living in Portland. Sahebi joins us to discuss the Iranian community in Oregon’s response to the ongoing conflict.

 The Tualatin High School co-ed cheer team entered this competition season with the pressure of defending the state title they won last year. In response to that pressure? The team not only took first place at the state championships in Oregon City, but one week later, took home first place in the USA Spirit Nationals championship. They competed in the Advanced Co-Ed Varsity Large division, against varsity teams from across the US.

The team had just a few days to alter their routine for the national championships before they traveled to Anaheim, California, to compete for the national title.

Crystal Corona, the team’s coach, has been with the team at Tualatin High School for the last five years. She’s seen the class of 2026 through their entire high school careers. One of the team’s seniors is Elizabeth Klups, who said her role was “to keep the team calm” through their fast-paced competition season. Corona and Klups join us to discuss the wins and what it means to represent Oregon on a national stage.

The Columbia River Gorge Commission oversees land use and stewards both economic development and conservation efforts within the National Scenic Area. Robert Liberty served as the Multnomah County appointee to the commission since 2015, and was most recently reappointed in 2023. But he resigned earlier this year with more than a year to go in his term, citing “the gentrification of working lands with luxury homesites for the wealthy” and “the anti-conservation, pro-development interest of some of the Commission members,” among other reasons.