Think Out Loud

Last year, Seattle-based company Ironwood Studios released its debut game, "Pacific Drive." The game is set in the Olympic Peninsula and players drive around in a station wagon, exploring supernatural happenings. The production company Atomic Monster has acquired the rights to turn the award-nominated game into a TV series. Cassandra Dracott is the CEO and creative director for Ironwood Studios and also grew up in Portland. She joins us to share how growing up in the Pacific Northwest influenced the making of the game and more.

Tory Johnston is an enrolled member of the Quinault Indian Nation and a lecturer in American Indian Studies at the University of Washington. He grew up in the Quinault Indian reservation on the Washington coast with a love for music, whether it was the loud guitar riffs of Metallica or the jazz improvisation of Thelonious Monk.  In 2023, with no prior experience as a radio DJ, he applied to work on a new show Seattle radio station KEXP was launching that appealed to his academic and personal explorations of Indigenous music. He got the job and is today the co-host and DJ of “Sounds of Survivance.” Airing on Mondays, each episode exposes listeners to artists spanning musical continents and styles, from classical piano compositions by Navajo musician Connor Chee to thrash metal songs performed by New Zealand band Alien Weaponry in English and Te reo Māori. Johnston joins us to talk about the show’s eclectic catalog and what’s currently on his music playlist.

Washington’s legislative session begins on Monday and runs through April. Lawmakers are working on the state’s budget as Washington faces a multibillion-dollar budget gap. Governor-elect Bob Ferguson will be sworn in on Wednesday. Sentence about budget stuff  He said officials should focus on budget cuts and efficiency. Jeanie Lindsay is the Olympia correspondent for partner station KUOW. She joins us with details of what officials have planned. 

Bikram Vaidya grew up in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, and ran a pub there for years before coming to the U.S. to get a culinary arts degree at Western Culinary Institute/Le Cordon Bleu in Portland, Oregon. Vaidya later went on to teach at Le Cordon Bleu and was a founding member and lead instructor at the Oregon Culinary Institute. For the last 15 years he has been dedicated to cataloguing the cuisines of his homeland. Vaidya has trekked across Nepal and spent time staying with families to learn their recipes and the cultural traditions behind their ingredients. Viadya’s new cookbook, “The Mystic Kitchens of Nepal,” came out a few months ago. He joins us to discuss the work.

In Portland, arts organizations are facing shrinking budgets, donor fatigue and other financial struggles. The city launched the Office of Arts of Culture last year, but Portland faces a $27 million budget gap. As people move out of Portland, an arts tax aimed at boosting the region’s arts and culture offerings might yield less money.     Blake Shell is the executive and artistic director of the Oregon Center for Contemporary Art. Marissa Wolf is the artistic director of Portland Center Stage. Kimberly Howard Wade is the executive director of Caldera, which serves young people in Portland and Sisters. And Darion Jones is the assistant director of the city’s Office of Arts and Culture. They join us with more about these challenges and what they mean for a city that prides itself on a robust arts and culture scene. Promo:  In Portland, arts organizations are facing shrinking budgets, donor fatigue and other financial struggles. We learn more about those challenges and what they mean for a city that prides itself on a robust arts and culture scene.

A contractor with the Port of Coos Bay is facing allegations of racism after recordings revealed him praising Hitler and using other anti-Jewish and anti-Black rhetoric. Reporters have connected the recordings from an antifascist infiltrator to Michael Whitworth Gantenbein, owner of Whit Industries, which has received nearly $300,000 in contract work from the Port of Coos Bay over the last decade. A coalition of human rights and environmental groups are calling for the port to cut ties with Gantenbein, but port officials are struggling to find a path forward that doesn’t expose them to a free speech lawsuit. Daniel Walters covers democracy and extremism at InvestigateWest through Report for America. He recently reported on this issue and joins us with more details.

Last October, Amazon announced it had signed an agreement to develop four small-scale modular nuclear reactors, or SMRs, along the Columbia River to power its data centers in Eastern Oregon. Energy Northwest, a consortium of publicly owned utilities, is partnering with Amazon on the development of the SMRs which it says could be scaled up to meet the energy needs of more than 770,000 homes in the region without the use of fossil fuels.  But opposition to the plan is now ramping up as environmentalists, academics and Native American Tribes in the region raise their concerns over the safety of this novel nuclear technology to human health, wildlife and water quality. OPB rural communities reporter Antonio Sierra joins us to share his recent reporting on the opposition to Amazon’s vision for nuclear energy and the massive data centers it would help power. 

Republican Cliff Bentz represents Oregon’s 2nd Congressional District in Congress. It’s the largest district in Oregon, and represents around two-thirds of the state. It encompasses the Owyhee Canyonlands, one of the state’s most-known but — as of yet — unprotected natural places. Conservationists and others, including Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, have called on President Joe Biden to create a national monument here but so far that hasn’t happened. Democratic Senator Ron Wyden has been working since 2019 on a bill to create a national monument on 1.1 million acres of land. The legislation was co-sponsored by Oregon’s other Democratic U.S. Senator, Jeff Merkley. The bill passed the Senate last year but died in the House. Bentz proposed his own version last fall, but says he’ll work with the senators on a new plan that can pass both chambers. We talk with Bentz about the way forward for Owyhee protection.

At the turn of the 20th century, Vaudeville performances exploded in growth in America, entertaining audiences with a variety of acts from magicians to comedy shows and more. In Astoria, Oregon, the historic Liberty Theatre was home to some of these acts. Melissa Hart is a journalist and author based in Eugene. Her great- grandparents were vaudeville performers themselves and traveled around the world with their act. She wrote about the history of vaudeville both in Astoria and more broadly for the publication Hidden Compass. She joins us to share more on who her great-grandparents were and the impact vaudeville had in the U.S. 

According to the CDC, more than 2 million people in the U.S. are infected with hepatitis C. The bloodborne illness attacks the liver and can lead to cancer or death if left untreated. Injection drug use is the leading risk factor for hepatitis C, which is also more prevalent in rural counties where diagnosis and treatment can be hard to come by, especially for people experiencing homelessness.  Scientists at Oregon Health and Science University demonstrated a new strategy that could significantly boost the diagnosis and successful treatment of hepatitis C in rural communities. In a recently published study, they showed that peers with lived experience in drug use were able to successfully enroll and facilitate treatment for people who tested positive for hepatitis C in six rural Oregon counties using telemedicine, which was seven times more effective than referrals to clinics for in-person treatment. Joining us to talk about the results and the role peer specialists can play to combat the spread of hepatitis C is Dr. Andrew Seaman, an associate professor of medicine at OHSU, the medical director of HIV and hepatitis C services at Central City Concern and head of substance use disorder programs at Better Life Partners in New England.