Careful conversations about public life.
Think Out Loud is an OPB interview program built around clear questions and patient follow-ups. Its conversations range from Portland theater and folk traditions to rural medicine, constitutional history, drug policy, financial literacy, and embryo gene editing.
PRESS PLAY
Think Out Loud is an OPB interview program with a broad civic range and a steady hand. It is built less around argument than inquiry. The show takes a subject that could be reduced to a headline and gives it enough room to become specific: who is affected, what changed, what history sits underneath it, and what the next practical question should be. Recent conversations show that range clearly. Portland guitarist Marisa Anderson discusses adapting folk music from countries including Afghanistan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Syria, and Pakistan, and the conversation turns toward listening, drone, dissonance, Harry Smith, and the provocation of the word un-American. Historian Jill Lepore talks through the difficulty of amending the U.S. Constitution, with attention to originalism, Dred Scott, Brown v. Board of Education, and what it means when a document built for change becomes hard to change. A University of Washington School of Medicine segment follows rural and Indigenous health care needs through scholarships, debt, family medicine, and the WHAMI and TRUST programs. Another episode examines Washington County’s deflection program after Oregon re-criminalized possession of controlled substances, focusing on eligibility, probation status, pending charges, and the effort to move people toward behavioral health support. The show also makes space for Portland’s Fertile Ground Festival, where staged readings, musicals in development, world premieres, clown, movement, dance, and performance art all sit inside a larger theater ecosystem. Its science coverage is direct but careful, as in a conversation about CRISPR, embryo editing, in vitro fertilization, and commercial interest in traits beyond disease prevention. Its reporting conversations can be darker, including deaths connected to charitable donation bins and the story of Christopher Dennis. Even a high school financial literacy segment becomes a window into scams, cryptocurrency claims, gambling ads, loans, taxes, housing, retirement, and practical self-empowerment. The tone is measured and explanatory. It suits subjects that need follow-up questions more than slogans.
Made for: For listeners who like public-radio interviews that connect local stories to law, science, culture, education, health care, and policy. It suits people who want context without theatrics.
What sets it apart: The show’s strength is its range paired with restraint: Portland theater and folk music receive the same patient questioning as constitutional law, rural medicine, drug policy, and gene editing. It stays conversational while keeping the public stakes visible.
OPB's daily conversation covering news, politics, culture and the arts. Hosted By Dave Miller.
Based on 4 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Dave Miller connects an electronic musician's cochlear implant experience to the practical and emotional work of making sound again.
Think Out Loud lets a subject take shape through Dave Miller's patient, sequential questioning. In one music-focused conversation, Portland electronic musician Sean Wolfe traces hearing loss, tumor surgery, a cochlear implant, and his return to making work as Salvo Beta.
Dave Miller moves from constitutional amendments to cochlear-aided electronic music without making curiosity feel scattered.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A history lesson on amendment that turns quickly into a live argument about constitutional power.
This episode treats the Constitution not as a fixed relic but as something meant to be changed, and Jill Lepore makes that argument with steady clarity.
A clear look at WHAMI, the new gift, and the financial strain behind rural family medicine.
Think Out Loud draws a steady line through the WHAMI program, which serves students in and from Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho and is built to strengthen the rural physician workforce across those states.
A Portland electronic musician turns hearing loss, surgery, and recovery into a story about making sound again.
Think Out Loud puts hearing at the center of a musician's working life, following Portland electronic artist Sean Wolfe from the industrial noise of Salvo Beta to the diagnosis and surgery that forced a pause.
A careful look at the assumptions behind a roughly nine-gigawatt warning and the case against rushing toward new gas plants.
Think Out Loud follows a roughly nine-gigawatt warning back to its assumptions: a study funded by electricity companies, utility arguments for new natural gas powered plants, and Laura Feinstein's view that the figure overstates the problem.
Everyday irritation, argued into comedy.
Think Out Loud examines whether the Northwest needs new natural gas powered plants to keep up with rising electricity demand.
What happens when a musician's hearing changes, but the studio is still waiting?
This episode discusses the documentary 'The 100-Year Effect' featuring OHSU scientist Kent Thornburg and coordinator Kelsey Mueller-Wendt, exploring how generational health connections impact chronic diseases like heart disease.
Portland's Alano Club runs Project Red, a statewide naloxone distribution effort launched on August 31, 2022.
Portland State professor Susan Kirtley and co-author Nora Serrano organize Women in Comics around six archetypes spanning 130 years.
Ross Rhino explains how Oregon neighbors protect homes when lightning creates more fires than crews can cover.
Nicholas Fox says free performances of Carmen can change lives for people who never thought opera was for them.
Think Out Loud host Jen Chavez interviews Glendon Smith, the first tribal liaison for the Oregon State Police, about building relationships with Oregon's nine federally recognized tribes.
Dave Miller opens by asking what a Constitution built to be changed is meant to do.
Dave Miller opens with OPB's funding note, then turns to the University of Washington School of Medicine's WHAMI program.
This episode investigates the hidden dangers of charitable donation bins, revealing dozens of deaths across the U.S.
This episode discusses Portland's Fertile Ground Festival, a showcase of new plays and works in development, featuring an interview with festival director Tamara Carroll and creator Kristen Tehrani about the festival's variety and developmental process.
This episode features an interview with Marsha Lotta, an Oregon high school business teacher who won a state award for improving youth financial literacy, discussing her career path and teaching approach.
This episode explores the accelerating commercial push to use CRISPR gene editing technology on human embryos during IVF, discussing both medical applications like preventing diseases and controversial possibilities like genetic enhancement for traits like height or intelligence.
This episode previews a Portland concert marking the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, featuring Ukrainian folk singers discussing the event's cultural significance and performing traditional songs.
This episode discusses a debate over whether the Pacific Northwest needs new natural gas-fired power plants to meet projected energy demands by 2030, featuring insights from Sightline Institute fellow Laura Feinstein who argues alternative solutions exist.
This episode discusses a new biography about Father Thomas Odo, a former University of Portland president who was a gay man and a leader in the gay rights movement within the Catholic Church.
This episode features an interview with developer Cameron DeLashmut discussing how Oregon's land use and water regulations have delayed his Thornburg Resort project for over 20 years, impacting housing and job creation.