World Hunger and Poverty

Sounds peculiar at first.

You attend a charity banquet with a friend. Maybe you paid to get in. Maybe you didn’t. Your friend gets a full meal at a linen-clothed table while you sit on the floor and share a bowl of rice with strangers.

Not fair?

That’s the point.

It’s called a hunger banquet. And this symbolic event has become an increasingly popular way to educate people about world hunger — and often solicit donations.

The concept was originally conceived by aid and development organization Oxfam. Each year, especially during the giving yet gluttonous holiday season, Oxfam says the number of hunger banquets across the U.S. has grown dramatically.

You may not be satisfied.

Unlike wedding receptions, potluck dinners or other communal feasting opportunities, the goal of a hunger banquet is not to provide participants with a free meal. Instead, hunger banquets aim to offer an experiential glimpse at the statistics of world hunger and poverty.

“Let’s say you invite 100 people,” says Delaney. “As the people enter the room, they receive one of three different tickets. Fifteen of those people receive a full-course meal, sit at a table with nice linens, crystal, flowers, the works. Twenty-five of those people typically sit in a chair. They don’t have a table. They receive a simple meal of rice and beans. And 60 of those people will sit on the floor and share a communal bowl of rice.”

Depending on where you sit and what you eat, a speaker will inform you what role you play in world hunger, whether you’re a starving mother from Mozambique or a Guatemalan coffee farmer who’s just getting by. At the end of the meal, participants are often asked to share their personal experiences.

Read entire West Central Tribune.

I think this a great idea, and an effective way to spread information about hunger. Although hunger statistics shock most people, statistics still lack the emotional realism that an experience such as a “hunger banquet” delivers. The blatant unfairness of such an experiment shows participants the blatant unfairness of world hunger and poverty. Often times people born with opportunity and luxury mistake poverty and hunger as a self-induced phenomenon. No offense to such people; how can one imagine the trap of poverty and inopportunity when one has always had food and opportunity. Many children grow up and often die in hunger and poverty. Even in the U.S. 50% of children born into poverty remain in poverty for the rest of their lives. A “hunger banquet” demonstrates such unfairness to participants.

What do you think?

With less than two months before he steps down as secretary-general after a 10-year tenure, Kofi Annan is disappointed that the international community is lagging behind in its much-touted Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), including a 50 percent reduction in extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.

At this rate, he warns, many of the goals will not be met, “so we need to re-affirm our commitment to these goals,” which also include achieving universal primary education and combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

s part of this process of re-commitment, the United Nations has turned to the world’s younger generation to increase awareness of the MDGs, and to help spread the word at the grassroots level.

“The older generation of leaders from around the world endorsed the Millennium Development Goals for 2015,” said Djibril Diallo, chair of the summit, “but it will take the full commitment and talents of the younger generation to help achieve them.”

According to the United Nations, younger people represent one-fourth of the world’s six billion people, of which 86 percent live in the developing world.

The United Nations estimates that one in five youth live on less than a dollar a day, and about 45 percent live on less than two dollars a day.

Read entire FinalCall.com News article.

I agree with Kofi Annan that positive change in the world depends on the youth. The youth suffer the worst from the terrible effects of social injustice, inequality, hunger, and poverty. Further, the youth possess a stronger sense of justice and idealism, and they lack the cynicism and institutionalization of older people. When the youth inherit the world, they can change the world and finally put an end to the hunger and poverty epidemic.

What do you think?

A recent article on ProgressiveU.org points out a main factor in world hunger, the destruction of food:

If all food produced worldwide every year was counted, there would be enough to feed double the world’s current population. So why is it that 36 million people die of malnutrition every year? World hunger is a vast and complex problem and no single action or practice can be pinpointed as the true cause. Similarly, no single solution exists to solve the issue in its entirety. However, ending the practice of destroying food products with the intent of increasing prices would be a crucial step in ending global malnutrition.

The act of destroying or withholding crops in order to drive up prices has occurred since the Great Depression, during which 257 million bushels of grain were stockpiled in order to raise prices. Today, the United Nations reports that many governments and corporations commonly destroy food to create an artificial scarcity. For example, in the United Kingdom, 17 million tons of food are plowed into landfills every year – more than five times the amount needed to feed the three million starving people in Sub-Saharan Africa. According to the Laws of Supply and Demand, as the supply decreases and the demand remains stable, prices must increase, thus allowing corporations to amass a significantly higher profit when a portion of crops are destroyed. However, this practice is unacceptable when one in every seven people globally suffers from malnutrion.

The article also explains the cycle of poverty:

A critical issue that must be faced when addressing world hunger is the cycle of poverty in which many become entrapped. Starvation is a trap in and of itself. According to the World Hunger Education Service (9/9/06), malnutrition causes poor health, low levels of energy, and even mental impairment, and thus leads to even greater poverty by reducing a person’s ability to work. Simply, when an individual is starving, he cannot maintain a job and support himself or family. Without a job, he makes no money to buy food, in turn, further deteriorating his health and ability to work.

I agree. And, with so many people getting stuck in this horrible cycle of poverty, I find it disgusting that corporations and governments would destroy food just to increase profits.

What do you think?

The below is a letter written by Nelson Mandela, of whom I am a great admirer.

While poverty persists, there is no freedom
BY NELSON MANDELA
khaleejtimes.com
7 November 2006

[I have posted the poem he mentions, From the Republic of Conscience, below]

IN JOHANNESBURG, this week, in the warm company of friends, like Nadine Gordimer, I became an Amnesty International ambassador of conscience. It was a joy for me to receive this honour from the members of the world’s largest human rights movement. It was heartening too that the award was inspired by the great Irish writer Seamus Heaney’s poem From the Republic of Conscience, which reminds us all of our duty. Their embassies, he said, were everywhere but operated independently and no ambassador would ever be relieved.

Like Amnesty International, I have been struggling for justice and human rights for long years. I have retired from public life now. But as long as injustice and inequality persist in our world, none of us can truly rest. We must become stronger still.

Through the work of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, and the Mandela Rhodes Foundation, I am continuing my struggle for human rights. These three charitable institutions operating in my name are tasked with continuing my work in important areas I have been concerned with throughout my life: children and youth, memory and dialogue, and building new generations of ethical leaders.

It is my wish that this award should help all activists around the world to shine their candles of hope for the forgotten prisoners of poverty. Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is people who have made poverty and tolerated poverty, and it is people who will overcome it.

Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of fundamental human rights. Everyone everywhere has the right to live with dignity, free from fear and oppression, free from hunger and thirst, and free to express themselves and associate at will.

Yet in this new century millions of people remain imprisoned, enslaved and in chains. Massive poverty and inequality are terrible scourges of our times – times in which the world also boasts breathtaking advances in science, technology, industry and wealth accumulation.

While poverty persists, there is no true freedom. Amnesty International is right to stand up against the rights violations that drive and deepen poverty. People living in poverty have the least access to power to shape policies – to shape their future. But they have the right to a voice. They must not be made to sit in silence as “development” happens around them, at their expense. True development is impossible without the participation of those concerned.

Take the right to housing. Three million people in Africa have been evicted from informal settlements since the turn of the century.

We have also seen in Africa the scourge of HIV-Aids, decimating the lives of our people, especially those living in poverty. All of us – rich and poor, governments, companies and individuals – share the responsibility of ensuring that everyone has access to information, means of prevention and treatment. And our starting point must be respect for individuals’ rights.

We know that it is the already marginalised who are most affected by HIV-Aids. And we know that, within this group, women are marginalised yet more and bear the most significant burden. As daughters, mothers, sisters and grandmothers, every day they experience and live out the reality of this pandemic.

Women are also being killed by other preventable causes. One woman dies every minute from conditions relating to pregnancy. And where do almost all these women live? In the developing world — in poverty. Amnesty International is working to make rights real for women, through its work on poverty, and through its campaigning against the violence they face.

Women and girls need safe environments to learn and to work. At the moment, discrimination and violence exacerbate their lack of access to the very tools they need to make their own rights a reality. If girls do not have a safe and non-discriminatory environment to pursue education or gain employment, the consequences reverberate throughout their lives, denying them the choice and freedom we take for granted.

Women and girls living in abusive relationships, for example, are unable to flee the violence because they are financially dependent on their abusers. This balance of power, and the broader one it represents, must be shifted.

I have spoken before about the need for a turning point. I see this ambassador of conscience award as one more step towards that turning point. Nadine Gordimer has recalled a conversation she and I had in 1998, when I said: “What I want to see is an environment where the young people of our country have a real chance to develop the inherent possibilities they have to create a better life for themselves… That is what development is about.”

If all human rights activists around the world believe this, and act on this, and get others to believe, we will have our turning point.

From the Republic of Conscience
by Seamus Heaney

When I landed in the republic of conscience
it was so noiseless when the engines stopped
I could hear a curlew high above the runway.
At immigration, the clerk was an old man
who produced a wallet from his homespun coat
and showed me a photograph of my grandfather.
The woman in customs asked me to declare
the words of our traditional cures and charms
to heal dumbness and avert the evil eye.
No porters. No interpreter. No taxi.
You carried your own burden and very soon
your symptoms of creeping privilege disappeared.
Fog is a dreaded omen there but lightning
spells universal good and parents hang
swaddled infants in trees during thunderstorms.
Salt is their precious mineral. And seashells
are held to the ear during births and funerals.
The base of all inks and pigments is seawater.
Their sacred symbol is a stylized boat.
The sail is an ear, the mast a sloping pen,
the hull a mouth-shape, the keel an open eye.
At their inauguration, public leaders
must swear to uphold unwritten law and weep
to atone for their presumption to hold office –
and to affirm their faith that all life sprang
from salt in tears which the sky-god wept
after he dreamt his solitude was endless.
I came back from that frugal republic
with my two arms the one length, the customs
woman having insisted my allowance was myself.
The old man rose and gazed into my face
and said that was official recognition
that I was now a dual citizen.
He therefore desired me when I got home
to consider myself a representative
and to speak on their behalf in my own tongue.
Their embassies, he said, were everywhere
but operated independently
and no ambassador would ever be relieved.

The tiny island nation of Sao Tome is about to unlock the wealth from an estimated 11 billion barrels of oil from the seabed beneath those same Atlantic waters. The government says the oil is the answer to this country’s grinding poverty.

Too often, in too many places across Africa, oil has only fomented despotism and cronyism, and left the poor poorer. Already, even before a drop has been pumped here, oil has fueled political squabbling in this country, which now exports little more than cocoa and imports almost everything else.

Global Witness, a group that tracks corruption in resource-rich developing countries, welcomed safeguards Sao Tome officials pledge will help them avoid a repeat of oil’s corrosive effects, but noted that some measures, especially a commitment to establishing independent oversight committees, have still not been enacted.

Leonarda Miguel, 73, lives in a quarter of the capital called Liberdade (Freedom), named after the country’s 1975 independence. She, her daughter and granddaughter share a dingy, two-room house with no running water, no sanitation and sporadic electricity. There is no glass in the windows, and her front door is an ill fit.

“I go to sleep hungry and I wake up hungry,” she says, mimicking sleep by clasping her hands next to her cheek.

“Oil money won’t reach this far down. We’ll still be hungry,” she said.

Read entire AP article.

It’s a shame that these natural resources end up causing more corruption and non-meritocratic social inequality. The usurping of natural resources not only affects the poor, but also affects middle-class and working-class people, globally. A minority of corrupt politicians and their corporate cronies steal the natural resources from the people of the world. Then these tyrants use the gained power to neutralize dissent and pacify the victimized masses.

The situation in San Tome and Principe mere exemplifies this global problem.

“If you have come here to help me, then you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” –Lila Watson

What do you think?

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD, Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES – Another sign of the new Washington: bipartisan
HIV testing.

At a world AIDS Day conference in California next month, two potential 2008 presidential rivals — Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Sam Brownback, R-Kan. — will each take an HIV test and encourage others to do the same.

To reduce stigma around the test and publicize its value, “I’m happy to offer my body for science,” Brownback said in a telephone interview Friday.

“People need to get the test,” he added.

Obama press secretary Tommy Vietor said, “If two United States senators can do it, then everyone else can too.”

The senators will take the test Dec. 1 as part of a two-day “Global AIDS Summit” at the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, which sponsors the annual conference.

Rick Warren, the church’s pastor, took an HIV test at the event last year to bring attention to its importance, said spokesman Larry Ross. The test can be done with a finger-prick to draw a blood sample, or by oral swab.

Obama and Brownback are featured speakers and will appear on a panel titled, “We must work together.”

“I think you are seeing the beginning of a great coming together on the left and right dealing with Africa,” said Brownback, alluding to the continent’s AIDS epidemic and social and economic problems.

At the conference last year, Warren, author of the best-selling “The Purpose Driven Life,” said he’s encouraging other pastors to offer free AIDS testing and counseling at their churches, start service groups to help HIV patients with daily chores and train lay members to administer crucial anti-viral drugs.

Also, see: Starvation And Malnutrition Linked to HIV/AIDS

What do you think?

by Scott Hughes

“The 4.8 pounds of grain fed to cattle to produce one pound of beef for human beings represents a colossal waste of resources in a world still teeming with people who suffer from profound hunger and malnutrition.” -Jim Motavalli

When studying the factors involved in world hunger, many overlook meat production and consumption.

I turned into a vegan, mainly due to the efficiency of producing a vegan meal in comparison to a meat meal. In other words, with the same amount of resources one can produce more vegetarian/vegan meals than meaty meals.

When raising livestock for consumption, the meat-manufacturer must feed the animal continuously. For example, imagine all the food that a farmer feeds a pig before killing it, and compare that to the relatively small amount of food that actually comes from the dead pig. Instead of that mistreated pig, all those resources could have fed a human being, namely one of the 16,000 children who die every day from hunger.

Obviously, world hunger and the causes thereof extend far beyond inefficient food production. In fact, the world has enough food to feed everyone in the world, even with current inefficiency. Neither vegeratarianism nor veganism can solve this problem alone. Political and socioeconomic phenomena cause the world hunger and poverty epidemic, namely corrupt governments, non-meritocratic social inequality, and disrupted trade routes.

Nonetheless, I myself choose to become a vegan still, because I have a personal principle not to use more than my fair share. For example, if I was walking in a desert with a group of people and we stumbled upon some water, I would only take my fair share of that water.

I’m not a communist. I believe in free-trade and meritocracy. For example, if I worked twice as hard as you and grew twice as much fruit, than I deserve twice as much fruit. Similarly, if you worked twice as hard as I, and you grew twice as much fruit, then you deserve twice as much fruit. That’s fair.

In my opinion, you deserve the fruits of your labor. I deserve the fruits of my labor. Everyone deserves the fruits to their own respective labor.

However, when talking about land, we speak not of the fruits of our labor. Rather, we speak of natural resources. Just like the water upon which we may stumble in the desert, the land is NOT mine, yours, or anybody’s. None of us did anything to produce the land.

Tyrants have often used the claim of land-ownership to justify a non-meritocratic and authoritarian social structure. They claim they own the land to create an illusory economic system in which they have all the pseudo-wealth and power. This is completely historically verifiable. For example these tyrants would say they own the land and other resources, and then would make the land surfs and slaves work on the land to live on the land and eat the food. The so-called “land owner” didn’t work, because he made money with the land, but the so-called “land owner” ate the best food, slept in the best bed, and lived comfortably off the fruits of the workers’ labor. So, in reality, the so-called “land owner” is a thief and a slave owner, but he uses a fraudulent concept of land-ownership and a convoluted economic system to disguise his tyranny.

We see this continue today. The banks charge mortgages, so debtors can buy land. The land lords charge rent to the people on the land. So-called third-world countries are plagued by corruption, because a tiny upper-class claims ownership of the natural resources, namely oil. It’s the poor working class in these countries that do all the work, make and run the factories, and so on, but it’s the lazy tyrants who have all the pseudo-wealth and power, simply because they’ve unjustifiably claimed control of the natural resources. (And, when anyone questions this unjustifiable claim, they get sneered at and called a communist or socialist.)

This is a global problem, and a global issue. The aforementioned situations simply exemplify this form of theft through economic deception.

I feel as much a victim as a perpetrator. I say that because, to convince anyone of this issue and all of the related issues, they need to understand the personal effects of the flaws in the common way of thinking about natural resources. When people understand their own victimization, then they prepare to stop it. Only collective changes in mindsets and voluntary cooperation can change and prevent global issues such as these. I think Lila Watson meant this when she said:

“If you have come here to help me, then you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” -Lila Watson

Nonetheless, once we realize how these problems negatively affect and victimize us, we need to understand that we perpetuate these problems, if we wish to stop them. Obviously, if we perpetuate the problems, we can only stop the problems by ending our perpetuation of the problems.

Not only do we need to prevent and stop world hunger, poverty, and non-meritocratic inequality, but also we need to stop this misconception about natural resources and the results thereof.

When we buy expensive meat, we perpetuate the socioeconomic problems that both victimize us and contribute to world hunger and poverty. Many Westerners willingly pay more for the luxury of meat than for vegetarian alternatives. For that reason, for example, instead of selling 4.8 pounds of grain, the farmer feeds it to a cattle, which only produces one pound of beef per 4.8 pounds of grain. Often on credit, the Westerns pay for all the excess land, grain, water, and such resources, thus denying those with less money (or less Western credit) the opportunity to use those natural resources.

I’ve often been told that it takes 10 times as much land to feed a meat-eater, rather than a vegan. I’ve also been told that there is not enough land and resources in the world to feed everyone in the world a luxurious Western diet rich in meat.

That’s not my land; that’s not your land; that’s everyone’s land. I’m not going to take more than my fair share. I’d rather see those resources go to feeding the hungry.

That’s why I am a vegan. That’s also why I work with Food Not Bombs, which offers vegetarian food to hungry people.

I’m not telling anyone to become a vegan or vegetarian. I’m not judging anyone who is not a vegan or vegetarian. I’m not going to throw stones, because I live in a glass house. We all contribute to the flawed socioeconomic system. We all have our vices, and we all have our different opinions on what constitutes a vice. To solve the problems plaguing our world, we need to look introspectively at ourselves and find ways to change ourselves.

Here’s a great quote by an unknown monk along those lines:

“When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn�t change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn�t change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family.

Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.”

With this blog post, I just want to explain why I became a vegan, and similarly how meat production relates to hunger and poverty. I leave with some facts:

“Americans spend $110 billion a year on meat-intensive fast food, and its growing popularity around the world may be a factor in dramatic increases in global meat consumption.” -Wikipeda

“One third of the world’s cereal harvest is fed to farm animals.” -International Vegetarian Union (IVU)

“More than 60% of the grains and soybeans raised in the U.S. are fed to animals, rather than to the world�s 840 million starving people. A mere 10% reduction in our meat consumption would free up the foodstuffs to feed the 24,000 people who die each day of hunger related causes.” -‘Veggies For Ecology’

“It takes 100,000 litres of water to produce 1 kilo of beef, but only 500 litres of water to produce 1 kilo of potatoes. Water scarcity is a major global problem.” -Compassion In World Farming

“The meat production wastes a lot of foodstuff. To produce one kilogram of meat, one needs 7 – 16 kg of grain or soya beans. When �transforming� grain into meat 90% of protein, 99% of carbohydrates and 100% of fibre are lost. Nevertheless, in Switzerland 57% of grain are being fed to animals for slaughter.” -The Swiss Union for Vegetarianism

“By eating 2 fewer meat dishes a week, the saving in grain would feed 225 million people every year.” -OneEarth.org

“36% of the worlds grain supply goes to feeing livestock and poultry.” – OneEarth.org

About The Author: Scott Hughes runs this blog in addition to The Hunger and Poverty Forums.

Pope Benedict XVI, on Sunday, lamented increasing global hunger saying “hundreds of millions of people particularly children worldwide are hungry.”

The Catholic Pontiff described it as “a scandal, which must be combated by changes in consumption and fairer distribution of resources.”

Speaking from his studio window overlooking St. Peter’s Square in Rome, Benedict said that more than 800 million people are undernourished and many of them including children die from hunger.

To underscore the urgency required to address the growing emergency, the papacy called for “efforts to eliminate the structural causes tied to the system of governing the world’s economy, which earmarks most of the planet’s resources to a minority of the earth’s population.”

Describing it as “injustice,” the Pope said “to make an impact on a large scale, it is necessary to convert the model of global development.”

Urging everyone to face the problem, he said “every person and every family can and must do something to alleviate hunger in the world, adopting a style of life and consumption compatible with safe guarding creation.”

“Not just the scandal of hunger demands it, but also the environmental and energy crises,” he insisted.

Read entire allAfrica.com article.

I myself am not a religious man. (See: A Monopoly On Philanthropy.) Nonetheless, I appreciate the Pope’s concerns and directives. Although the religious community already helps with this struggle, I hope the Pope’s proclamations help enliven the struggle to end world hunger and poverty.

What do you think?

Starvation and malnutrition are “fast becoming the twin perils” in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and the need for food soon might surpass the need for antiretroviral drugs among many HIV-positive people in the developing world, the AP/ABC2 News reports.

According to the U.N. World Food Programme, an estimated 3.8 million people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide needed food support this year, and 6.4 million might need support by 2008.

In addition, a study published in the journal HIV Medicine found that malnourished HIV-positive people are six times more likely to die when using antiretroviral drugs compared with HIV-positive people with adequate nutrition (Jacobs, AP/ABC2 News, 11/9).

According to experts, poverty and hunger also cause people to engage in high-risk sexual behavior to earn money for food. In addition, malnourished people are more likely to contract HIV during unprotected sex, Stuart Gillespie, senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute, said (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 8/4).

Read entire News-Medical.Net article.

World hunger and the AIDS/HIV pandemic share the same causes as well – world negligence, social inequality, lack of education. Unfortunately, these two terrible epidemics thus often plague the same peoples and areas.

Although we can feed a hungry child to alleviate his hunger, we possess no cure for AIDS/HIV.

The pharmaceutical corporations make more money without a cure, because infected people have to regularly buy antiretroviral drugs. Thus, they will probably neither invent nor release a cure anytime soon.

We need to prevent hunger and AIDS/HIV, which we can do through such methods as education, micro-finance loans, and by freely opening up borders and trade-markets.

What do you think?

Global expenditure on “defense” [sic] has crossed the 1,000 billion US dollar mark and is still rising. The peace dividend of the end of the Cold War does not seem to have had the desired effect on global defense spending after showing some promise in the initial post-Cold War years, said an Indian minister here on Monday.

“At the most fundamental level, this expenditure has the effect of crowding out the spending on social sector. We do not live in a world that is free from hunger and want. Even a fraction of the money that the world spends on defense could make a difference to the lives of millions of people across the world who live in abject poverty and suffer from deprivation of survival needs, said External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee at the inauguration of the three-day International Seminar on Defense Finance and Economics organized by the Department of Defense Finance in the Ministry of Defense.”

Read entire IRNA article.

The UN says that a $40 billion increase in funding could feed, clothe, and educate the entire globe. It makes me think that, perhaps, those in power want the general population undereducated, and the lower-classes basically uneducated. Would the world not be safer if everyone had the opportunity? Would the world not be safer if every child had food, clothes, shelter, and education?

Let’s be honest, for the most part the money spent on “defense” doesn’t really go to defense; it goes to offense; it feeds the profits of the military-industrial complex; it maintains the economic status quo. Would we the people not be safer if they gave us – the taxpayers – our money back? How do huge nuclear arsenals that could blow the world up 100 times over make us safer?

If they gave us our money back, we could spend it on personal self-defense, such as buying self-defense classes, pepper spray, personal alarms, etcetera. More importantly, we could afford more food, clothes, shelter, and education.

Those in power won’t give us our money back, I believe. As I see it, our only hope is to cut our losses, turn our backs on the governmental leadership, and fix our own problems by securing food, clothes, shelter, education, and safety ourselves and our communities.

What do you think?