Saan Ka Nakatira? Ano ang ginagawa mo?

GK Pandi homes, June 2008

Saan Ka Nakatira? Ano ang ginagawa mo? Where do you live? What do you do?

These two questions define who you are and what your identity is. These two questions either bring you confidence or shame, hope or despondency, contentment or anger. “I live in (fill in the blanks) and I am the father/mother/brother/sister/son/daughter of (fill in the blanks). I am a (fill in the blanks)” define who you are on so many levels, be it gender, class, status, or other cultural markers of age education, and, work. As E. F. Schumacher noted, work enables man to develop and use his talents to meet his needs in a way that builds community and solidarity. The poor though have neither a voice nor a stake in society because they don’t have meaningful work that meets their needs.

Imagine if you were an informal dweller, derisively called a squatter, living a hand-to-mouth existence, with many children, little or no education, no job or underemployed, and in debt. What are your chances of improving your family’s situation in this lifetime? What can you do? Who can you run to for help? Who can actually help you?

A home in the garbage dump of Payatas

What if there at least 2.5 million of you in a metropolitan area? What kinds of conditions do you and your family live in? How do you cope and survive? What options do you have? Multiply this with numerous cities in a country and in every country and you have what sociologist Mike Davis calls the making of a “planet of slums.”

The twin problems of poverty and homelessness, according to Gawad Kalinga’s Tony Meloto, are so massive that neither government nor the private sector can solve it alone. Government and the private sector must come together, along with each and every Filipino, to discover new ways of addressing the causes of poverty in ways that are sustainable, equitable, and which build solidarity.

ANCOP GK\'s Be Part of the Miracle poster

Unsquatting “squatters” is a good entry point in this endeavor. By building homes for them, we rebuild the lives of the poorest of the poor. The dignity of the homeless is restored and he and his family have a secure place to improve the family situation. “Squatters” pay more for basic utilities because of the legal uncertainty they are in. Helping slum dwellers with housing, values transformation, community organizing, health, education, environment, and productivity programs empower them and make them productive members of society. This is what Gawad Kalinga is about.

Coming together requires a setting where friendships can be made. These friendships form the basis for a long-term relationship built on trust, cooperation, sharing, and caring. This context is important because if it is conducive to friendship, then hurts can be healed, faults acknowledged, wrongs forgiven, and changes made. If the rich and poor, powerful and powerless, come together in friendship, then change is possible in the context of “less for self, more for others, enough for all.” This enabling environment for community development is what we all desire.

Many Filipinos and Fil-Ams made the great escape from poverty, graft, corruption, and a generation-long dictatorship in the Philippines to become successful. Either they migrated and made it or they bunkered down and succeeded in a harsh environment. They now need to come together if they want to see a Philippines that is progressive and equitable; a Philippines that is secure, prosperous, and opportunity-laden for their children. They can make it happen. As Gawad Kalinga has been able to provide this enabling environment, Fil-Ams and Fil-Canadians have been coming together and have so far funded 323 of the over 1,000 GK Villages in the Philippines.

On September 6, 2008, Saturday, 26 cities in the United States and Canada will hold the 3^rd Annual GK Walk with a theme of ONE Continent, ONE Cause, ONE step closer to eradicating poverty. The GK Walk seeks to generate greater awareness of the GK movement of caring for the poorest of the poor. It seeks to build solidarity and community among the estimated four million Fil-Ams, Fil-Canadians and their American and Canadian friends and relatives. It also seeks to encourage participation in the GK One Million Bayani (GK1MB) and GK Village Builder corps of volunteers/partners.

ANCOP GK Walk poster

To be able to help the poor, we must first become friends to one another.

What better way to start it than through a healthy walk followed by a fiesta picnic?

Check out http://www.ancopusa.org/gkwalk/ for participating cities.

2008 Tucson Gem, Mineral. and Fossil Show at the Ballroom of the Inn Suites

Downright with Ammonites at the Tucson Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show 2008

The weekend affords us the opportunity to once again visit the on-going 2008 Tucson Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Showcase. With 44 officially listed shows, each with from 40-100 dealers, it is quite difficult to see all the shows. In any case, our interest revolves around fossils and minerals and even with that, we've only seen a handful of shows the past two weeks.

Ammonites and ammolites are a growing interest for us. The color, diversity, and background make them an interesting focus of collection and study. Briefly, ammonites, now extinct, were marine animals of the subclass Ammonoidea, class Cephalopoda, phylum Mollusca. Present day relatives are most probably the octupus, squid, and cuttlefish, and unlikely the nautilus, which it somehow resembles. Geologists and paleontologists are fascinated with ammonites because they are excellent index fossils, meaning they are used to date the rock layers where they are found. Ammonites appeared 415 million years ago (mya) as Bacrites (small and straight) and became extinct about 67 mya along with the dinosaurs. Ammonites usually had coiled/ spiraled chambers connected by a tube called a siphuncle. they moved by jet propulsion of water. Plinus the Elder called them ammonis cornua ("horns of Ammon"), since the Egyptian god Ammon (Amun) was depicted with ram's horns. Ammonite sizes ranged from one inch to 4.5 feet in diameter.

Some of the most expensive ammonites for sale can be found at the Canada Fossils booth at the Inn Suites. I've seen their exquisite and pricey collection and am only beginning to explore their ecological footprint. Nonetheless, I have to admit their ammolites are indeed of gem-quality.

Check out the photos I took of various ammonites and ammolites from dealers at the Tucson Electric Park, Inn Suites, and Ramada Inn Shows, all in Tucson, Arizona.

Nature art in one of its best.

2008 Tucson Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Showcase opens

The 2008 Tucson Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Showcase "officially" opened in 44 locations (probably more if including unregistered) all over Tucson. The quotation marks on the word officially imply that brisk trading, selling, and buying occurred in the days prior to February 2, 2008.

Our inside informants, keen petrified wood, fossil, seashell, and ceramic collectors, told us that some dealers have sold enough inventory even before the opening to cover their Show costs. One petrified wood dealer was said to have sold $18,000 in one day, his best ever. Apparently, the best customers are the dealers themselves.

Our visit to the Arizona Mineral and Fossil Show at the InnSuites Hotel didn't fail to impress us, as usual. This Showcase is composed of a total of 450 dealers located also at Quality Inn-Benson Hwy., Ramada Ltd., and the Mineral and Fossil Marketplace.

At the InnSuites Hotel show

News from the grapevine revealed that the U.S government may be canceling or has canceled some leases to PW-rich sources. Second, there is strong market demand for the very colorful Arizona and American petrified wood, especially from China. Third, the falling value of the U.S. dollar should have some impact on prices. It seems prices have increased.

Beautiful Arizona petrified wood

Which one should be bought? Arizona petrified wood equals colors, colors, and colors!

Another favorite is the cubic pyrite from Spain. It sometimes make you wonder at the "intelligent design" of these beautiful specimens.

Cubic pyrite from Piritas de Navajún, Spain

polished ammonites from Nord Fossil, Germany

A dentist's dream case of polished mammoth molar fossils
from LowCountry Geologic, Charleston, South Carolina

The Tucson Citizen reported that an amber dealer lost $120,000 worth of amber jewelry from a rental truck at the 3600 block of West Placita Del Correcaminos, near the JW Marriott Starr Pass Resort in the Tucson Mountains. This single theft tops the 2007 total of 34 reported thefts with a cumulative value of $111,574.

More to come in the coming days! Hopefully, good news not thefts.

2008 Tucson Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Showcase

Every third week of January until the second week of February, Tucson, Arizona plays host to the “Greatest Show on Earth” in the mineral world (Wilson 2004). I refer to the annual Tucson Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Showcase, now on its 52nd year. Popularly known as the Gem and Mineral Show, the Tucson Show, or simply The Show, the Tucson Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Showcase has all the elements of commerce, earth sciences, paleontology, archaeology, technology, art, curating, culture, and crafts. Many of the world’s top private collections and public museums have exhibited here. The fellowship, networking and learning experiences generate so much social and cultural energy amidst the high desert scenery of Tucson. To Bob Jones who has attended it more than 40 times and who wrote about its 50 year history in 2004, “It is the “single most important gem and mineral event in the world” (Jones 2004:1).



The Tucson Show is simultaneously a show, museum tour, exhibition, market, bazaar, swap meet, convention, conference, workshop, party, fiesta, pow-wow, food-fest, and tourist destination that brings together over 50,000 unique visitors, collectors, curators, dealers, buyers, scholars, enthusiasts, tourists, students, artists, even hippies to this three-week event. In 1969, curator Paul Desautels of Smithsonian Institution and one of the most active supporters of the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show called it "The New York Stock Exchange of the (mineral) world". He also added that "The price of mineral specimens for the world is more or less set at this show” (Jones 2004).

f you want to see the latest mineral find, some of the most exquisite gems, or newly unearth mammoths, the Tucson Show is where you should be. Do fossilized dinosaur molars or coprolite (dung) pique your interest? How about petrified wood? Have you seen a meteorite weighing more than 600 kgs.?

IHow much exotic seashells and corals are from the Philippines? Do you want to know and see what ammonites, crinoids, or trilobites are? There is no other showcase like the Tucson Show and it is something an enthusiast should experience even once.

The recent 2007 Tucson Show had 5,079 exhibitors in 49 individual shows, the most ever not counting the unofficial ones. These shows were scattered all over the city in banquet halls, foyers, and bedrooms/ suites of hotels, convention centers, parking lots, warehouses, or any available space, security permitting. Most shows are open to the public. An economic impact survey-assessment of the Tucson Show by FMR Associates (2007) estimated total gate attendance at 362,816 buyers, each of whom attended an average 6.6 shows. They estimated unique persons attendance at 55,056, the highest ever and 59% more than the 2000 estimated figure of 34,618 persons. Exhibitors came from 42 states of the United States and 38 countries, while buyers came from 43 different states and 24 different countries. If you want to see globalization localized, the Tucson Show will make for a good study.

See http://www.colored-stone.com/tsg/show_index.cfm for complete listing of shows and http://www.tgms.org/ for more information