“Historic” is a big word we commentators like to throw around when talking about things like the Springbok win over the All Blacks at Carisbrook. And it was a historic win if you consider that it ended a ten year drought for the Boks who had won zip out of ten years worth of games against the All Blacks on New Zealand soil. It also ended a world record 30 game home winning streak by the All Blacks.

There are historic events and then there are historic moments. The Springbok win, or All Blacks loss, (if you’re a Mainlander who wears a “Bring Back Robbie” t-shirt) is both. It is a historic moment for Springbok coach Peter de Villiers because it meant that he didn’t have to worry about finding another job for awhile. It is a historic moment because we could look back and say that it was when we realized that the All Blacks are absolutely vulnerable to the loss of any of their few remaining veterans and experienced players, and may even go so far as to say that the Tri-Nations and Bledisloe Cup campaigns look like going the way the World Cup fiasco did. Down the gurgler! But as Melissa would say, “It is only stupid bloody rugby for crissakes!”

What could be described as a historic moment in our household recently was the instant I made the decision to send my son Mata the Kama’i Meauli to one of those private schools, which I had always argued only existed because Government had defaulted on its duty and obligation to provide affordable and compulsory quality education for our children. It may be hard to believe but I do make decisions based on facts and some logical reasoning most of the time. But then I miss very important bits like population growth and increased school rolls and my argument that if Magiagi Primary School was good enough for me then it is good enough for Mata the Kama’i Meauli fifty years later, is as clever as insisting on throwing the ball to the back of the line-out when the opposition were poaching it at number two or three. Bloody rugby again! But as I was saying, there are a lot of children, with some pretty rough ones who need constant supervision, making it just too high maintenance to keep him there.

There have been a couple of historic events happening locally as well. The multi-million dollar Sasina hotel and 600 acre holiday resort is certainly a good example of how land that has been lying idle and unproductive suddenly turns into a good earner for the landowner, village, district, Island of Savai’i, all of Samoa and the world, if you believe the project supporters.

I am certain that a few who were against the Land Grab Bill will be looking closely at the Sasina deal to see how much more they could get for a 120 year lease agreement for their land, foreshore and seabed, which they could not or do not have the savvy to use themselves to raise money to build their own resort which they could get Liko Smith and Rogue Hospitality to run for them. It might just be a bit difficult to make a comparison and nut out an asking price for their 600 acres of prime real estate without water, power and internet access, when the newspaper reports about the Sasina deal only mentioned an amount of $US 120,000.00, but no time period. Is that for 3, 30 or 120 years?

Not bad money at all if it was $US120,000.00 per year but sucks if it’s for each 30 year period of the 120 year lease. Of course they could argue that it was 600 acres that would have continued to lie idle until the next large congregation, with more than 3 million Tala in the bank, decided to get into the not-so-soul-oriented Tourism and Hospitality area of customer services, which could be a very long time.

The newspapers have not been very good with numbers lately. Toleafoa Tautulu Roebeck has denied any $US600 million debt and looking back at reports on the FIFA takeover of the local soccer organization, the debt was put at $US600 million which is the equivalent of $T1.2 million according to one newspaper. But I think we all agree that the issue is not so much the amount of the debt, but whether there had been a historic moment involved when someone noticed that there was indeed a huge debt that the gate takings from a million club games could not hope to repay and blew the whistle?

The All Blacks 30-game winning streak may have been ended by the Springboks last Friday night but I look at that game as a historic event for Rudi Wulf who was the standout player for me. He had a bloody good game.

I was going to suggest that Rudi was inspirational but then remembered an inspirational story in one of our local newspapers in this past week of historic moments where the writer ended by imploring that “May we all be OOLONG TEA!” Don’t know about you mate, but I’d rather just digest the loss to the Springboks and hope for a long and illustrious career for young Rudi Wulf. Have a nice one folks!     

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YUP
written by Emz-Love, July 15, 2008

DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME ON ANYTHING STUPID..LET GOD BLESS EVERYTHING YOU HAVE DONE BUT FOCUS ON WHAT YOU NEED TO DO RIGHT NOW..OKAY...NEVER WASTE YOUR TIME CUZ THEY WILL GET YOU RIGHT AWAY..

sucker
written by sucker, July 20, 2008

How can a $US600 million translate into a $T1.2 Million? This doesn't make any sense.

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