Great to read Bill Hoffman’s inspirational story about Klaus and Sabine Langner, who have built a little Moffat Beach enterprise in an industrial shed into a world leader in systems that put the sun to work for us.

At one level, the article tells the standard business success story of seeing a need and filling it, but it is about much more than successfully designing, building and marketing a solar inverter system that is selling right across the world.

Klaus and Sabine have literally built up a place in the sun, not only using solar panel power throughout the factory and the office, but also making optimum use of the sun for lighting.

And that’s only part of their story, the other side of which is gentler and less pragmatic. Idealistic, if you like. If you’re still a bit lukewarm about the need to harness Old Sol, make sure you read this article.

I’ve written for years about the crazy situation which sees the Sunshine Coast of the Sunshine State way behind other parts of Australia in the development and use of solar power.

Let’s hope Bill’s article will be the catalyst for some serious investment, not just of money, but also of ideas, on how to make our region Australia’s Sunshine Central.

For a start, how about a really strong regional campaign to get our Sunshine Coast old boy Kevin Rudd to change his mind about the means test imposed on rebates for households installing solar power? Insunity, I call it.

Words on words
Why are judges and magistrates always said to sit on the bench, rather than at it? In my court reporting days, I never saw them sitting on anything other than chairs.

And clearly, these were comfortable enough to permit a surreptitious snooze during a drawn-out extraction of evidence or a rambling submission by a barrister lacking the

Horace Rumpole skills that are so much a part of courtroom theatre.

The same apparently still applies. The Daily’s front-page story on Tuesday reported that justice will now be dispensed from a new $2000 chair at the Nambour courthouse, apparently because the bench is too high for one of the sitting magistrates.

Well I suppose if she actually sat on it, there would be no problem. Only joking, Your Honour.

And Another Thing
Last week’s article calling for a toast to all true teachers, whether they shout in the classroom or not, touched a nerve with an AAT reader who although not a teacher, sees himself as in the front line of the battle against bad behaviour by children.

He is the coach of his daughter’s junior football team (nine and 10-year-olds) and is amazed when confronted every week with the level of disrespect, rudeness and disobedience.

He finds this almost intolerable for a volunteer and says it makes him glad 100 times over that he is not a teacher full-time. What say you, teachers?

rich.29@bigpond.net.au
journoremembers.blogspot.com