Out of the Cage: Cooling a Warming Planet is an imaginative story of modern pioneers who set out to build a truly sustainable, carbon-neutral life style, and in so doing discover a great truth:

ONCE AN INDIVIDUAL HAS ATTAINED A REASONABLE LEVEL OF COMFORT AND SECURITY, FURTHER HAPPINESS IS NOT ACHIEVED BY AMASSING GREATER WEALTH, BUT IN THE SATISFACTION OF BASIC HUMAN NEEDS.

It is a 253 page how-to framework to put an end to the threat of global warming by replaceing dollar worship with a society dedicated to peace, family life, warm friendships, and loving care of the earth and its inhabitants.

Chapter by chapter, in a fiction format, we discuss new ways of thinking about housing arrangements, building materials, transportation, agriculture, recreation, taxation, and most important, a unique educational system that challenges most of our basic concepts of what education––what being a human being––is.

It is available from:

Creative Works

P. O. Box 60235

Palo Alto, CA 94306

$14.95 + $3.00 shipping

In California add $1.37 sales tax.

IF THEY MADE THEM LIKE . . . 

Time to buy a new automobile!  So I selected a sporty little Hewlett Packard with a Compaq engine and a Microsoft drive shaft.  Of course, I had to have it delivered because it was not drivable until I installed the transmission.  I had an excellent, almost new transmission in my old car, so I took it out to reuse it.  But the positioning lugs on the new models were changed, so my old transmission was not usable.  The dealer informed me that no adapters were available.  I had to buy a new Microsoft transmission, hire a mechanic to install it, and pay an extra charge to haul away the old one.

Then I discovered that the new Hewlett-Packard did not have a steering wheel.  Instead there was a series of buttons and levers that guided the car.  Having no idea how to use this feature, I went back to the dealer, who informed me that steering wheel models are no longer available; nobody who is anybody uses an old-fashioned steering wheel.  He suggested I read the manual.  The manual was filled with information about all the wonderful things the new guidance system can do.  But it left out directions for operating it.  

     I called tech support, and the charming technician spoke with such a heavy Hindi accent, she had to repeat everything three times before I understood what she was saying.  I think her final instruction was something about calling Microsoft.  After an hour of pushing buttons on my telephone, I finally  realized that Microsoft does not speak to lowly customers.

Fortunately, the local college has classes in Automotive Guidance Systems.  I signed up, but after three weeks in class I found that I am taking AGSb, which is for Apple guidance systems.  I managed to transfer to AGSc, for Hewlett Packard automobiles.   So now, after taking AGSc 101A,  ASGc 101B, and ASGc 101C, I am quite expert at driving my car.  It doesn’t matter, really, because my car is totaled.  I’m sorry, lady, about your front porch.  They didn’t tell me you have to press the starter button before the brakes will work.