money over principle
I'm a world-class hypocrite.
Ever since listening to an NPR story a while back on ongoing legal wrangling over indifensible corporate behavior, I resolved never to set foot in a Union 76 station again.
(The NPR stories are particularly recommended.)
After leaving work today, with my car running on fumes, I placed my principles behind being able to get home... although I probably could've driven further to a less ethically challenging business.
Trouble is, that last link indicates that any of the giant petroleum producers, if the Unocal suit reaches a good result, have as much to fear from peasants looking for redress in US courts. Sigh.
It's just that Unocal's behavior seemed especially bad. I won't go to Exxon for similarly obvious reasons. I sublimated my issues with Shell and Chevron. I tried to go to stations that sold cheaper gas and didn't have such political baggage, such as Martco and Olympic.
But sometimes different considerations trump principle.
And speaking of automotive issues, our money pit cars (a 1998 Nissan Maxima and a 1998 New Beetle) tend to use a lot of gas, as displayed by this helpful site.
Nissan: 22/27.
Beetle: for a small car, a crappy 22/27.
The upkeep on both cars, but especially the Nissan, is horrendous. Friggin' money pits. However, an emergency car is arriving in the form of a slightly ironically-named Subaru Forester, one of the more fuel-economy-conscious SUVs.
It weighs in at 21/27.
We needed a bigger car with a baby on the way, but the irony and hypocrisy of my environmentally-conscious ass tooling around in an SUV isn't lost.
We don't have the money at all to buy hybrid. Converting to biodiesel is simply out of the question.
We're prisoners of our commutes.
The company I now work for is a Barbara Ehrenreich poster child, the 800-lb gorilla, and has labor practices that one journalist calls "state-of-the-art, for the 1890s".
However, in stark contrast to the last company I worked for, management seems to get it. Or at least management doesn't go out of its way to screw people over. (Blue-collar employees are obviously a different story.) If I'm actually hired there, the company will spring to train me in automated testing -- something that will give me a measure of job security I haven't ever had before.
Again, however, the irony of uber-leftist me working in the heart of the capitalist beast isn't lost.