  The new urlLink Ford Escape Hybrid is finally coming out, and I'm pretty excited to see an SUV I can conscionably buy on the market.
Now my big dilemma is whether to spring for the Ford now or wait for the Toyota, b/c I want the instant gratification but I know I'd enjoy the Toyota more in the long run, especially if they release the hybrid Four Runner soon. In looking at the Escape's specs, I had to laugh when I realized urlLink its color options are red, white, blue, and four shades of gray. Talk about a metaphor for the country! We've got more shades of gray than a Nordic culture has words for snow: greenish gray, darkish gray, shiny gray, and shadow gray.
It's still gray. Even though I'm all about the hybrid, isn't this technology itself just another shade of gray? We can't commit to truly clean technology and we can't give up our bloodlust for oil so we'll sort of half-ass both and call it progress. I, and the thousands of bleeding heart environmentalists with kids or pets just like me, am so desperate for a pass to buy a bigger car that I'll just look the other way as the entire automotive industry takes America's Biggy Size craze to a whole new level of gluttony.
And so it's come to be that the hybrid car is the newest output of a generation of aging idealists who downgrade their ideals or trade them altogether for softer creature comforts. 
