More flowers

Today at the library I worked with that Taiwanese woman again and it was an interesting if somewhat disheartening experience.  We looked at some articles in Fortune magazine, and there was a chart showing that there are more jobs available than there are people unemployed.  The conclusion she drew from this, as she was intended to, was that anyone who really wanted a job could have one.  Fortunately she had me to explain to her why that's not really true and why the chart is so very misleading, but it reminded me that most people don't take the trouble to think these things through.  No wonder they think unemployed people are just lazy - look at the chart!  We talked about all the reasons people might be unemployed, and she agreed that there was more there than the chart suggested. 

 Knowing that people don't read beyond the headlines is why one of my pet peeves is newspaper headlines that say, 'such and such happened, according to reports,' when they should actually read, ' according to reports, such and such happened.'  Even the New York Times, my main news source, does this - I realize now I should write them a letter about it.  They should know better

It was slightly cooler today - high of 83 - so I went down to Fred Meyer and parked in their underground lot while shopping.  These are some tiny orchids I saw there - I recognized the shape, but they were so much smaller than the ones I usually see..