This is a dandelion on the campus of UC Irvine. It took a while to find one that was just right. I was looking for a location where the angle of the light and the nearby ground would put the dandelion in bright afternoon sunlight while the grass underneath remained in shade. This one was almost perfect, but there was a little bit of sunlight on the grass at the bottom. An artfully placed foot fixed that, though I almost fell over doing it. Anything for my art.

By the way, have I mentioned lately that anyone who cares even a little bit about the sharpness of their screen should buy a 4K monitor? Well, you should. They cost about $200-300 these days for a low-end display, but even the low-end displays are great. Mine is, by a long way, the best $300 I spent last year. The picture below is an excellent test image if you want to compare a 4K monitor to a normal “high resolution” monitor.

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

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