One of the great things about County Kerry in Ireland is that it makes photography easy. Maybe too easy. Basically, you just pull off the road every once in a while, point your camera in a random direction, and take some pictures. They’ll all be great.

But let’s start out with something simple. This perfect rainbow greeted us on our first day here. And there was no price to pay, either. The weather was great, with just an occasional light sprinkle. That was enough.

By the way, you have Marian to thank for this. I didn’t even notice the rainbow because I was too busy trying to keep the car in one piece. I’m a bit of a leadfoot driver, but the speed limits here are pretty unbelievable. Even on small, twisty roads, the posted speed limit is 60 mph, and I rarely feel safe above 30-40 mph. But the Irish drivers hurtle along even though the lanes are only a few inches wider than the cars themselves and hairpin turns can appear out of nowhere at any time. On the bright side, we’re still alive and I’ve got loads of beautiful pictures.

For those of you keeping score at home, this picture was taken in the vicinity of Loher. Today we’re driving up to Portmagee to take a boat tour of the Skellig Islands. The weather is spectacular right now, clear and sunny and nicely cool, so it should be a nice trip. Puffin season is over, to my great sorrow, but I’m sure there will be plenty of other attractions.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

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