America’s first female mortician smuggled escaped slaves.

Chalk this up to things not widely known: America's first female mortician, Henrietta Duterte, turned her house into a stop on the Underground Railroad and used coffins to smuggle fugitives across Pennsylvania.

From an essay about Duterte by novelist Kaitlyn Greenidge:

At 14, my deepest desire was to become an undertaker. This career choice was met with puzzled looks from my mother and exasperated sighs from my guidance counselor, but during a school-sponsored internship week, they agreed to let me try.

Nov 13, 2017

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Skateboarding, about to debut in the Tokyo Olympics, is still frowned upon in Japan, if not forbidden.

↩︎ The New York Times 19m

Hundreds of millions of desert locusts are swarming in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia, in some of the biggest numbers in 25 years.

↩︎ The Atlantic 21m

New York's Gov. Cuomo is willing to consider helmet mandates for car drivers, because the data on brain injuries is terrifying.

↩︎ Streetsblog NYC 22m

How long have you been reading TMN? Join our Sustaining Members so you can read it *forever*.

↩︎ TMN Memberships 23m

"Working percentage goes down while food preparation goes up." From last July, how we spent our time in 2018 compared to 2003.

↩︎ Flowingdata 28m

An array of data for all known English-language darknet markets from Silk Road 1 (ca. 2011) to Horizon (2016).

↩︎ Gwern 32m

Flip side to the link we posted the other day saying your vote doesn't count, YelloPain provides the counterargument.

So every time you sit out an election, every time you don’t show up because you think it doesn’t matter, someone else is happy that you didn’t show up, so they can make that decision for you.

H/t kottke

35m

Scenes from a recent reenactment of a 1811 Louisiana slave revolt.

↩︎ Smithsonian Magazine 7h

Only when the flight map on my seat-back screen showed the plane nosing out of Iranian airspace did I begin to breathe normally.

The Economist’s Middle East correspondent reveals he was secretly detained in Iran this summer.

↩︎ The Economist

Hundreds of Amazon employees are putting their jobs on the line this week by speaking out against the company’s climate policies.

↩︎ recode 7h

How to unharden your heart toward homeless people: try talking to them or simply listening.

↩︎ The Los Angeles Times 7h

“It’s more like an appetizer than a bread." All hail lard bread.

↩︎ Taste 7h

Whenever the topic of ethics comes up, most architects who work in repressive climates believe their projects can transcend the abuses of the host regimes and make everyday life a bit better for the people who live there.

When architects take jobs from oppressive leaders, do their buildings automatically glorify fascism?

↩︎ The Guardian

An annotated case study from 1970 in McMansion design.

↩︎ McMansion Hell Yearbook 7h

One reason your car insurance is going up: the cost of new features designed to keep vehicles in their lanes and out of trouble.

↩︎ WIRED 8h

Your weekly white paper: Elections are not only stressful on voters, they increase health care costs by as much as 19%.

↩︎ The National Bureau of Economic Research 8h

Weird tweets from Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams.

In case you are also currently consumed by Patrick Radden Keefe's Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland—a page-turner history of the Troubles in which Keefe alleges that Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams was responsible for "disappearing" (i.e., ordering the murder of) a woman named Jean McConville—here's a round-up of less frightening tweets from Adams over the years.

Dreamt I was eating Cream Eggs. Woke up this morn. Pillow & beard covered in chocolate & cream thingymebob.
— Gerry Adams (@GerryAdamsSF) January 25, 2014

Dreamt I was in a cafe drinkin coffee. Ryan Turbidy sat@my table.He smiled &read a newspaper.Iwas wearing 1 boot & 1 shoe.What does it mean?
— Gerry Adams (@GerryAdamsSF) April 26, 2013

A Great Bernard dog just sidled up 2 the sofa & gave me a Brandy&Port. Nuada & Snowie never even barked.Hope he comes back.Or am I dreaming?
— Gerry Adams (@GerryAdamsSF) February 16, 2014

The Guardian becomes the first global news organization to ban ads from oil and gas companies.

↩︎ The Guardian 8h

Rolls-Royce plans to build a dozen mini nuclear reactors in the UK, each about 1.5 acres in size, over the next 10 years.

↩︎ BBC News 8h

Bong Joon Ha and his production designer explain how they built the layered house in *Parasite*.

↩︎ Indiewire 8h

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