Raed Fares is determined to spread news about both the Syrian government and the Islamic State. As you might imagine, that’s a pretty risky occupation. From the NYT Magazine: Radio-Free Syria.

+ “Mormon fundamentalists have long lived according to their own rules. But in recent years, the outside world has started to encroach. When a former sect member and his family moved to the town where he’d grown up, they expected a homecoming of sorts. What they got was a war.” Ashley Powers in California Sunday Magazine: Their Town.

+ Narratively’s Ali Hussain on the secret life of a volunteer superhero: “The escorts in my descent to danger are Dark Guardian and Spectre, two New Yorkers who are part of a growing community of young, masked mystery men and women around the nation who don self-made costumes and spend their free time trying to stop drug deals, breakup robberies and prevent assaults.” (And I thought I was weird when I dressed up for the Dickens’ Fair…)

+ “Astonishing, if you think about it: that a person could live half his life without coming face-to-face with the one thing that unites us all. And I don’t think I’m alone in this.” Eric Puchner pays a visit to a sixth-generation funeral director who wants to reacquaint us all with the uncomfortable, eye-opening realities of death.