Being that we are moving tomorrow from Brooklyn, our home of almost 9 years, to New Jersey (Montclair), I figured I’d note a few things I never did while living here.

1) Join the Park Slope Co-op: It’s an institution here, one in which you can earn your urban/progressive/sustainability/organic/communitarian-street cred and show how truly “Brooklyn” you are. Why not me? Meh, who cares.

2) Eat at Peter Luger: This one is disappointing. New Jersey isn’t that far away so maybe Sara and I will make a trip back to hit up the legendary steak house with some friends.

3) Ride the Cyclone in Coney Island: I’m not going to feel too bad about this one because I don’t ride roller coasters anyway. Been there a bunch of times, just never rode it, never wanted to.

4) Participate in a drive-by: Neither as a victim nor a perp. Actually, I’ve never felt unsafe in Brooklyn, in any neighborhood.

5) Governor’s Island: There was always something happening there in the Summer, I just never got around taking the short ferry ride.

To tell you the truth, this list was actually really difficult to put together, it was nice to realize we actually have done pretty much everything we ever wanted to do here. Brooklyn is amazing, though I’ll leave all the sentimental stuff for another post.

Whether or not the feminist movement is responsible for limiting my access to my wife’s accounts, I’m going to blame them anyway. Yes, you are individuals who aren’t lorded over by your husband, I get it. But you know what, my wife is a little busy right now and needs me to update her account but because of your stupid little quest for equality you’ve made both of our lives worse. There’s a reason she asked me to take care of it and it’s not because she wants to schlepp two kids into the city and take care of it herself. Or get on the phone to “give permission” that I make changes to our JOINT ACCOUNT!

Hey feminists, if you would have stopped at the gender pay gap, we’d still be cool. But this is ridiculous.

Many of you are familiar with “One Nation Under God” though you might be surprised to know that it is not satire. Well, after a good run at the BYU Bookstore it was pulled…I mean censored. Or whatever. He claims they pulled it because it was too conservative. Which is basically the foundation of all awesomeness. What’s built on that foundation? Read teh comments!

Yesterday morning my wife and I were reading Alma 32. We’ve all read this chapter a million times, sometimes for the faith verses, other times for the humility verses and most often for the seed experiment verses. But this time I concentrated on the language of “believe” and “know” in their relation to faith. As has been noted many times in the Bloggernacle, our church culture is infatuated with bearing testimony using the words, “I know…” It isn’t clear when this started (I’m sure it wasn’t always this way like 97% of our church culture), but I understand why we do it. Simply put, knowing is stronger (better?) than believing. But lately I’ve been skeptical of this, which is why I focused where I did reading Alma 32. (more…)

The Church has discontinued tracting in the United States. (more…)

Do you remember when Babe Ruth played for the Boston Red Sox? Of course you don’t, you only remember watching him play in rival Yankee pinstripes. So in the spirit of poaching a rival’s superstar, Nine Moons (a.k.a. Haters of all things misogynistic) is pleased to announce that we have acquired our Babe. Welcome to the team mfranti!!

As you know, mfranti has been hanging around the ‘nacle for years and writing at Feminist Mormon Housewives since 2008 (and has since left. We didn’t actually steal her, she was the top free agent on the market.) We’re not only excited for her thoughts and ideas but hopefully we can pick up some of the coveted “you go girl!” traffic we are so low on here at Nine Moons.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, that adding another perma will overwhelm our readers with too much content. But I would like to assuage your fears. I have personally asked everyone but MCQ to cut their posting frequency from “Pretty Much Never” to “Who?” which will open up the bandwidth so we can all enjoy mfranti’s posts without distraction.

Join me in welcoming mfranti!!

• There are too many faithless Mormons paying tithing
• Jmax writes one of his signature stupid posts
• Both appropriate sarcasm and intelligent counter-argument ensues
• Most of it is deleted
• Aaron B. Cox disguised as Jmax responds
• Jmax is M*’s friend so he’s allowed to call people hypocrites
• Blah…
• Geoff B reminds us (as do the Greg Olsen paintings on the wall) that M* is not our living room
• Seriously? You are going to edit THAT comment??
• If you don’t like America (or M*) JUST LEAVE!!
• Fondue with the Tanners
• Blah….
• Scripture as bludgeon
• DKL
• Those who call themselves Christians
• Blah…
• Blah…
• Chain of events inspires Rusty to write something for the first time in forever
• [yawn] Zzzzzzzzzzzzz…

This depresses the hell out of me.

Some folks loooove the hymns. I don’t. I’ve always appreciated and enjoyed singing them in church, but I’ve never considered them very good for listening. Like, I’ll never put them on my iPod. Sure, they’re nice to sing while I’m wrangling my 2-year old in the pew, and even better when someone prepares a special musical number. But even then, they’re just a little too…I don’t know, serious? Righteous? Of course, I’ve never had any other expectation. I mean, we’re a bunch of God-worshipping lay-singers with “serious-face”, how else am I supposed to sing them? (more…)

Part of my design education focused on editorial design. Magazines. I designed three different magazines in undergrad and one in graduate school (it was my thesis, actually). I was nourished with the editorial design work of Alexy Brodovich (Harper’s Bazaar), Fred Woodward (Rolling Stone), Fabien Baron (Italian Vogue), Kalman & Toscani (Colors), George Lois (Esquire covers) and even David Carson (Beach Culture) among others. At the time magazines like Wallpaper and Nest were new and hip and cool. To my young, idealistic mind, concept and aesthetic were king.

So you can imagine as a design student at BYU I didn’t care much for the design of the Ensign (or any other Church publication for that matter). Not only was the typography dreadful, the images were (always) literal (and generally bad), but there seemed to be little consideration for concept. The designers/editors weren’t challenging me, they weren’t giving me anything to think about. It was like the bad Gospel Doctrine class where you only get (the same old) answers and no good questions to actually chew on.

Well, they’ve made a few adjustments since then, as have I. And through years of experiencing the real world I’ve come to understand that managing the design of large brands not only requires a realistic understanding of who your true consumer is, but also a realization that communication is king. Aesthetics and concept are merely tools that assist the communication. Of course, none of this is to say the design and/or editorial of the Ensign is good. Far from it. I mean, if there’s any magazine in the world that should be inspiring, this is it, right?

So, this is where you come in. Let’s say that you’ve been hired by the Church to completely overhaul the Ensign (or any of the Church’s publications). What would you change in the design? And the editorial? Do you like the features and departments as they are? What would you toss? What would you add? And keep in mind, this is the Ensign, not Dialogue or Sunstone.

A lot has been said over the last few days about Elder Jensen’s apology. A major strand of those conversations has revolved around the idea of how to best effectuate “Change” in our church. There are those, mostly outside of the Church, suggesting that change will only happen from (surprise, surprise!) outside pressures. Then there are those who are mostly within the Church suggesting that change will only happen from within. I must say that I’m shocked, SHOCKED that the two sides disagree on this point. (more…)

This recent thread at Feminist Mormon Housewives bugged me (shocker, I know). The post itself was fine, asking readers for questions that would be asked of a Seventy at an upcoming stake conference. Okay. But most of the submitted questions were one of two types: (more…)

I’m forming a hypothesis. (this is my escape clause in case you find it lacking signs of intelligence)

I just returned from SLC where I had wonderful visits with old friends, new friends, and blog friends. John Dehlin’s family exceeds the definition of graciousness and delight. MCQ and ARJ’s mountain biking prowess (and bikes!) are my new source of jealousy. And Silus Grok continues to charm and captivate us blubbering posers.

But it was in the presence of old people that I had my epiphany. (more…)

I love top-5 lists as much as anyone, but this post only serves up the problems without offering any practical solutions. So let’s pretend that part of your stake calling is to strive to improve the quality of speaking in Sacrament meetings across the stake. What do you do?

A few points to consider:
- You hold no authority over the speakers nor those whom are primarily responsible for the quality of Sacrament meetings (bishops/bishoprics).
- Generally (those who are willing) adult members each speak around once a year.
- This isn’t about music, it’s about speaking.
- This isn’t about teachers, it’s about speaking.
- The wards are diverse in culture, language, age, knowledge, experience, and speaking ability.
- Bishops/bishoprics aren’t necessarily the best speakers in their wards.

Ideas? Solutions?

I was yelled at early this morning by a fellow runner. Running at me. Uphill. Something about me not moving out of my lane for him. He had already begun yelling, 20 feet away, before I even noticed him in my lane (90% of runners go counter-clockwise around the Prospect Park loop, including me, which means he was essentially like a driver going down a one-way street honking and yelling at cars to get out of his way). My friend and I laughed as he passed us and I remarked at how much energy he just wasted that he could have put toward his uphill climb. So much energy, such poor allocation. (more…)

When people talk about someone having or passing on “good” genes they are usually referring to one of two things: physical attributes or intelligence. While it is true that being born with either or both of these advantages should aid in one’s quest for happiness, we all know that the results don’t always align to the expectations. There are plenty of really really good-looking people out there who are unhappy, perhaps only outnumbered by miserable smart people.

Yet we still claim that those are “good” genes. (more…)