Gloss

1. Integrity trump authenticity

2. Restore ‘Peace’ as an acceptable diplomatic goal

3. Support entrepreneurship: pass universal college loan forgiveness

4. Burst the college tuition bubble next

5. Fund the museums

6. Ban charging museum admission, ban blockbuster exhibitions, ban counting museum visitors at all

7. A healthy museum system should be the center of a national arts culture, flanked on the right by a profit-driven auction and gallery network, on the left by Marxist guerrilla collectives

8. Touch the paintings

9. End copyright extensions

10. Consistency is a trap

11. Be healthier

12. Respect the Republicans as you would any dying animal

13. Promote the entertainment industry the way we used to promote high-tech. As Gloss has discussed, the entertainment industry represents our nation’s last, best competitive advantage.

14. Find us another Gustave Moreau

15. Restore sex education in public schools, but put the art department in charge

16. Force non-profit institutions to respect human rights abroad. I’m thinking specifically of NYU and the Guggenheim’s exploitation of migrant labor in Abu Dhabi, but you’ll find others.

17. Knowledge should never have become less important than information

18. Bring back public space

19. Even blogging’s gone corporate now. We have arrived everywhere seven minutes too late, and we long to return to that moment just before the corruption set in. This is true of our neighborhoods, our culture, our government, our personal life choices, and the whole sentiment stinks of conservatism. We believe you can cure this.

20. Similarly, there are two strains of complaint we always hear repeated. The first, Wal-Mart and other national retailers have destroyed local diversity, and imposed a heartless national culture over our small towns. The second, the Internet and cable television have broken us into niches, robbing us of a national culture and a shared sense of identity. Are these real problems, or do they cancel each other out? Is everything still cool?

21. End bling culture

22. Shorten the workweek

23. Set up a public education system for the retired that mirrors the one we have for the young. So we have a chance to unlearn.

24. Show “compassionate conservatism.” Put the whole ’01–’08 administration in jail.