He's making a point, you see. Photo by: Leila Navidi

1. Let Obama be a president, not a celebrity. Looking back on Barack Obama’s beleaguered first year, the most memorable milestones of his presidency may have arrived with his hideous PR flourishes. He couldn’t get the health-care bill he wanted, but he could help George Lopez promote his new talk show. He was helpless to push through a climate-change initiative in Copenhagen, but he and the first lady made dynamite hosts for Oprah’s Christmas TV special. I don’t know who’s starfucking whom here, but with anywhere from three to seven more years to get diplomacy right, let’s insist on more disciplined priorites.

2. Outlaw American Idol. Or at least regulate it. The reality-competition juggernaut has spent the last decade making TV safe for sweatshops, exploiting free and/or underpaid “talent” and making access to fame the true coin of the realm in American culture. We can blame Wall Street all we want for the economic crash that crippled us, but as long as Idol and shows like it can get wildly rich off the labors of kids who would do anything just to be on TV (let alone win some indentured-servitude record deal), we can blame ourselves just as easily. (And don’t get me started about child exploitation on Jon & Kate Plus 8.)

3. Place a cap on sequels/remakes per year. While we’re legislating, let’s do something about this ridiculous franchise plague in Hollywood. I mean, I understand giving people what they want—thus Iron Man 2, Transformers 3. But please, nobody wants Halloween 3-D or another failed Incredible Hulk film. Three of 2009’s biggest hits were an original comedy (The Hangover), a book adaptation (The Blind Side) and a decade-in-the-making auteurist blockbuster (Avatar). More like this, please, Hollywood.

4. Kill your Internet. When was the last time you handwrote a letter? Or called someone instead of Facebooking them? It’s surprising how old-fashioned and even intimate such acts feel at the end of the ’00s, but that’s the legacy of our first complete decade living online. We credited the Web’s convenience but ultimately—maybe even compulsively—embraced a lazy pseudo-connectivity that came to feed only our narcissism. Set aside a few hours a day, then a few days a week, to correct that disembodiment. Start with a note to a friend to do the same. Even if he or she declines, they’ll never deny how happy receiving real mail makes them in 2010. Real mail that’s not a bill, anyway.

5. Retire The Rolling Stones. And The Who. And all other rock bands comprising wizened old men who will reach their 70s in the decade ahead. There’s only so much money you can make, and honestly, I never want to hear the week’s worth of jokes David Letterman has saved up for Mick Jagger’s imminent hip-replacement surgery. But while we’re at it ...

6. Save Amy Winehouse. Is there some kind of mass-cultural intervention that can reinstate the drug-addled 26-year-old to her mid-’00s glory? Usually the bottoming out happens right about now, and the career rebound/magazine covers/Oprah appearance would lift the singer-songwriter back to prominence around 2012 or 2013. I’m not sure about that at this point, but pop music is all the better for her contributions.

Debonaire and witty Mad Men carries the torch for quality television.

7. Don’t let your favorite shows jump the shark. The Office is already there, and the guest-star-addicted 30 Rock is close behind. Mad Men, thrilling as it can be, often veered into soap-operatics in its third season. South Park is approaching 15 seasons with hit-or-miss relevancy. In fact, The Wire may have been the one American TV series of the ’00s to know when to quit. May others—at your urging, if necessary—follow its lead.

8. Tighten the MLB season. As Major League Baseball and its TV broadcast partners stretched its postseason (and thus its revenue capacities) out incrementally over the last 10 Octobers, parkas and blankets replaced baseball mitts as must-have ballpark accessories. Players took to wearing adapted ski masks on fields slick with rain or even barely melted snow. Rockies and Phillies fans this year endured a snow-delay postponement, and Yankees fans celebrated their team’s World Series championship in 40-degree cold. This is no fun at all. Leave foul weather to the NFL and let the fans enjoy the Boys of Summer the way they were meant to be enjoyed.

9. Reality-check the Oscars. Thanks to blogs and the ad-starved media in general, the ’00s were the decade the Academy Awards became a year-round taste-making lightning rod. But seriously, there is no reason to be attributing Oscar hype on this scale, no matter how good the movies are. It’s okay to enjoy them without all the awards taxonomy, which just diminishes their value anyway.

10. Stamp out snark. Or at least snark simply for snark’s sake. Here’s hoping the grim ’00s portend an attitude adjustment wherein it’s actually okay to like things, to root for people or causes, to calmly disagree, or to hold a serious cultural discussion without the albatross of dogma. It begins with you—on your mark, get set, go.