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Bono: 10 Ways to Improve the New Decade

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A new decade has begun, and U2 singer/activist/leprechaun Bono is rededicating himself to saving the world from us humans, and us humans from the world.

In a special New Year’s Day edition of his Op-Ed for the New York Times, Bono listed 10 ways we can improve the coming decade: environmentally, socially, politically, artistically, and medically. While some are typical I’m-here-to-end-war-and-cure-AIDS-and-patch-up-the-Ozone-layer Bono-isms, others are, well, quite interesting proposals. Below, we compile the cliff notes to Bono’s lengthy piece, which can be read in-full right here.

Study up, then offer your suggestions to improve the coming decade in the comment section below!

Highlights from Bono’s Op-Ed piece:

  • Star Trek-esque quantum teleportation: Bono supports the work of Dr. Anton Zeilinger, an Austrian physicist, who, the singer writes, “is becoming a rock star of science for his work in quantum teleportation,” which deals in teleporting properties or bits of information, not physical objects. The Irish rocker admits he knows “very little” about the science, but thinks he “may have achieved [it] backstage one night in Berlin in the early 1990s.” Heavy!
  • Festival of Abraham: In a possible bid for deity status (after all, he does have a one-word name), Bono is proposing an end to religious warfare to hold “an arts festival that celebrates the origin of the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.”
  • Sexy cars: Bono wants America to end its affair with the mini-van and create “greener, cleaner, meaner [and] sexier” cars, and he wants Apple genius Steve Jobs, architect Frank Gehry, and artist Jeff Koons in charge. Amen, brother. That Koons certainly knows sexy.
  • Developing intellectual property like music, film, and TV: Bono says that America should crack down on illegal downloading, which has crippled the music industry. He says we need to protect the “young, fledgling songwriters who can’t live off ticket and T-shirt sales,” and that we’re hindering the quality of art if musicians can’t make a living off their work. FYI: Bono sells lots of T-shirts and concert tickets.