Best Music of 2005

In order to inspire some non-ISS, non-sexual abuse related debate for the holiday season (and also to delay my studying for finals), I offer up a top ten list of the best music of 2005, with my favorite albums and three of the best songs off them.

What'd I leave out? What'd I rank too high? Too low? Discuss.

Top Ten Albums of 2005

1. I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning by Bright Eyes

• "We Are Nowhere and It's Now"
• "Land Locked Blues"
• "Poison Oak"

2. Plans by Death Cab for Cutie

• "I Will Follow You Into the Dark"
• "Different Names for the Same Thing"
• "Marching Bands of Manhattan"

3. Illinois by Sufjan Stevens

• "Casimir Pulaski Day"
• "Chicago"
• "John Wayne Gacy, Jr."

4. Go by Common

• "Faithful"
• "The Corner"
• "Go"

5. Picaresque by the Decemberists

• "The Engine Driver"
• "We Both Go Down Together"
• "16 Military Wives"

6. Late Registration by Kanye West

• "Touch the Sky"
• "Gone"
• "Heard 'Em Say"

7. Silent Alarm by Bloc Party

• "Pioneers"
• "Blue Light"
• "Helicopter"

8. Gimme Fiction by Spoon

• "The Delicate Place"
• "I Summon You"
• "The Beast and Dragon, Adored"

9. Digital Ash in a Digital Urn by Bright Eyes

• "I Believe in Symmetry"
• "Ship in a Bottle"
• "Gold Mine Gutted"

10. X&Y by Coldplay

• "Fix You"
• "Speed of Sound"
• "Swallowed in the Sea"

--Brian

Good News!

This is pretty awesome.

--Brian

Joking about Sexual Abuse: Neither Right nor Left

Since our friends at the Daily Illini have fallen prey to the journalistic trap of overplaying the storyline of left vs. right instead of seeking the objective truth by running a letter from the College Republicans president instead of my letter, I have decided to post my comments here.

Sexual abuse and rape are not funny. Apparently the officers of the College Democrats feel differently. In fact, rather than taking a stand against the disproportional incidence of violence against women on college campuses, they have chosen to advertise a bar crawl with t-shirts that read, "Donkey Punching Our Way to Victory." A man performs a donkey punch by striking his partner in the back of the head while penetrating his partner from behind. His goal is to startle his partner which will cause anal or vaginal contractions, thus improving the assailant's sexual experience. The sexually explicit term is not only considered sexual abuse when performed, in some instances it can be considered rape. Designed to humiliate women with violence, this misogynistic glorification of sexual subordination should offend not only women but all people. That members of a party committed to women's rights and gender equity would make a joke out of this immoral and criminal behavior is reprehensible. The daily battles young democrats wage against social conservatism cannot be won when campus liberal leaders confuse humor with sexual crime.

Amanda Palazzo, Democrat
Illinois Student Senate
Junior, ACES
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign