The Dish

The mood is surly out there:

In surveys at polling places, about six in 10 voters said they disapproved of the way President Bush is handling his job, and roughly the same percentage opposed the war in Iraq. They were more inclined to vote for Democratic candidates than for Republicans.

In even larger numbers, about three-quarters of voters said scandals mattered to them in deciding how to vote, and they, too, were more likely to side with Democrats. The surveys were taken by The Associated Press and the networks.

But again: this election depends on actual votes in districts and states, not polls of the national mood. So beware.

Early exit polls stories that run with headlines like this do not suggest good news for the GOP. But they don’t prove anything either.

The vote of those under 30. This may finally be an election when young people actually vote in large numbers.

The haunting sights and sounds of  Tanita Tikaram’s "Twist In My Sobriety."

"So hard at best is the lot of man, and so great is the beauty he can apprehend, that only a religious conception of things can take in the extremes and meet the case. Our lifetimes have seen the opening of abysses before which the mind quails. But it seems to me there are a few things everyone can humbly try to hold onto: love and mercy (and humor) in day-to-day living; the quest for exact truth in language and affairs of the intellect; self-recollection or prayer; and the peace, the composed energy of art," – Robert Fitzgerald, Harvard poet and classics translator, from "The Third Kind of Knowledge, Memoirs & Selected Writings."

"[I]t is true that religion on a superficial level, religion that is untrue to itself and God, easily comes to serve as the ‘opium of the people.’ And this takes place whenever religion and prayer invoke the name of God for reasons and ends that have nothing to do with Him.

When religion becomes a mere artificial façade to justify a social or economic system — when religion hands over its rites and language completely to the political propagandist, and when prayer becomes the vehicle for a purely secular ideological program, then religion does tend to become an opiate. It deadens the spirit enough to permit the substitution of a superficial fiction and mythology for the truth of life. And this brings about the alienation of the believer, so that his religious zeal becomes political fanaticism. His faith in God, while preserving its traditional formulas, becomes in fact faith in his own nation, class or race. His ethic ceases to be the law of God and love, and becomes the law of might-makes-right: established privilege justifies everything. God is the status quo," Рthe great American Catholic, Thomas Merton, from his book, "Contemplative Prayer."

A reader writes:

Regarding Olivia Newton-John, your reader uses words written about her grandfather to belittle her. Classy! I will use those same words to point out that her life has "shined with intense beauty" as she has worked tirelessly in the battle against breast cancer.

We all have something to contribute to our age and I do not see the necessity of impugning the contribution of some while elevating the works of others.

One of the greatest songs written in recent years: Leonard Cohen’s "Democracy," from his astonishing album, "The Future." It captures all my hopes for today. And tomorrow. And the day after that. Performed here by Don Henley.

Money quote:

Sail on, sail on
O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed
Through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.

It’s coming to America first,
the cradle of the best and of the worst.
It’s here they got the range
and the machinery for change
and it’s here they got the spiritual thirst.
It’s here the family’s broken
and it’s here the lonely say
that the heart has got to open
in a fundamental way:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It’s coming from the women and the men.
O baby, we’ll be making love again.
We’ll be going down so deep
the river’s going to weep,
and the mountain’s going to shout Amen!
It’s coming like the tidal flood
beneath the lunar sway,
imperial, mysterious,
in amorous array:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

The "left" and "right" on the Internets: an interesting survey. Bottom line: right now, the moonbats are ascendant in passion. We’ll see if that lasts tonight. No predictions here.

It was remarkably gay, don’t you think? Here’s a much better version of the American Dad clip I posted yesterday. I should add, for the benefit of new readers, that I am not now and never have been a Republican. A conservative? Sure. Gay? Super-gay.