“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.” -- Epictetus, Greek Stoic philosopher, 50-135 AD

In some Asian cultures there is a mythical creature called a Hungry Ghost.  The Hungry Ghost has a massive stomach and a ravenous appetite, but a mouth the size of a pinhole and a pencil-thin throat.  As a result, it can never satisfy its intense hunger, and so exists in unending torment and rage.  As with most myths, there is a moral involved.  Hungry Ghosts were once humans who were excessively and cruelly greedy.  Karma has handed them a hideous fate.  It's a cautionary tale.

Whenever I see Donald Trump, this is the first thought that comes to my mind.  Donald Trump is a Hungry Ghost.  He is unable to be satisfied, always needing more: more money, more attention, more adulation, more power, more vindication, more control--and so he is a profoundly miserable person.  His misery and rage sloshes out of him like water from a saturated sponge as he spreads a miasma of cruelty, greed and grift across the world.  

What a horrible way to exist.  I find him despicable for many reasons, but more than anything, I pity him.

“Iran is run by lunatics, religious fanatic lunatics.” -- Marco Rubio, Donald Trump's Secretary of State

 Blood Moon (by Danny Coleman)

There's a blood moon in the sky tonight

And no one knows why we have to fight, tonight

Who puts a school for girls next to an army barracks?

Who drops a bomb on it anyway?

Why do they all seem to care less

About the children, than about their power plays?

There's rich and powerful men

Coercing sex from teenage girls

While their rich and powerful friends

Try to hide it from the world

There's crypto scams and corporate plans

That make them even richer

The details we don't understand

But we get the general picture

There's a blood moon in the sky tonight

And I don't know if we can make this right

The reasons given don't make sense

The justifications are insincere

For all this needless violence

All this pain, all this sorrow, all this fear

Is it a distraction?

Is it quid pro quo?

Is there a profit motive?

Or is it just for show?

The price is paid by the sons and daughters

And the parents who hoped their kids would have more

They all get screwed or become cannon fodder

By rich and powerful men who are rotten to the core

There's a blood moon in the sky tonight

And we're at war, once more, tonight

And we don't know what for.