Complex Characters

Val's Story is interesting.  The protagonist is a little more complex than the kind of people traditionally associated with drug use.  I suppose drug users in real life are like that as well, the 60s have been over for a long time you know.  I remember once telling my daughter about the Libertarian Party and postulating that the reason they are not more popular is that they advocate more freedom for everybody across the board.  In my experience, most people want more freedom for themselves and their friends while they want more control over everybody else.  For instance, the gun owners want the right to bear arms and the pot smokers want the right to smoke pot, but the gun owners don't support the right to smoke pot and the pot smokers don't support the right to bear arms.  My daughter disagreed, reporting that she knew lots of people who both own guns and smoke pot.  I had never heard of that before, but I suppose there's lots of things I have never heard of before.

Speaking of complex characters, how about that Michael Bloomberg?  He's one of the richest businessmen in the world, and he's running as a Democrat!  Well, I just looked him up on Wiki and found out that he has been a Democrat most of his life, although he became a Republican while he was the Mayor of New York City for some reason.  His positions on most issues seem to be compatible with the liberal agenda, although he considers himself to be a fiscal conservative.  Then again, most Republicans don't seem to be fiscally conservative anymore, so maybe the Democrats could assume that position by default.  It wouldn't be the first time that political parties have reversed themselves like that.