Brandon J Raub is free!

When I picked up the newspaper this morning at my favorite, local convenience store, and saw the headline news, I was relieved and very, very grateful !  BRANDON, YOU ARE FREE - THANK GOD ALMIGHTY, SON, YOU ARE FREE !!!!!

Brandon got 'in trouble' as it was, with what he had posted on Facebook.  Now, the other day, I had posted on Facebook a little fact I had come across:  that if Facebook were a country, it would be the 3d most populated country in the entire world!

And one where its citizens, apparently, are more monitored than they even realized.

Brandon's case is twofold troubling to this blogger; allow me to speak to the first issue that concerns me, at least:

Post 9-11, there were emails that came into my email box from friends about - shall we say -alternative theories of what had happened.  I turned around in my chair and discussed them f2f w/ others.  I also forwarded them to informed friends, just to add another piece of insight to my knowledge.  In addition, I read books, and received literature from, religious organizations that were along the same lines of thought.  I read my Scriptures about them.  I may even have watched videos online (as an avid video watcher, its a good guess that I did) specifically pertaining to these "off-the-wall" lines of thought. 

AT NO TIME DID I FEEL THAT I WAS BEING ANYTHING BUT A PATRIOT, ONE WHO WASN'T BRAIN-DEAD, ONE WHO WAS ALLOWED TO EVALUATE INPUT AND MAKE HER OWN DECISIONS.  NEVER, AT ANY TIME, DID I EVEN THINK I COULD BE SUBJECT TO ARREST AND DETAINMENT FOR DOING SO.

Until Brandon J Raub reminded me otherwise.

Welcome home, Brandon, and thank God you are HOME!  and

-- this shouldn't have happened.  But it has.  And I'm, quite honestly, scared - more scared than I was when I pulled my tired body out of bed this morning.

Thank God, at least, you shall be sleeping in your own bed ...