It never ceases to amaze me how easily journalists fall into the trap of the "Texas myth." Over Christmas, it was the Economist waxing poetic about lonesome cowboys and whatnot, and now it's the Washington Post reporting on the search for space shuttle debris in the woods of East Texas:

Here is Texas in its primordial sense -- sylvan, damp and spooky -- and visually unlike the Texas of songs, presidential ranches and movie cowboys. Here, too, are Texans themselves at their most empathetic, in a part of the state where almost anything is interpreted as a possible message from Jesus or a visit from a UFO or, more often than not, another Piney Woods mystery that can't be fully explained.