What's Wrong with East Texas?

After the jump, two stories out of East Texas caught my attention today.

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• Lowering of Confederate flag brings protest in East Texas:
  This is money quote from this story:

  "On Wednesday morning, Billy P*****, who is white, joined a group of protesters who were angry that the [Confederate] banner had been removed from the [Anderson County] courthouse flagpole. 'To me, it represents freedom; that doesn't,' P***** said, pointing to the United States flag. 'To me it represents tyranny. Oppression. Racism.'"

  Yikes!

• 30 Days for Teacher Sex with Teens Because Town Turned Against Victims:
  This story is a little harder to summarize. But here are the money quotes for me:

  "Overwhelming support from community members ... saved former Navasota High School band director Paul B******* ... from a possible sentence of 3 consecutive life sentences for 8 counts of sexual assault of a child and 8 counts of indecency with a child. ... Instead, B******* was sentenced to 30 days in jail and two, 10-year probated sentences, which run concurrently, after pleading guilty to sexual assault of a child and child indecency charges this past Friday.

  'Parents of band members were irate and said I was taking away their beloved band director. I was presented with a petition that was many pages long, and they attacked the victims and damaged them pretty badly, because it was obvious who they were - and they (victims) were outsiders,' said [District Attorney Martin] Braddy. 'The defendant cashed in his retirement and spent all of it hiring investigators to track down these kids and find any kind of dirt on them. My primary focus was making sure no one got hurt again.'"

I don't think I really need to editorialize on what's so horribly wrong with the events described in either of these stories. All I can wonder is, what's wrong with East Texas? Is there something in the water in East Texas that is warping the minds of the residents? In any case, you know that wall people are clamoring for to be built along the border with Mexico? Maybe it ought to extend north somewhere not too far east of, say, Lake Ray Hubbard.

****** Names redacted because I don't want to make this personal.