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Testilying and the Rise of Post-Truth Politics
Lies Can Kill People and Dogs But the Real Victim is Justice
Betty White — not the TV star, but my first wife — -and I each had a quality possession that we hung on to through being impoverished students. For me, it was a Goya guitar, an instrument much finer than my playing ever deserved. For her, it was a Leica camera, with which she became a regular contributor of photos to The Rag, Austin’s contribution to the Underground Press Syndicate.
She was also a talented writer, but I only know that because I was married to her and observed it over time. Unlike me, she sometimes blocked. I watched her suffer through the block and stack up incomplete grades because of papers not turned in, but I was not equipped to help her then as I could now. I did not understand the affliction and could only sympathize.
With her blocking problem, Betty could only watch me move from a weekly to The Daily Texan. Photography remained her primary creative outlet.
She backed me up in my purposeful trips to jail, but the only one she took was not on purpose. The LBJ Presidential Library on the University of Texas campus was dedicated in May of 1971, and there was a law enforcement presence the likes of which we had never seen. Also, the University went into federal court in an untimely manner and got a judge to sign an injunction forbidding…
