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Supreme Court Nominations
Analysis of Book
Mark Judge
Brothers and Sisters!
Assalam o Alleyykum!
As below are the salient features of the book: Wasted Tales Gen X – Drunk authored by Mark Judge’s copied from the Google Network:
Wasted: Tales of a GenX Drunk is a 1997 memoir about alcoholism, binge drinking, and hookup culture at Georgetown Preparatory School, written by Mark Gauvreau Judge. Judge recounts his early formative experiences growing up in suburbs of Washington, D.C. under Catholic school education. The author describes his secondary education at Georgetown Preparatory School as filled with heavy drinking and experiences of teenage alcoholism. The book criticizes Alcoholics Anonymous for its lack of acknowledgement of physiological causes of alcoholism as a disease process.
Wasted received increased attention in 2018 during the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination, in the wake of statements by psychologist Christine Blasey Ford that implicated Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge in possible sexual assault.
Demand for Judge’s work significantly increased after reporting by The Washington Post on his books and the statements by Ford. Washington Monthly and Arkansas Times concluded that “Bart O’Kavanaugh” in Wasted was likely a reference to Brett Kavanaugh.
Wasted: Tales of a Gen-X Drunk is a memoir about the author’s experiences with alcoholism. The author takes a cynical view towards Alcoholics Anonymous He describes his early life growing up in relative suburbia in the state of Maryland, close to Washington, D.C. He recounts attending Catholic educational institutions where drinking alcohol was socially acceptable at a young age. Judge’s behaviour led to clashes with both the priests and the nuns at his Catholic schools. Judge engages in theft of school supplies from nuns. The author impersonates priests by wearing their attire. Alcoholic behaviour was easy to maintain while his parents were absent from his life both by being away from the primary domicile, and by being inattentive to their son.
The author describes how his father would imbibe alcohol every day, and this had a negative impact on him. He paradoxically maintained a view in his youth that alcoholism was not a condition influenced by role-models, and at the same time tried to seek his father’s approval. Judge recounts for the reader how he felt after imbibing in his first ever alcoholic beverage at the age of 14. This initial alcoholic experience at such a young age took place in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, at the beach house of a peer of Judge’s. He says he experienced a “warm cocoon of oceanic bliss”, where he felt what he viewed as a physiological response of pleasure. He developed a taste for alcohol, and his drink of choice was beer. Judge reflects that he did not realize the addiction and development of alcoholism that he was manifesting at the time, writing, “Only years later would I understand what was happening.” He subsequently admits that he had indeed become an alcoholic himself. By the time Judge had turned 15, he and a friend engaged in an Endeavour to provide falsified identification for the purchase of alcohol to all of his fellow students at a secondary education Catholic institution. Judge writes that at age 15 a friend of his who worked as a bartender regularly supplied him with alcoholic beverages for consumption.
Wasted describes in detail the author’s secondary education memories, particularly those involving heavy alcohol usage by his peers and himself at Georgetown Preparatory School.
The author writes that the social environment of his peers at the school was, “positively swimming in alcohol”. Judge recounts a hook-up culture involving binge drinking, especially during a period of time at the school known as “Beach Week”. Judge defined “Beach Week” at Georgetown Preparatory School as a “week-long bacchanalia of drinking and sex, or at least attempts at sex”.
The author discusses a phrase, “100 Kegs Or Bust”, in relation to excessive alcohol drinking during his times at Georgetown Preparatory School. Judge remembers a student he refers to as Bart O’Kavanaugh who passed out and threw up in a car. The author recounts going to drink alcohol with his friends at bars for many evenings in a row.
He presents in-depth memories of orgies and attempts to have sex fuelled with alcohol at residences along the beach shoreline.
Judge recounts episodes of heavy drinking and blackouts during his four years of study at Catholic University of America. The author is able to graduate from university in spite of heavy alcohol use. Judge acknowledges in the book that in his later twenties, he regularly blacked out while drunk, and awoke in locations with no memory of having arrived there. The author describes a panic attack episode at a wedding of a peer, which brought him to the realization that he needed to cease imbibing in alcoholic beverages. He tried going to Alcoholics Anonymous for the first time, in January 1993. After quitting drinking, Judge recounts suffering from a significant amount of depression. Judge argues in the book that alcoholism is a disease process, and compares it to opiate and heroin. He brings forth research in the book attempting to demonstrate that the brain and liver of alcoholics predispose them to addictive tendencies not seen in otherwise healthy and normative humans. Alcoholics Anonymous is criticized repeatedly in the book, due to its reliance upon psychological themes to combact alcoholism. The author criticizes Alcoholics Anonymous for not emphasizing physiological and biochemical causes of alcoholism.
Wasted received increased attention in 2018 during the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination, in the wake of statements by psychologist Christine Blasey Ford that implicated Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge in possible sexual assault. Judge wrote to the U.S. Senate to say he had “no memory” of the incident described by Ford. Judge said he did not wish to testify.
Brett Kavanaugh. Arkansas Times wrote it was “obviously a nom de plume” for Brett Kavanaugh. Mother Jones wrote “Kavanaugh appears to make an appearance in the book under the name ‘Bart O’Kavanaugh’.” The Associated Press wrote that in Judge’s book Wasted, “he makes passing reference to someone with a strikingly similar name “Washington concluded, Judge had “inadequately anonymized Brett Kavanaugh as ‘Bart O’Kavanaugh'”.
On September 27, 2018, the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary held an additional day of public hearings to discuss Ford’s allegations. Ford and Kavanaugh were the only witnesses scheduled. US Senator Patrick Leahy asked Kavanaugh in the testimony about incidents of alcohol-induced blackouts and vomiting described in Wasted, referring to “Bart O’Kavanaugh” in the book. Leahy asked Kavanaugh during the US Senate testimony,
“Are you the Bart O’Kavanaugh that he’s referring to?
Yes or no?”
Kavanaugh responded, “You’d have to ask him.”
Wass’a’lam
[May Allah Bless You]
Naseer Aziz
Principal Call for Peace