I was gone for a minute, but I’m back for the jump-off…(Li’l Kim)

When did we all stop caring about Jeff Goldstein? I’m kind of worried about that guy. Don’t you think he’s probably still just wandering around the house all day in a ratty terrycloth robe, wall-eyed from Clonazepam, smelling like Chili Cheese Fritos and Astro-Glide? I mean, it’s not like he’s going to get a job or anything.

Yesterday, Sadly, No! and TBogg peeked in to check on Pasty’s Progress, and, well, he doesn’t seem to be feeling any better.

D. Aristophanes at Sadly, No!:

Jeff Goldstein gets all concern trollish regarding the Jesus’ General-Brittney Gilbert-Ghost of Adolph Rupp-Scott Kaufman dustup (go here for as good a take as any on that regrettable situation):

I find it at once touching and sad that Kaufman is maintaining that this attempt at getting him canned merely for challenging the officially-sanctioned narrative is something of an unrepresentative gambit — that it is an individual vs individual scenario that doesn’t speak to larger problems within the progressive movement — even as he’s witnessed firsthand how pernicious is a world view that privileges the incorrect decoding of a particular interpretive community over the (since established) intent of the utterer, and then gives that interpretive community permission to ascribe to the original utterer the product of the community’s own (often cynically self-interested) interpretive intent.

Ooh … it’s high-falutin’ Pasty. Gettin’ down with the deconstructionalamism.

He’s at his absolute worst when he does that.

But as Clarke’s essay spells out (however tentatively), the problem is far more widespread than Kaufman would like to admit — and indeed, for my part, I’ve come it see it as systemic, following naturally from an interpretive paradigm that of necessity culminates in competing narratives vying for established “truth” based entirely on the power and tenacity of an advocacy group’s insistence.

What does this even mean? Skreak English, retard.

Seriously, watching Jeff Goldstein try to make a point is like watching someone trying to hammer a nail with a live carp. There is, in fact, a slight chance of success, but it’s going to be a damned ugly process, and chances are there’ll be a big, stinky mess left behind.