E* Rulz*

(Blogger won't accept "!" in titles, so I used the " * " )

There seems to be a growing awareness that Politics is now Entertainment, or E!Politics. This goes hand and hand with the realization that Journalism had become E!Journalism, and it still is for the most part, although some journalists seem to have pulled back from their E! status during the Embedded Phase I. I am not a Ph.D. in Economics, but it seems to me that in a Consumer Culture such as we infest, everything that exists exists to be consumed, and it has to be advertised and brought to the eye of the consumer. The best way to do this is good old E!. I mean, who in their right mind would have recourse to the opposite approach, the antithesis of E!, boredom, irritation, being a pain in the back, to get you to spend money on their stuff...who other than prophets and holy people, that is. They have always been a pain.

In Locusts and Honey http://locustsandhoney.blogspot.com/2006/05/you-must-buy-this-book.html there is a wonderful post:  

So often, it seems that when a group of Christians think that there is a problem in their church or a new opportunity on the horizon, the solution begins and usually ends at: *Buying a particular popular book by a Christian author. *Paying to attend the Xcitement Christian Expo Conference 2006 in Las Vegas (or whatever conference name is selected). *Hiring a popular Christian speaker to come to the church to address the congregation. Whenever there is something to be done, we must spend money before doing it. Or maybe even spending money is the whole action taken. The writer does arrive at a sentence "How do we teach a church to pray? It ain't nuclear rocket brain surgery."

I seem to recall I sort of said something almost opposite, as it were, maybe. Prayer is not hard. Prayer that is humble and does not assume one is the center of the universe is. Prayer that does not attempt to scam, run a wheeze on, or put the touch on God is difficult.
However, it is only difficult because we have been taught from childhood to be self-centered. (The usual way of teaching children not to be self-centered, if and when such a process does exist, is to whale the daylights out of 'em!)
The main point of this is that even in Religion, E! rulz! Buy, read,consume. Go to see a movie approved by the elders. Pray to the E!God! If we continue like this, all the forms of E! will be interchangeable; political discussion will be Bruce Willis scenarios, morality will be TV shows, religion will be a "Lilies of the Field" experience. E! is like currency, it is a fungible entity. E! can transform into other forms of E! or E! assets. Thus, we shall be able to confess our sins at the Game and do penance on the Golf Course, and God will smile in SimHeaven.