Anne Rice, the New Orleans novelist who famously feuded with Al Copeland, famously rededicated her life to the Church to write only about the life of Christ, famously moved out of the Garden District and to La Jolla, Calif. a few years back, famously stopped writing books about sexy vampires and started writing books about sober Saviors (then left the door open for maybe one more sexy vampire book), has announced a new chapter in her life. Via her Facebook page:

For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten …years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider.

Why? Rice elaborates:

In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of …Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.

For English majors and Southern lit fans, this all may sound a bit familiar; it was 1952 when the Southern author Flannery O’Connor wrote Wise Blood, in which one of the characters forms the “Holy Church of Christ Without Christ.” The difference here seems to be that O’Connor didn’t have Facebook, and God only knows what she would’ve thought of the late lamented Straya (now Copeland’s Cheesecake Bistro).

FEMA trailers, golf balls, tires, Barack Obama, Bobby Jindal, Tony Hayward. These are a few of your options to plug the Super Mario Bros.-esque pipe leaking oil in the online game Kill the Spill.

The welcome screen reads: “Help!!! I’m Tony Haward, CEO of BP. My job used to be awesome until about a month ago. Now I need you to help me get my life back!”

You have 100 seconds to help Tony navigate the U.S.S. Junkshot as currents and sea turtles block your chances of filling the pipe. If you fail, no worries, the game urges you to “pull a BP and try again.”

Here’s a screenshot:

The game was developed by Jason McEachen, Aaron Jansen, Stephen Nowers and Thomas Levine.

(Unfortunately I couldn’t embed this into the blog, but click here to listen to the greatest 40-second medical report ever and then come right back).

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Yes, I know it’s the Onion.  But isn’t it just a widely accurate depiction of what keeps New Orleanians so happy, am I right? It’s the Louisiana four-step: Booze! Free sex! Boobs! More Booze! What else is there to do down here anyway?

As we predicted yesterday, that video of ABC26 anchor Michael Hill asking a reporter “So she’s enjoying penis a little bit more, is she?” has been spread far and wide on the Web. (From our hit counter and your Tweets, it’s certainly the object of your interest as well.) Deadspin, the popular sports website, picked it up (though its relation to sports is, at best, tangential and depends on how you define ’sports’). Nevertheless, Deadspin gave it a boffo review:

Everything about this video is delightful. The way his fellow anchor’s face drops upon hearing the question. The nervous paper shuffling and voice lilting by the reporter while trying to respond without bursting into laughter. The irony of talking about phones that are going to be ringing a lot. You name it. This has the makings of either very unfunny jokes around the station or a very funny sexual harassment suit.

Over at Guyism (which employed the straight-faced headline “New Orleans news anchor asks about enjoyment of penis”), they say that Tribune Media contacted the website to insist they put the quote into proper context by airing the entire story about “the G-shot.” (We can’t embed it for some reason, but here’s the link.)

So, for context: A screenshot of the G-shot, taken directly from ABC26’s website:

Even The Times-Picayune has gotten in on the action with a story titled “Michael Hill’s comment on WGNO story echoes ’round the Internet” — but they’re coy about saying exactly why it’s echoing ’round the Internet … to which we can only reply with this:

Last but not least, a clearer copy of the clip has surfaced, which is the equivalent of having another angle on the Zapruder film. Hurray! According to YouTube, it’s had more than 6,000 views in the last 24 hours. Given the ratings over at ABC26, I’d say they’ve inadvertently hit on a unique way to goose the ratings: stop trying to compete with the other stations and just go 200-proof on crazy-ass, completely inappropriate anchor banter:

Tomorrow, April 22, is the 40th annual Earth Day observance. Here’s a summary of some Earth Day goings on in New Orleans:

• One Block Off the Grid (1BOG) launched its discounted solar purchasing campaign yesterday, hoping to save potential solar customers in New Orleans thousands of dollars — coupled with a 50 precent state tax credit and a 30 percent federal credit — by offering residential solar panels at $6.65 per DC watt, about 15 percent less than the market price. Get an idea of the kind of savings this program could provide through its online estimate tool: Enter your ZIP code, find your roof, and 1BOG provides a chart and financial breakdown showing the upfront costs (after rebates) and how long the solar panels will take to pay for themselves (and then some). 1BOG partnered locally with solar installer South Coast Solar. The program is available to greater New Orleans residents through July 20. Find more information on its website.
• Today, Entergy Corporation announced its Double Your Difference program, which will match customers’ carbon offset purchases to help lower carbon emissions. Its Make An Impact website (partnered with the Pew Center on Global Climate Change) calculates customers’ carbon footprints and offers the offsets while also providing tips and resources to help make those footprints smaller.
• Tomorrow, from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m., the Louisiana Bucket Brigade celebrates the New Orleans Earth Day Festival at The Maison. More info here. Admission is $10 and proceeds benefit the brigade’s “bucket” sampling.
• And, of course, there’s always an app for that: USA Today has a run down of “50 green iPhone apps” for the environmentally challenged.

Find more green news in Gambit’s Green Matters — online and, well, everywhere else.