Apr 5, 2026

This Easter in the New Normal

Our successor to This Week in the Guardian, This Week in the New Normal is our weekly chart of the progress of autocracy, authoritarianism and economic restructuring around the world.

1. Babies make you sad and ugly and ruin everything

Easter. Spring. The time of year to celebrate the rebirth of the world and bringing of new life into a freshly green world…

…or not, according to the MSM, who are all rather down on the whole going-forth and multiplying thing.

A new study has apparently found the having children doens’t make you happy, but does ruin your relationship, according to the Daily Mail:

Having children DOESN’T make you happy: Becoming a parent provides no boost to wellbeing, study claims – but it does ruin your relationship

Dispensing even with the pretense of science, BuzzFeed is just straight up reporting anonymous anecdotes:

“There Is Literally No Escaping This”: Moms And Dads Anonymously Confessed Why They Regret Having Their Kids, And Wow

In a variation on that theme, the BBC has a story headlined:

‘Like a trap you can’t escape’: The women who regret being mothers

In which alleged mothers say they would erase their children from existence if given the choice, and describe motherhood thus…

“Motherhood has taken my health, my time, my money, my strength, and my body […] The price is too high, and the cost is forever.”

Just in case you’re missing the finer points of the subliminal messaging: DON’T HAVE KIDS!

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2. Unshrouding Turin

A new study on Shroud of Turin has found DNA of many different people, animals and plants on the centuries old piece of cloth. Surprising no one with even the most basic understanding of DNA or how time works.

The New Scientist writes:

Researchers have identified genetic material from a vast range of organisms contaminating the shroud, said to have wrapped Jesus’s body, further complicating the question of the cloth’s true origin

The “question of the shroud’s origin”? That was answered decades ago scientifically and centuries ago by common sense.

The Daily Mail has a separate story, also about the shroud, and headlined:

Shroud of Turin discovery places burial cloth at time of Jesus’ death

Which is just dishonest enough to tip-toe up the line of “lie”, without crossing it.

The “discovery” is a study of pollen from the 1970s. And when they say “places the burial cloth at the time of Jesus’ death”…they mean the time of year. That’s how dishonest the article is.

The pollen is only around at spring time. Which means nothing, since it is documented the shroud has existed for nearly 700 springs, all of which probably had pollen.

Why is this getting – if you’ll forgive a rather good pun – blanket coverage?

The shroud of Turin is not real. I mean, it’s a real shroud, but it was never wrapped around Jesus Christ’s body.

They found red ochre pigment on it over thirty years ago. It’s paint, not blood.

There’s no documented evidence of its existence prior to 1354. For the mathematically uninclined, that’s roughly 1320 years after the crucifixion. This lines up perfectly with radio carbon dating results, which date it to between 1260 and 1390AD

But, more importantly, just look at it:

No human has ever looked like this.

It is not a real face, it is a drawing, a clearly medieval-era painting of a very European-looking Christ, whose hair is somehow hanging perfectly straight around his oddly-rectangular face, despite supposedly lying flat on his back with a cloth wrapped tightly about his head.

With all the real mysteries hanging over the human race, the preoccupation with re-solving a non-puzzle seems like such a waste of time.

It’s a medieval fake, from the golden age of bought-and-paid for miracles. That has historical significance in its own right, but there’s no mystery or magic to it.

3. The Great Kit-Kat Kaper

In one of the more bizarre thefts I’ve ever heard of, some criminal (or criminals) have made off with a cargo shipment of 12 tons of KitKat chocolate, totalling somewhere close to 500,000 bars.

I guess someone really needed a break.

The more I think about it, the more I find it interesting. Why would you do this? Yes, alright, you can sell them for money, but any wholesaler is going to be immediately questioning someone offering massive numbers of KitKits – and ONLY KitKats – at below market price.

Which means selling them a couple at a time, hooking people up with black market chocolate bars in the alley behind a night club?

I just don’t get it.

As an aside, I’ve today discovered that I’m a victim of the KitKat Mandela affect. Apparently there is no hyphen, and never has been. Weird.

BONUS: Traumatising lunch of the week

Spectator Australia has set out to scar a few children with its suggestion of Easter dining…

Eating the Easter Bunny for Easter lunch?

Good luck explaining that to the little ones.

BONUS II: Artistic Injustice of the week

A 20-year-old Australian woman has been found guilty of vandalism and fined A$2000 for sticking googly eyes on a sculpture.

But you can’t tell me this isn’t an improvement…

I think death of the author applies here.

Easter Recommendations

This Easter, we should take some time out to remember a real man who has too often been overshadowed by embellished account of his life published over a century after he died.

That’s right, D’Artagnan.

…who did you think I was talking about?

In honor of the discovery of his burial place I’ve been revisiting my love of Dumas’ Musketeer romances and cannot reccommend them enough. In terms of viewing, no movie or television version has ever really captured the brilliance and dry humour of the novel, but the all-star 1973 version comes closest. A fantastically fun watch for the Easter weekend.

Or you could watch Ben Hur. Again.

All told a pretty hectic week for the new normal crowd, and we didn’t even mention how “shrinkflation” is ruining Easter just like everything else, Canada “criminalizing the bible” or the renewed debate on Daylight Saving Time.