Fugging hell: tired of mockery, Austrian village changes name

 thegaurdian - Residents of an Austrian village will ring in the new year under a new name – Fugging – after ridicule of their signposts, especially on social media, became too much to bear.

They finally grew weary of Fucking, its current name, which some experts say dates back to the 11th century.

Minutes from a municipal council meeting published on Thursday showed that the village of about 100 people, 350km (215 miles) west of Vienna, will be named Fugging from 1 January 2021.

Increasing numbers of English-speaking tourists have made a point of stopping in to snap pictures of themselves by the signpost at the entrance to the village, sometimes striking lascivious poses for social media.

Some have reportedly even stolen the signposts, leading the local authorities to use theft-resistant concrete when putting up replacements.

Finally, a majority of the villagers decided they had had enough.

“I can confirm that the village is being renamed,” said Andrea Holzner, the mayor of Tarsdorf, the municipality to which the village belongs.

“I really don’t want to say anything more – we’ve had enough media frenzy about this in the past,” she told the regional daily Oberösterreichische Nachrichten (OOeN).

According to the Austrian daily Die Presse, the villagers, known as Fuckingers, “have had enough of visitors and their bad jokes”.

But not everybody seems happy about the impending change.

Ethiopia’s military chief calls WHO head Tedros a criminal supporting a rebel region

Washingtonpost.com -  World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has received his share of criticism from world leaders, most famously from President Trump, but now his own country of Ethiopia is attacking him.

In a televised address Wednesday night, Ethiopia’s army chief of staff, Gen. Berhanu Jula, called Tedros a criminal and said he should step down from his position as director general of the WHO for seeking to procure weapons for the Tigray region, where the Ethiopian military is fighting local forces.

“He has worked in neighboring countries to condemn the war. He has worked for them to get weapons,” Berhanu said. He offered no evidence to support his accusations.

Tedros rejected the claims. “There have been reports suggesting I am taking sides in this situation,” he said in a statement Thursday. “This is not true, and I want to say that I am on only one side, and that is the side of peace.”

While Tedros is better known as one of the public faces of the international effort to fight the coronavirus pandemic that has ravaged the world, he is also a high-ranking member of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the political party that rules Tigray and is now in open conflict with Ethiopia’s central government.

“This man is a member of that group, and he has been doing everything to support them,” Berhanu said.

ContinueReading

International Men's Day Divides People as Some Joke and Others Speak About Mental Health

 Newsweek.com -November 19 has marked International Men's Day for over 20 years, but the day has become a point of debate. Many people mocked it online on Thursday, while others made a point to highlight the reasons it began—to bring awareness to men's mental health.

Begun in 1999, International Men's Day was imagined as a way to highlight awareness for men's health and mental health, as well as to promote gender equality and celebrate male role models, according to the International Men's Day website. The website also notes that the day of recognition wasn't intended to compete with or be a response to International Women's Day.

Despite the purpose behind the day, a number of Twitter users made jokes about International Men's Day on Thursday, saying they would partake in silly, traditionally "masculine" activities. One comedian remarked that she planned on watching a Jackass movie to celebrate, while another person shared a video of a young man jumping onto a pile of barbed wire. Someone else pointed out that International Men's Day also falls on World Toilet Day, which it does.

While there were plenty of jokes and criticism to be made, many people used the day as an opportunity to encourage men to speak about their feelings and not be afraid to ask for help when struggling, especially with mental health issues. A number of people, such as London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey, highlighted that men account for most of all suicides and sought to end stigma about men discussing their problems. "We must be able to talk about challenges men face.

Related: TOP 10 REASONS THERE WILL NEVER BE AN INTERNATIONAL MEN’S DAY

Capitalism Will Ruin the Earth By 2050, Scientists Say

Vice.com- A spate of new scientific research starkly lays out the choice humankind faces in coming decades: 

By 2050, we could retain high levels of GDP, at the price of a world wracked by minerals and materials shortages, catastrophic climate change, and a stuttering clean energy transition —paving the way for a slowly crumbling civilization. 

Or, we could ditch the GDP fetish and enter a world of abundance, with energy consumption safely contained within planetary boundaries, and high-tech economies that support jobs, health and education for everyone without costing the earth. ContinueReading