Word: utilitarian
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...among their more sybaritic legacies are the hammams (bathhouses) found in the city of Granada. They were originally inspired by Roman baths, but the Moorish versions took opulence to new heights - featuring stuccoed alcoves, lavish geometric mosaics and horseshoe arches. The functions of the hammams weren't strictly utilitarian either: they were used by both sexes as places to drink tea and socialize as well as to maintain personal hygiene. For cloistered Muslim women, a morning at the hammam was a welcome chance to groom, gossip and spot potential brides for their sons. Today, visitors to Granada's two surviving...
...laws and lore, and it's for us to learn and practice what they teach. For a hell-raising species like ours, however--with too much intelligence for our own good and too little discipline to know what to do with it--there have always been other, more utilitarian reasons to get religion. Chief among them is survival. Across the eons, the structure that religion provides our lives helps preserve both mind and body. But that, in turn, has raised a provocative question, one that's increasingly debated in the worlds of science and religion: Which came first...
What is trans-toying? It's an industry term for taking everyday utilitarian objects and turning them into toys. It's turning a shampoo container into a toy by putting a character on top or on a toothbrush. It's turning a Band-Aid into a tattoo, a food into...
...tourist board have joined together to form Vitrocristal ACE, an organization to market a new range of glass called Marinha Grande, or mglass. Drawing on the work of 18 local companies and 24 young designers, mglass is giving a modern marketing push to designs that hark back to their utilitarian past, produced using skills that still take a decade to learn. Pick up a Glass Route "passport" from local tourist offices which will get you into the Glass Museum and the factories to see glassmaking the old-fashioned way - and if you ask nicely you may get to blow...
...names go, "union for a presidential Majority" was too baldly utilitarian for the fractious alliance of conservative parties cobbled together to secure President Jacques Chirac's victory in the May 2002 election. But when the party later opted to keep the initials - ump - but change the name to Union for a Popular Movement, the idea certainly wasn't to launch a popular movement against the President himself. Lately, however, it's beginning to seem that way. Ever since the French right was slaughtered in March 28 regional elections, frustration within the ump has been deep - and its founding father...