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Aww! I have two brother cats who are ten years. They are Ginger colored. One is named Amour and the other Magic. I wish I could post photos of them. They have been a great comfort to me during the pandemic. Now, they are fighting with each other and sometimes brothers do. I was watching TV and they had something on about 9/11 tomorrow and I had to turn it off as I live 15 minutes from the WTC. I can't believe it's been 22 years already!

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Lisa, your comment immediately provokes two responses from me, one about the World Trade Center attacks, the other about a possible relative of yours!

(1) Living in the NYC area then and now as you are (I am in Minneapolis, our connections to 9/11 were and are real, but it's just NOT THE SAME THING) seems like the mass media (as usual) really does not take into account how fraught with emotion some of their memorial / anniversary features about the WTC-Pentagon-United Flight 93 events are for direct observers, and with their own family and friends, co-workers, people the knew growing up, etc. involved, possibly even killed or severely injured, those "We remember 9/11" programs are such a mixed-bag.

(2) If this guy is related to you, I have read several of his books, and highly instructive they are!

Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik[a] (August 17 [O.S. August 4] 1911 – May 5, 1995) was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster. The sixth World Chess Champion, he also worked as an electrical engineer and computer scientist and was a pioneer in computer chess.

Playing strength and style

Further information: Comparison of top chess players throughout history

Reuben Fine, writing in 1976, observed that Botvinnik was at or near the top of the chess world for thirty years—from 1933, when he drew a match against Flohr, to 1963, when he lost the world championship for the final time, to Petrosian—"a feat equaled historically only by Emanuel Lasker and Wilhelm Steinitz".[77] The statistical rating system used in Raymond Keene and Nathan Divinsky's book Warriors of the Mind concludes that Botvinnik was the fourth strongest player of all time: behind Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov and Bobby Fischer but ahead of José Raúl Capablanca, Lasker, Viktor Korchnoi, Boris Spassky, Vasily Smyslov and Tigran Petrosian.[59] The Chessmetrics system is sensitive to the length of the periods being compared but places Botvinnik third in a comparison of players' best individual years (1946 for Botvinnik) and sixth in a comparison of fifteen-year periods (1935–1949 in Botvinnik's case).[78][79] In 2005, Chessmetrics' creator Jeff Sonas wrote an article which examined various ways of comparing the strength of "world number one" players, some not based on Chessmetrics; and Botvinnik generally emerged as one of the top six (the greatest exceptions were in criteria related to tournament results).[80] FIDE did not adopt the Elo rating system until 1970, by which time Botvinnik's strength had been declining for several years. According to unofficial calculations by Arpad Elo, Botvinnik was the highest-rated player from 1937 to 1954, peaking about 2730 in 1946.[81]

Botvinnik was the first world-class player to develop within the Soviet Union. He also played a major role in the organization of chess, making a significant contribution to the design of the World Chess Championship system after World War II and becoming a leading member of the coaching system that enabled the Soviet Union to dominate top-class chess during that time. His pupils include World Champions Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik.

***** Russian: Михаи́л Моисе́евич Ботви́нник, pronounced [mʲɪxɐˈil məɪˈsʲejɪvʲɪdʑ bɐˈtvʲinʲːɪk].

I ask also because it's my nature to ask questions, and because "every chess player needs a hobby!"

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I have many boxes but no cats! Sad.

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Lucian,

I've been waiting for a kitten update. How many are you down to now?

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Four: Tazzy (in photo); Graycie, the mommy; Uno (in photo); and his brother Tuli, named of course after that famous member of the Fugs and old friend, Tuli Kupferberg.

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Cats are so easily satisfied.

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So Sweet...good for your mental health!

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Awwww...they’re nice and snug in their beds as it rains. Have a peaceful evening.

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This image of two cats in boxes on a rainy night is comforting! Thank you for sharing!

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Its so true, my two cats love sitting on boxes.

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My three love their boxes, too. Wintertime, I line them with blanket squares and they are cozy and warm. Yours are just precious!

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purrrrrrrrrrrfect

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I❤️YourCat -

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They’re beauties

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Relaxed and attentive at the same time. Cats, you gotta love them.

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Closer to their wandering free and wild ancestors than dogs, but they're all great, octopuses too!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Octopus_Teacher

My Octopus Teacher is a 2020 Netflix Original documentary film directed by Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed, which documents a year spent by filmmaker Craig Foster forging a relationship with a wild common octopus in a South African kelp forest. At the 93rd Academy Awards, it won the award for Best Documentary Feature.[2][3]

Synopsis

In 2018, Craig Foster began free-diving in a cold underwater kelp forest at a remote location in False Bay, near Cape Town, South Africa.[4][5] The location was near Simon's Town on the Cape Peninsula,[6] which is exposed to the cold Benguela current of the Atlantic Ocean.[7]

He started to document his experiences and, in time, met a curious young octopus that captured his attention. The film shows Foster's growing intimate relationship with the octopus as he follows her around for nearly a year. They form a bond where she plays with Foster and allows him into her world to see how she sleeps, lives, and eats. She frequently has to defend herself against pyjama sharks. In one attack upon her, the octopus loses an arm, and retreats to her den to recover, slowly regenerating the arm over three months. In a later shark attack, she shows an incredibly improved creativity to survive, including sticking on the shark's back. After mating with a male octopus and producing numerous eggs, she dies naturally while tending to her eggs. Later, a shark scavenges her dead body and carries it off.

Foster describes the effect of this mentorship-like relationship the octopus provided him, teaching him a lesson on the fragility of life and humanity's connection with nature.[8] This transfers to Foster creating a deeper bond with his son, Tom Foster, as his son develops as a diver and marine biology student.

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Richard, it was a stupendous movie. I learned so much and often think of their relationship. I love all living creatures too, except, maybe mosquitoes.....and humans, some of them.

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Wonderful film. Distrust of our fellow humans, well some of them anyway, what could be better supported by concrete, first-person, direct, non-inferential experience?!

Some people learn from all sorts of animals, though, even spiders! On this day in 1297 in the war for Scottish Independence, William Wallace defeated the English at the Battle of Stirling Bridge. Years later, Robert the Bruce was in a despairing state - he observed a patient spider spinning a web, or so the story goes, and the rest is history! www.onthisday.com/people/william-wallace?utm_source=On+This+Day+in+History+by+OnThisDay.com&utm_campaign=a80c8a9cd6-DE+UE&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b15ebf209d-a80c8a9cd6-113015329 *****

During the summer of 1306, Robert's army was handily defeated in a string of battles. Far worse, three of his brothers were captured and brutally killed (hung, drawn and quartered, of course), and Robert's wife and daughter were held prisoner in England.

According to legend, Robert fled to an island off the West Coast of Scotland to hide out for the winter. It was there, in a coastal cave that Robert had a life-changing vision. He saw a spider dangling from a silken thread trying over and over again to weave its web. And each time it fell, it pulled itself up to try once again. Robert vowed that he, too, wouldn't give up until the battle was won.

"Scottish writers intended [the apocryphal spider story] to be seen as a kind of penance," says Brown. "Robert the Bruce had done wrong, broken God's law and had to pay a price. The defeats, the slights, the death of his brothers, the imprisonment of his wife and daughter, are all part of that. Once he's expiated the sins he committed, it's all about Robert not giving up, not capitulating.

history.howstuffworks.com/historical-figures/robert-the-bruce.htm

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"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats." -- Albert Schweitzer.

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They are precious. And what a great photo. The framed cat print on the wall behind Tazzy looks like Tazzy in print. And Uno looks very self assured and quite comfortable.

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Wait a minute. Tracy said they were plotting world domination. (If they were, I'm not sure I'd mind, given some of the alternatives.)

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