Maria Botha

Light & Love in abundance to ALL

[Maria Botha @mariabotha]

@FraserTheDude 😂😂

[Tigrino @itsTigrino]

hi. I'm Tigrino.

I'm 3 pounds, 10 years old, and the only known cat of my species. A man found me on a road in Bolivia as a kitten and thought I was a house cat. I was not. In 2017 he gave me to @La_Senda_Verde and this week scientists named my species after 9 years of trying to figure out what I am.

In the 24 hours after that, strangers on the internet sent my sanctuary over $100,000.

I don't understand any of this. I just eat.

https://t.co/5htor5o7Bx

[🦋 🌷Love Music 🎶 & Dance 💃🏻🕺🏻 @Tiana_Celine_23]

30 years and still fantastic.

[Paul Embery @PaulEmbery]

Goosebumps.

For all its faults, Western Christian culture is still worth defending.

[Maria Botha @mariabotha]

@FraserTheDude Absolutely

[Maria Botha @mariabotha]

@raasmuis Dit Bliksemstrale Donderweer op Weskus

[Karyn Maughan @karynmaughan]

What a beautiful ending to an incredible sporting contest.
South Africa versus New Zealand.

❤️🇿🇦❤️🇳🇿❤️

[UNIQLO_Sports @UQAmb_Sports]

@rogerfederer meets with legendary graphic designer Karel Martens at his studio to see the court design for today’s event: Around the World with Roger Federer: Open Court Amsterdam.

[🎹El Pianista🎹 @juanmi_almeria]

Y ya que estamos casi terminando el verano, así suena la “tormenta” de Verano de las 4 estaciones de Vivaldi al órgano clásico…

[Jessica Meir @Astro_Jessica]

Curly-haired crew, this one’s for you! 🌀🚀👩🏻‍🦱 Join me in my temporary home on the @Space_Station, where curls are even more free to be what they want to be. Ever wonder how I care for my curls in space?…where my Earthly 3a curls become more like 3c, my hair finds every piece of velcro it can, and I STILL don’t need a brush!

There are definitely some major pros to my space hair, like not having to put it up when I work out. 💪

I’m looking forward to an Earth shower when I get back, though. 🚿🌎

[Ernst @raasmuis]

I’m a leaver. I will leave the table when it gets disrespectful, no matter how long we have known each other or how many memories we have made together…
Even if people try to make me feel guilty for leaving, I will still go. They might say I am too sensitive or making a big deal out of nothing, but I know in my heart when something is no longer good for me.
So yes, I will always choose to leave when it gets disrespectful. I know it's hard to say goodbye to people who once meant so much to me, but my peace and my worth are more important than any table or any person who cannot treat me with respect.
And if I have to sit alone for a while, that's okay. Because at the end of the day, I will always choose my self-respect over anything.
Choose wisely… on this Chooseday

[Maria Botha @mariabotha]

@FraserTheDude Well said

[BoknRoll @BoknRoll]

Band name idea:

Legal Straightforward Dominance

[Keshvibez @keshvibezTV]

Ever wonder how the world's most sophisticated secret agent handles a high stakes casino night on a strict government budget?

(Spoiler: Not very well when the drinks are shaken, not stirred, and the bills are piling up!)

[Maria Botha @mariabotha]

@raasmuis Was so met n bietjie ekstra liefde hier in Langebaan…..nou tjoepstil

[Maria Botha @mariabotha]

@Carl_CE50

[Martina Navratilova @Martina]

Amazing!!!

[𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗠𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗰 ✨🎵 @Hoang_HQ]

There are rare moments when genre stops mattering.

Metallica wrote Nothing Else Matters as a heavy metal ballad — raw, dark, and defiant. MOZART HEROES take that same song and leave it with almost nothing: one cello, one acoustic guitar.

That is exactly why it works.

Without distortion, without a wall of amps, without drums, the arrangement has nowhere to hide. What remains is the composition itself. The cello becomes the voice. It carries Hetfield’s melody, but also the low end, turning grit into something deeper and more human. The guitar does not compete. It holds the ground — precise rhythm, clean arpeggios, just enough space for the cello to speak.

A great melody does not need armor. Play it loud or play it bare, and it still stands.

In a culture addicted to noise and overproduction, this version feels almost radical. Two instruments. No excess. Just the song, finally heard for what it always was.

That is why it still lasts.

[🦋 🌷Love Music 🎶 & Dance 💃🏻🕺🏻 @Tiana_Celine_23]

Why Rita Moreno Still Stops You Cold

Some clips age. This one doesn’t.

In 1976, Rita Moreno walked onto The Muppet Show in a red dress and sang Fever while Animal tried to beat the drums into dust. The song is about heat. The show is for families. That should have been a problem. It wasn’t. She made it look easy.

She doesn’t just look beautiful in the clip. She looks in charge. The hair, the dress, the way she holds still and then moves — none of it feels decorative. It feels like a person who knows exactly how much space she is allowed to take, and then takes a little more.

What still works is the mix. She can be glamorous and funny in the same breath. She sings the song like she means it, then turns on Animal, scolds him in Spanish, grabs his head, and tells him to cool it. Later she slams the cymbals on him. He falls over and says, “That’s my kind of woman.” The joke lands because she never begs for it. She stays in control until the last second.

That control is the point. Plenty of stars can look good on camera. Fewer can look good next to a wild puppet and still feel like the most adult person in the room. Moreno doesn’t protect her glamour. She uses it. She lets the scene get messy, then she ends it on her terms.

The performance also explains why the clip keeps coming back almost fifty years later. It is sexy without being cheap, comic without being silly, and polished without going cold. Children can watch the chaos. Adults can see the craft. Both remember her.

By then she already had an Oscar, a Tony, and a Grammy. This episode gave her an Emmy. Awards are not why the video still travels. The reason is simpler. She had presence. Not the kind that asks to be liked. The kind that makes you watch until the last line.

Rita Moreno did not stay famous because she stayed young. She stayed interesting because she never made herself smaller. In that red dress, in front of a Muppet drummer, she looks like a woman who can sing, joke, command, and walk away. That is still rare. That is why the clip still works.

[Benonwine @benonwine]

They told Édith Piaf she was finished. So she sang “I regret nothing.” and gave a performance that not only was iconic but would go on to live in history forever.

In December 1960 she was exhausted, gravely ill, and under doctors’ orders to stay off the stage.

The Olympia was facing bankruptcy. Most people thought her career was already over.

She walked out anyway.

A few weeks earlier Charles Dumont and Michel Vaucaire had brought her a new song: Non, je ne regrette rien.

She heard it once and claimed it as her own no sentiment, no softness, only a driving march and absolute moral force.

Her posture was famously minimal she stood standing motionless in her simple black dress, letting her hands and voice carry the entire drama. She did not perform the song. She inhabited it.

That night she saved a theatre and turned a personal reckoning with loss into one of the century’s great statements of endurance.

Frail in body, inexhaustible in spirit, she remains one of the most iconic singers the 20th century ever produced.

The Little Sparrow did not fly away.
She simply refused to land.