Sunday/Blind

On this day:
44 BC
Julius Caesar, Dictator of the Roman Republic, is stabbed to death by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, Decimus Junius Brutus and several other Roman senators on the Ides of March.
1545
First meeting of the Council of Trent.
1781
American Revolutionary War: Battle of Guilford Courthouse – Near present-day Greensboro, North Carolina, 1,900 British troops under General Charles Cornwallis defeat an American force numbering 4,400.
1783
In an emotional speech in Newburgh, New York, George Washington asks his officers not to support the Newburgh Conspiracy. The plea is successful and the threatened coup d'état never takes place.
1917
Tsar Nicholas II of Russia abdicates the Russian throne and his brother the Grand Duke becomes Tsar.
1933
Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss keeps members of the National Council from convening, starting the austrofascist dictatorship.1952
In Cilaos, Réunion, 1870 mm (73 inches) of rain falls in a 24 hour period, setting a new world record (March 15 through March 16).
1985
The first Internet domain name is registered (symbolics.com).

***

"Gentlemen, you must pardon me. I have grown gray in your service and now find myself growing blind." This is Washington, putting on his glasses and reading his response to the "Newburgh Conspiracy" raised in his officer corps against the American civil government.

***

The great problem in assessing recent years is not that Trump is a resurgence of the common man. Nor is his assumption of power greater than the government's assumption during the Biden Regency. Biden was non compos but someone--or many someones--thought they were competent to run the government without public approval or oversight, too. One is a governing blusterer, the other a governing, blustering shadow.

***

Researchers discover ketogenic diet prevents seizures by altering gut bacteria, stabilizing brain activity in epilepsy patients.

***

The nighttime habit that wrecks memory? Checking your phone and sleep fragmentation. Even brief awakenings and light exposure can impair the brain’s overnight memory consolidation.

***

This year, there will be over 9 billion--BILLION--trips from China.

***

This is not a war. And the border is closed.

Are these people any different, ever?

***

Sunday/Blind

Today was known as Lumen Christi, "The Light of Christ." It was accompanied by a ceremony of light-bearing and exchange.

Today's gospel is rich with metaphor, symbolism, and a hint of revolution, all delivered in a peculiar vaudevillian tone. It mixes light and dark, the physical and the immaterial, the visible and the invisible. In it, Christ encounters and heals a blind man on the Sabbath. First, He dismisses the old idea that the man's infirmities are due to his or his parents' sin. Then, the man presents himself to the priests, who are divided—some are amazed, others indignant that the healing was done on the Sabbath. Finally, Christ flips the lesson, suggesting that sin is a kind of blindness of the soul that hampers the spirit. Throughout, there is the revolutionary idea of human freedom and responsibility, and the danger of rigid social constructs—this was two thousand years ago.
The debate is funny, almost a parody of bureaucracy and decision-making. and eventually, the blind man's provenance is established by Christ's detractors.

And there's another provocative thing: After the blind man is cured, Christ seeks him out.



Going Blind by Rainer Maria Rilke

She sat just like the others at the table.
But on second glance, she seemed to hold her cup
a little differently as she picked it up.
She smiled once. It was almost painful.

And when they finished and it was time to stand
and slowly, as chance selected them, they left
and moved through many rooms (they talked and laughed),
I saw her. She was moving far behind

the others, absorbed, like someone who will soon
have to sing before a large assembly;
upon her eyes, which were radiant with joy,
light played as on the surface of a pool.

She followed slowly, taking a long time,
as though there were some obstacle in the way;
and yet: as though, once it was overcome,
she would be beyond all walking, and would fly.


On His Blindness by John Milton

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."

SatStats

On this day:

44 BC
Casca, Cicero, and Cassius decided, in the night before the Assassination of Julius Caesar, that Mark Antony should stay alive.
1757
Admiral Sir John Byng is executed by firing squad aboard HMS Monarch for breach of the Articles of War.
1780
American Revolutionary War: Spanish forces capture Fort Charlotte in Mobile, Alabama, the last British frontier post capable of threatening New Orleans in Spanish Louisiana.
1942
Orvan Hess and John Bumstead became the first in the world to successfully treat a patient, Anne Miller, using penicillin.
1964
A jury in Dallas, Texas, finds Jack Ruby guilty of killing Lee Harvey Oswald, assumed assassin of John F. Kennedy

***

Voltaire referred to Byng’s execution in his satirical novel Candide: “In this country, it is wise to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.”

***

"The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money," Trump said Thursday on his social media site.
It was only last month, in his State of the Union address, that Trump had bragged about gas prices at $2.30 a gallon, a figure that has since soared more than 50% to a national average of $3.60 a gallon, according to AAA.

It's wonderful to be in a country where both contradictory options are the greatest ever seen.

***

Modern economic growth in its global form has done more for workers and the environment than any army of government inspectors, regulators, customs officers, or IRS accountants. We Americans are rich not because of unions or anti-trust or the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, but because, on the whole, we have let capitalism work.--mccloskey

***



SatStats

Only 1% of Americans identify as vegans, according to Gallup, while the same poll showed that 3% consider themselves vegetarian. Vegetarian restaurants have had a hard time of it.

*

   Environment:

Contrary to the EPA 2009 predictions, there has been a decline in smog levels from 1980 to 2024.

There has been no trend in hurricane numbers or intensities since 1973. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finds no change in global flooding.

There has been no trend in the EPA heat wave index since 1895, except for the 1930s.

Several studies show a decline in net mortality from heat and cold.

U.S. wildfires have declined sharply since 1926, and global wildfire acreage declined 24% between 1998 and 2015.

Global droughts have declined about 0.5% per decade since 1950.

Global per capita food production has increased 40% since 1980.

And the latest peer-reviewed research reports no acceleration globally in sea-level rise.

*

   Immigtation

15% of the population of Ireland entered the US between 1851 and 1860

9% of the population of Norway entered the US in the 1880s

6% of the population of Italy entered the US from about 1900-1910

*

Re: California's proposed 5% wealth tax: “Over 100,000 simulations with varying discount rates, wealth tax revenues, and lost income tax revenues associated with departures, we find that 71% of scenarios in which the Act is instituted yields a negative [net present value], signaling the Act would generate a net cost to the state of California,” the researchers wrote in a Thursday Substack post. The “average across these draws,” they say, “is –$24.7 billion.”

*

Iran is the size of Europe

*
 Argentines have more than $250 billion in dollars stashed at home, along with offshore accounts and safe-deposit boxes—some six times the reserves of the central bank.

But two years into Milei’s government, Argentines are easing their grip on their precious dollars.

Dollars held in the country’s banks by private-sector investors hit a record at the end of last year of nearly $37 billion, up 160% since Milei took office in December 2023, according to central-bank data.

*

People born in 1990 have double the risk of colon cancer and quadruple the risk of rectal cancer compared with people born in 1950

*

Germany’s population is projected to shrink by nearly 5 per cent within 25 years — a significantly steeper decline than previously forecast, according to an Ifo study.

*

In ten-generation world calibrations, Muslims become the largest tradition.

*

In 2025, roughly 60,000 new swimming pools were built in the U.S. That's down about 40% from 2022 and approximately half the peak seen during the Covid-era boom.

Lies and Policy

On this day:

624
Battle of Badr: a key battle between Muhammad’s army, the new followers of Islam, and the Quraish of Mecca. The Muslims won this battle, known as the turning point of Islam, which took place in the Hejaz region of western Arabia.
1781
William Herschel discovers Uranus.
1865
American Civil War: The Confederate States of America agree to the use of African American troops.
1881
Alexander II of Russia is killed near his palace when a bomb is thrown at him. (Gregorian date: it was March 1 in the Julian calendar then in use in Russia.)
1921
Mongolia, under Baron Roman Ungern von Sternberg, declares its independence from China.
1938
Anschluss of Austria to the Third Reich.
1954
Battle of Điện Biên Phủ: Viet Minh forces attack the French.
1964
American Kitty Genovese is murdered, reportedly in view of neighbors who did nothing to help her, prompting research into the bystander effect.
1969
Apollo program: Apollo 9 returns safely to Earth after testing the Lunar Module.

***

“Europe can no longer be a custodian for the old-world order” and needs a “more realistic and interest-driven foreign policy”--Ursula von der Leyen

***

Not developing our own shale gas reserves has a huge opportunity cost.
It got a lot huger this week--Ridley

***

The Bank of England has confirmed Sir Winston Churchill will be scrapped from banknotes and replaced with images of wildlife.

***

Is trade across the borders of Ohio and Pennsylvania economically distinct from trade between Ohio and Alaska? France?

***

The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has issued a sharp rebuke to the US government over its decision to temporarily lift sanctions on the sale of Russian oil in the wake of sharply rising energy prices, saying the decision was wrong.

***


Lies and Policy

Chris Coyne recently reviewed The Kissinger Tapes: Inside His Secretly Recorded Phone Conversations. One snippet:

"Since Kissinger did not intend his transcripts to be public, the collection is a window both into him as a person and into the operations of the U.S. national security state. Four themes stand out.

The first is the sheer prevalence of systematic deception. For Kissinger, lies weren’t a strategic tool limited to selective uses in international statecraft. They appear to have been part of his personal makeup. Wells notes that he was “a habitual and easy liar.” Throughout the transcripts, he deceives his foreign counterparts, his colleagues, and the media."

The border is secure, the President is sharp as a tack, 1619, Anna Anderson is Princess Anastasia, “Russians Hungry But not Starving,” there would be no war if the Sudeten lands were turned over to Germany, the Chernobyl evacuation was precautionary and temporary,“ Saddam Hussein possessed biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction,” American boys will not be asked to fight an Asian war...

We poor Americans are inundated by the free speech avalanche of self-serving mendacity

Lies are Procrustes' solution to stubborn truths. As with Kissinger, they have become part of our marrow.

Trade

On this day:

1994
The Church of England ordains its first female priests.
2009
Financier Bernard Madoff plead guilty in New York to scamming $18 billion, the largest in Wall Street history.
2011
A reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant melts and explodes and releases radioactivity into the atmosphere a day after Japan’s earthquake.

***


"If Patrick Henry thought that taxation without representation was bad, he should see how bad it is with representation."--The Old Farmer's Almanac

***

Shumer says the Voter ID is actually an ICE conspiracy!

***

Whole Foods in New York has a 'holding pen' for wealthy shoplifters, according to a funny article in NR. 'For some, a little thieving is their way to “protest” corporate America. For others, it’s an expression of the economic anxiety that accompanies living in “an unaffordable city.” DeLigter deemed it “a form of collective nihilism.”'...'The biggest revelation here is that Whole Foods’ security guards seem to evince “glee” while doing their jobs. Who wouldn’t? The opportunity to impose consequences on people who appear to have avoided them deep into adulthood isn’t an opportunity that comes around every day.'

***

Trump says the Iran "excursion" will keep us out of war.

***

David Bossie was exposed for allegedly raking in $18.5 million for an unauthorized group called the Presidential Coalition, which reportedly fooled senior citizens into thinking they were helping Trump-aligned candidates.
A large chunk of the funds went to buy books he co-authored with Lewandowski, though the former campaign manager was not directly implicated.

***

The Brits are getting rid of non-royals on their banknotes in favor of animals.
The monarch has appeared on Bank of England notes since 1960, and will continue to do so in the future. Images of historical characters, starting with William Shakespeare, were first seen on the reverse side a decade later.
The current crop on circulating notes, in ascending order of note value, are Sir Winston Churchill, Jane Austen, JMW Turner and Alan Turing.
The Bank found itself mired in controversy owing to the absence of any women, apart from Queen Elizabeth II on notes in 2013. There has never been a historical figure who is black or from an ethnic minority background on the Bank's notes.

***

Trade

Trade is equal exchange. Both parties give up something they do not want as badly as what they receive. Trade is an agreement that makes both parties happy, not a "negotiation" where on party is at a disadvantage. Trade is a tie petween wqual partners.

Trade is not just about exchanging value; it's about building relationships and trust. Trust is earned and developed over time through agreed-upon rules and market access. Therefore, it goes beyond simple transactions, creating an environment of civil order—benign, dependable relationships. It's a social atmosphere of well-intended order—a symphony of quality and cooperation.

What can upset the order? First, government intervention. The violinist is the vice-president's niece and should have a larger role. How about a drum solo? The rules change; the discussion distorts. Patronage and favors intrude. And imagine the bribery! The trust and stable trading field developed and nurtured over the years will slowly dissolve.

And what if the trade is twisted to exploit some national preconception, some state advantage? So trade was just a bargaining chip? That would overturn the table of careful trade-building and fairness.

Tariffs.

 

Iran Musing

On this day:

241 BC
First Punic War: Battle of the Aegates Islands – The Romans sink the Carthaginian fleet, bringing the First Punic War to an end.
1629
Charles I of England dissolves the Parliament, beginning the eleven-year period known as the Personal Rule.
1762
French Huguenot Jean Calas, who had been wrongly convicted of killing his son, dies after being tortured by authorities; the event inspired Voltaire to begin a campaign for religious tolerance and legal reform.
1804
Louisiana Purchase: In St. Louis, Missouri, a formal ceremony is conducted to transfer ownership of the Louisiana Territory from France to the United States.
1814
Napoleon I of France is defeated at the Battle of Laon in France.
1831
The French Foreign Legion is established by King Louis-Philippe to support his war in Algeria.
1848
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is ratified by the United States Senate, ending the Mexican-American War.
1876
Alexander Graham Bell makes the first successful telephone call by saying “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.”
1891
Almon Strowger, an undertaker in Topeka, Kansas, patents the Strowger switch, a device which led to the automation of telephone circuit switching.
1906
The Courrières mine disaster, Europe’s worst ever, kills 1099 miners in Northern France.
1922
Mahatma Gandhi is arrested in India, tried for sedition, and sentenced to six years in prison, only to be released after nearly two years for an appendicitis operation.
1945
The U.S. Army Air Force firebombs Tokyo, and the resulting firestorm kills more than 100,000 people, mostly civilians.
1952
Fulgencio Batista leads a successful coup in Cuba and appoints himself as the “provisional president”.
1959
Tibetan uprising: Fearing an abduction attempt by China, 300,000 Tibetans surround the Dalai Lama’s palace to prevent his removal
1980
Madeira School headmistress Jean Harris shoots and kills Scarsdale diet doctor Herman Tarnower
2006
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter arrives at Mars.

***“

"It does not sound crazy to a Silicon Valley executive that maybe they could be in charge instead of you,” AI alignment researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky warned politicians. “If they actually could control superintelligence, they’d discard you like used toilet paper.”
Great. Politicians as an abused group.

***

On 13–14 October 1761, one of the Calas sons, Marc-Antoine, was found dead on the ground floor of the family's home. Rumors had it that Jean Calas had killed his son because he intended to convert to Catholicism. When interrogated, the family initially claimed that Marc-Antoine had been killed by a murderer. Then they declared that they had found Marc-Antoine dead, hanged. Because suicide was considered a heinous crime against oneself, and the dead bodies of suicides were defiled, they had arranged for their son's suicide to look like a murder. The law thought the boy had been killed because of anti-Catholic fanaticism.trial/torture description is quite grim.
French philosopher Voltaire, after initial suspicions of anti-Catholic fanaticism were dispelled by his investigations, began a campaign to get Calas's sentence overturned, claiming that Marc-Antoine had committed suicide because of gambling debts and not being able to finish his university studies due to his denomination.

Voltaire's efforts were successful, and King Louis XV received the family and had the sentence annulled in 1764.

***

Two famous brothers who worked as real estate brokers have been convicted of drugging and raping dozens of women over the course of decades.
Tal Alexander, 39, and Oren Alexander, 38, rose to prominence from their sales of luxury real-estate properties in New York and Miami. Along with a third brother Alon, 38, a jury found all three guilty of sex trafficking by a jury in New York.

***

Is European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen overreaching?

The diplomats who spoke to POLITICO argued that von der Leyen’s flurry of tweets and conversations with Gulf leaders did not formally represent EU foreign policy positions. Critics also voiced skepticism about what von der Leyen, who has no military means at her disposal and has no mandate to shape EU-wide foreign policy positions, could be offering Gulf states under missile and drone attack from Iran.

“What exactly is she promising when she says we will support them?” asked Loiseau. “Who is ‘we’? For now, the support is the Charles de Gaulle [French aircraft carrier], Rafale jets in Abu Dhabi, and defense agreements with some countries.”

“What we’re seeing is role-play with nothing behind it,” said Loiseau, who belongs to French President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party. (Politico)

Ambition fills any vacuum.

***

Iran Musing

What was the impact of the B-2 bombing? Wasn't it supposed to make another attack unnecessary? What was the revelation that made this attack a next and necessary step? Have you ever heard of the "conventional-weapons-shield-of-nuclear-weapons thesis" the Americans used to justify it?

An unsubstantiated theory, i.e., out of whole cloth: Israel, for some reason (and their intel is very good), had decided to attack Iran again, and the Americans thought the appearance and power of the two together created a better public relations picture and gave them the appearance of control. America followed them in. (Warning: Made up.)

Iran had their own strange war moment. When it was clear they were getting clobbered, Iran began to attack everybody, old friends and foes alike.

There is a theory, the Sampson Theory, stating that Israel has no minor fight. Every struggle threatens their very existence. Any vulnerability was a step toward their eventual destruction. Every fight was a fight to the death. There would never be a compromise; there would never be a standing-eight count. They would never sue for peace.

And if it was clear that events had gone against them, that the tide was running in their enemy's favor, they, like Sampson, would pull the whole building down around their ears. They would put their 53 or so nukes in the air against every living target they could reach and turn the Middle East--and its oil--into a lifeless, useless husk of a place.

Perhaps that is what Iran planned too.

Procrustean Ideology

On this day:
141 BC
Liu Che, posthumously known as Emperor Wu of Han, assumes the throne over the Han Dynasty of China.
1566
David Rizzio, private secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots, is murdered in the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, Scotland.
1765
After a campaign by the writer Voltaire, judges in Paris posthumously exonerate Jean Calas of murdering his son. Calas had been tortured and executed in 1762 on the charge, though his son may have actually committed suicide.
1796
Napoléon Bonaparte marries his first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais.
1862
American Civil War: The USS Monitor and the CSS fight to a draw in the Battle of Hampton Roads, the first battle between two ironclad warships.
1916
Pancho Villa leads nearly 500 Mexican raiders in an attack against Columbus, New Mexico.
1945
The Bombing of Tokyo by the United States Army Air Forces began, one of the most destructive bombing raids in history.
1961
Sputnik 9 successfully launches, carrying a human dummy nicknamed Ivan Ivanovich, and demonstrating that the Soviet Union was ready to begin human spaceflight.
1977
The Hanafi Muslim Siege: In a thirty-nine-hour standoff, armed Hanafi Muslims seize three Washington, D.C., buildings, killing two and taking 149 hostage.
2011
Space Shuttle Discovery makes its final landing after 39 flights.

***

We suffer from the growth that comes from suffering.--thomas and wang

***

AI update. Entrepreneurs are recreating dead and absent relatives for wedding videos and other occasions. Very popular in India

***

The US is the only major destination in the world to see a decline in international travellers in 2025. So far, 2026 is getting worse.

Foreign airlines are cutting the number of US-bound flights. Disney warns of “international visitation headwinds.”

***

Pancho Villa was an occasional revolutionary and politician who played himself in a Hollywood movie. He was assassinated by, presumably, his political opponents and is alleged to have said to his bodyguard as he died, "Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something."

***

Procrustean Ideology

A new entrant on the Red Carpet of Big, Poorly-thought-out Ideas: The Center for American Progress, a prominent left-leaning think tank that often cultivates policy ideas the Democratic Party later adopts, proposed a two-year freeze on the prices of 24 food items, such as strawberries and ground beef.

Grocers would voluntarily agree to cap food prices in exchange for lower credit card transaction fees, according to the proposal, which was written by a group led by Jared Bernstein. Mr. Bernstein might have a peripheral thought process, but astonishingly, he is not a peripheral guy.  He chaired the White House Council of Economic Advisers during Joe Biden’s presidency.

This notion would, in effect, force credit card companies to absorb the cost of subsidizing food purchases. A draft of the proposal stated that the Federal Reserve could require credit card companies to do so through its regulatory oversight, though that provision was apparently removed after questions from The Washington Post.

It is not clear how else the government might persuade credit card companies to foot the bill, nor how many grocers would agree. Nor is it clear how the unwavering economic law that price controls create shortages would be expressed, as a shortage of food or of credit.

One wonders how someone who thinks like this could become in any way influential. But calling yourself a "think tank" shields you from a lot of sensible scrutiny.

Sunday/The End of History

On this day:

1618
Johannes Kepler discovers the third law of planetary motion.
1722
The Safavid Empire of Iran is defeated by an army from Afghanistan at The Battle of Gulnabad, pushing Iran into anarchy.
1736
Nader Shah, founder of the Afsharid dynasty, is crowned Shah of Iran.
1775
An anonymous writer, thought by some to be Thomas Paine, publishes “African Slavery in America”, the first article in the American colonies calling for the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of slavery.
1917
International Women’s Day protests in St. Petersburg mark the beginning of the February Revolution (so named because it was February on the Julian calendar)
1920
The Arab Kingdom of Syria, the first modern Arab state to come into existence, is established.

***

Keplar's three laws state that:

--The orbit of a planet is an ellipse with the Sun at one of the two foci.
--A line segment joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time.
--The square of a planet's orbital period is proportional to the cube of the length of the semi-major axis of its orbit.

***


More than 7,000 Middle East flights were cancelled between Saturday and Tuesday alone, stranding hundreds of thousands of passengers in what aviation experts are calling the worst global travel disruption since Covid grounded the world.

Dubai International Airport, normally the world's busiest international hub with millions of passengers transiting annually, sits empty.

Private jet brokers report charging up to $350,000 for flights from Riyadh to Europe.

***

The Supreme Court ruled in a landmark case that AI-generated art does not qualify for copyright protection.

***

At 4:52 p.m. Wednesday, with eight minutes left before Montana’s candidate filing deadline closed, Kurt Alme walked into the Secretary of State’s office and filed for the United States Senate.

He had never run for office. He had no campaign. He had no publicly released platform. He had no announcement, no press conference, no town halls, no conversations with voters. What he had — the only thing he needed — was Steve Daines on the phone and Donald Trump at the ready on Truth Social.

That is how Montana’s next Republican nominee for U.S. Senate was chosen. Not by you. By them. (Just in case anybody out there thinks the Republicans chose differently than the party that chose Hilary and Kamala.)

***

Sunday/The End of History

Today's gospel contains the focused drama of a short story; it is a virtual advertisement for the quality of the writing in the New Testament.
In it, Christ meets the Samaritan woman at Jacob's Well.

In this most social of places, she is alone, as is He. He asks her for a drink of water. And they talk. And something is wrong.

Just a few paragraphs, and there is so much going on. She is a Samaritan-- of Jewish heritage yet disdained by the Jews--at a well originally owned by a Jewish patriarch of the Old Testament. It is noon, the heat is at its height--why is she there at that time of day? And why alone?

She is uncomfortable with a Jew--and a man--asking her for water. She begins to spar a bit with Him as to how worship should be performed. Christ asks her to bring her husband; she says she has none, Christ agrees with her yet corrects her: She has had five and her current man is not her husband.

Now it is clear. The woman goes for water at the worst time of the day to avoid the criticism of the others; she is alone because she prefers it. She is an outcast among outcasts.

But Christ does not press her on her social circumstances. At the ancient Well, there is no history. There is no lecture, no scolding, no offer of forgiveness. And as we learn more of her, she learns more of Him.

The entire story--indeed her eventual conversion--is one of coming to knowledge, to understanding. And the transcendence of History.