THIS IS THE VIEW from the other porch. Front? Back? A matter of perspective, I guess.

A PICTURE FROM MY FRONT PORCH this evening. (Or maybe it’s the back porch, since it’s the side away from the ocean).

Anyway, hope you’re having a nice weekend.

VIRGINIA POSTREL REMEMBERS THE 1960s AND 1970s as they really were. Meanwhile Andrew Sullivan offers some historical perspective of his own.

And here’s a historical perspective roundup from Oxblog.

Finally, here’s perspective of a different kind. Heh.

UPDATE: And here’s a perspective that some people won’t like.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: A new paper suggests that the danger of runaway replicators and “gray goo” is rather exaggerated.

DONALD SENSING has lots of interesting posts. Just keep scrolling.

A BLOG-ONLY NEWS DIET? Interesting report, but I don’t see blogs in general — and certainly not InstaPundit — as a primary news source. InstaPundit is an opinion blog (see, er, the name and the motto), not a news service. I do try to call attention to stories that I think deserve more attention than they’re getting from Big Media outlets, but that very effort means that InstaPundit isn’t going to be “balanced.”

Of course, reading about the stories that the Poynter report linked above treats as undercovered in the blogosphere also tells you something about the seriousness of Big Media in that regard. Paul McCartney and Harry Potter? Love ’em both, but there’s not much actual news in those stories. . . .

UPDATE: Related thoughts here. And, perhaps, here.

WILL COLLIER looks at the latest Pew Poll and observes: “For all intents and purposes, more than half of the populace (everybody except partisan Democrats, and even their numbers for credibility are nothing for most of the press to brag about) has written off the vast majority of the national press. And they’re doing so because they believe that the press has written them off.”

And an example of what he’s talking about, here.

(Here, too.)

I’M NOT THINKING ABOUT THE WAR this week, but The Belmont Club is.

LONG LIFE AND ITS ENEMIES: My TechCentralStation column is up.

JAMES LILEKS has an interesting take on this Disney wartime DVD set. It almost makes me wish I’d brought it to the beach. But in fact we haven’t watched any of the videos we brought — non-swimming and non-fishing time has been filled with checkers, Monopoly, and — best of all — sitting on the porch talking. The DVDs won’t come out unless the weather turns sour.

If you’ve been trying to reach me by email, well, don’t hold your breath for a reply. I’ve only been online at all because the InstaWife keeps checking her email and her film website daily. And based on my cursory look, the blogosphere seems to be doing just fine without me. See you later!

UPDATE: Major John Tammes emails from Bagram, Afghanistan:

Please take your vacation. I mean TAKE YOUR VACATION. Stop posting – I thought Lileks had set you straight, Mr. Not A Public Utility. I want you to come back rested and refreshed. See you in a week…

When people are emailing you from a war zone to tell you to take it easy, well, it can’t be good. . . .

JOANNE JACOBS notes the sad fate of a teacher who knew too much. God forbid that students should learn the wrong things. . . .

STEPHEN BAINBRIDGE has thoughts on positive and negative rights.

Meanwhile Megan McArdle has some related thoughts, in response to William Saletan. “But it is Saletan who appears confused, not Reagan. What he is describing is not liberty; it is security. Security is also valuable and good, but it is not the same thing as liberty.” (Via Stephen Green, who’s on a roll).

I’M ON AN ISLAND with nothing but dialup and no news. But Daniel Drezner’s first post is up over at GlennReynolds.com — it’s on offshore outsourcing.

How out of it am I? I didn’t know that Ronald Reagan had died until I saw a guy carrying a “commemorative edition” newspaper. But TechCentralStation has more, for those of you who are still plugged in. So does Andrew Sullivan, and, of course, The Corner. Also check out Virginia Postrel, Hugh Hewitt, and Kaus. And James Lileks observes:

“The people have spoken, the idiots,” I wrote in my journal after he was elected in 1980. I was living in a boarding house a block from the Valli, an English major at the U, a college paper columnist taking all the usual brave stances: Republicans are repressed hypocrites, Playboy insults women, etc. . . .

I am reminded of the thrill I got when I heard the words “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” Because you can sum up Reagan’s legacy by polling any random high-schooler and reading that line.

“What wall?” they’d probably ask.

The wall, kid. You know: The Wall. The fortified gash. The thin lethal line that stood between tyranny and freedom. I mean, we lived in a time when there was a literal wall between those concepts, and we still didn’t get it.

Back later.