<i> A look at noteworthy addresses in the Southland.</i>

Los Angeles Riot “In situations like these it is easy to look for simple answers. And we have certainly heard a lot of them, from the assertion that civil rights policies of the ‘60s and ‘70s caused the riots, to the suggestion that it was precisely the withdrawal of these policies in the 1980s that caused them. We see that once again America has been brought to the brink of disaster seemingly because of the issue of race. How do we get beyond all of this and hit upon constructive solutions to deep-seated problems in the human condition?

“Putting aside the injustice of the Rodney King verdicts for a moment, in fact, many of the victims of the riots were victimized by members of their own race; my race. As one young African-American student in an honors inner-city English class put it, ‘Some were doing it just to be doing it.’ In moments of great civil upheaval, like riots or revolutions, individuals can be swept along and in some cases deeply regret behavior that seemed somehow reasonable, even fun, at the moment.” The Future “It is time for people of any race or background to stop blaming people from other races or backgrounds for all the difficulties that confront them in their lives. This is true for white people as well as people of color. We are all God’s children.

“It is time for those in power to bend their efforts not to maximize the well-being of just those who are already the most fortunate, but of those who are the least fortunate among us. . . . If the world’s growing environmental problems teach us nothing else, they teach us that there is no longer a drawbridge to raise, a protected place to run to where we can safely be with PLU’s--i.e., people like us. When acid rain falls, just like regular rain, it falls equally on the rich and the poor.”

Looking Ahead * Wednesday: Anatoly Sobchak, mayor of St. Petersburg, Russia, will speak at 8 p.m. at the Beverly Hilton. Sponsored by Town Hall. Call (213) 628-8141

* Thursday: Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan-Maguire, co-founder, Northern Ireland Community of the Peace People, will speak to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council at 7:30 p.m. at the J. W. Marriott in Century City. Call (213) 628-2333

* Thursday: Hans K. Schneider, chairman, Council of Economic Experts for the German government, will speak to Town Hall at 12:40 p.m., at the Sheraton Grande. Call (213) 628-8141.

Announcements concerning prominent speakers in Los Angeles should be sent to Speaking Up, c/o Times researcher Michael Meyers, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053