Today’s Agenda

A recent national study by the Josephson Institute of Los Angeles found one-third of teen-agers willing to lie to get a job and said that a majority have cheated at least once on an exam. Close to one-third admitted to shoplifting. What to make of this apparent bottomless ethical chasm? In Youth opinion, Southern California high school students remind us that if parents and schools don’t make ethical and moral teachings a part of everyday life, kids aren’t likely to absorb the right values. Everyone, they think, has to take more responsibility.

Moral drift has far-reaching consequences, says Karen D. Carranza of Norwalk High School: “If we would have confronted gangs with all our might when it was a small problem, (society) could have stopped what is today an epidemic of senseless violence.”

Another says, “The schools are teaching low morals and bad ethics by even considering to pass out condoms. I definitely believe that it would be too dangerous to leave the teaching of morals up to the schools.”

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Last spring’s troubles gave Leimert Park, a predominantly African-American middle-class neighborhood in South Los Angeles, a new sense of urgency about revamping the area’s commercial strip. In the Neighborhood visits Leimert Park, whose art galleries, boutiques and jazz clubs lend it an enviable reputation. Some residents say the community really needs a shopping district that includes a grocery store, pharmacy and office space. Others, however, believe more business development will price those who give the community its special flavor out of the area.

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Joan Kagan, past president of the California League of Alternative Service Programs, Gripes that because of cash-starved counties, the courts are now imposing more fines for certain offenses rather than using the community-service option. Schools and other agencies are asking where all the help has gone. Says Kagan, “The schools are run down; they don’t have the help to clean them like they should. Court-referred volunteers are doing a lot of that.”

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The recent Laguna Beach assault brings into focus not only gay-bashing but also the hidden topic of homosexuality among Vietnamese-Americans. In Community Essay, Daniel Tsang writes about a group founded by Hoang Dien Pham, a self-employed businessman, which has helped many Vietnamese-Americans reveal their homosexuality to their families. Pham, who is not gay, said he started the group after his gay brother, a Catholic who could not accept his sexuality, committed suicide at age 28.

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I n Somalia, U.S. Marines are destroying guns to halt random and tribal violence. This is being hailed as the humanitarian thing to do. Why--some people wonder--can’t our own government take control of the situation here and begin to ban guns? Platform explores this question--and not everyone agrees.

Former gang member Clarence Williams believes that “tougher laws, not banned guns, will head off the violence in our streets.”