Today’s Agenda

All over Southern California, the tension of the long wait for the second Rodney King trial verdict has been released. But despite the near-universal sense of relief, there’s no unanimity on the question of whether justice was done, or on what the next steps ought to be in bolstering a fragile, battered sense of community.

What does come through in a special Platform page of responses to the verdict is a strong desire for a brighter future and sense that it can only come about with a commitment of time, effort and money from government, corporations and residents.

Business people in areas torn by last year’s riots say they feel abandoned. Black and Korean business people alike feel the rebuilders’ promises haven’t yet been kept. And in a wider sense, “Justice has not been served until the economic issues have been dealt with,” as one respondent put it.

A number of people expressed apprehension about the sentencing of the two convicted LAPD officers in a few weeks, and this summer’s scheduled trial of the young men accused of beating trucker Reginald Denny during last spring’s disturbances.

The overall sense is that a big hurdle has been passed--but that the city is far from healed and people’s fears are far from banished. There are calls for help from the federal government on down. And from the mayor of Santa Monica comes a reminder: “Now we have to concentrate on how all the pieces of our community fit together, to see it as a whole. All of us . . . need to be aware when things aren’t going well in another part of (greater Los Angeles), and to be part of the solution.”

*

Venice, California. It’s not even a separate town from Los Angeles, but plenty of people think it’s on another planet--a reputation that Venetians pretty much relish. In the Neighborhood outlines the community improvements, from rebuilding canals to planting trees, that make Venetians proud, as well as the safety concerns that are driving boardwalk merchants to consider hiring a private security force. The L.A. force is too thinly spread, they say. There’s precedent for private patrols in Venice’s Oakwood neighborhood, where the Nation of Islam has been providing supplemental patrols.

*

F or clarity of argument, turn to a 6th-grader. That would be the conclusion from reading the Youth opinion by Lara Kislinger, arguing that discrimination against gays is not really any different from racial or ethnic discrimination.

You can agree with her or not, she says, but at least the issue has developed her sense of political awareness.

In Second Opinion, we hear from La Opinion about a current wave of proposed anti-immigrant legislation, and from a young Japanese-American cartoonist published in Rafu Shimpo.

*

Crime, schools, recession--hey, those are the big issues. But what really gets people’s goat is often much smaller stuff. Leaf blowers, for instance. In Gripe, one deafened citizen lets loose at the infernal machines, wishing fervently for the return of the rake.