BEYOND SIMPSON: The verbal pounding of the...

BEYOND SIMPSON: The verbal pounding of the Los Angeles Police Department after the O.J. Simpson acquittal hasn’t dampened the enthusiasm of its recruiters. They’ll be at Cal State Fullerton this morning seeking applicants for 1,000 jobs created by the mayor’s new public safety plan. . . . Says LAPD recruiting Sgt. Tom Smart: “The Police Department Mark Fuhrman described is as foreign to me as the Saudi Arabian army.” . . . However: New recruits can expect more rigorous testing about dealing with diverse groups. “It’s obviously a concern of ours,” Smart says.

DIVERSE IDEA: Despite budget cutbacks, Huntington Beach opened a branch library this summer in Oak View, the low-income, predominantly Latino neighborhood with the city’s highest crime rate--with community help in furnishing it. The goal, says Jan Halvorsen, library services manager: “To keep the children in school, help with their homework and create a parents’ literacy program.” . . . The city’s reward: It’s received the California League of Cities’ 1995 Helen Putnam Award for enhancing diversity.

KNOWS THE KEY: When the Alzheimer’s Assn. begins its annual Memory Walk at the Irvine Spectrum this morning, Lula Tennyson, 100, may finally get a challenge as its oldest walker. . . . “I’m glad,” says Tennyson, who lives in an Orange retirement center. “Somebody else should do a little bit too.” . . . Tennyson’s key to such good health at her age: “I never smoked, I never drank, I never chased a man.”

RAID REDUX: He hasn’t made the index of many history books, but Argentine pirate Hippolyte Bouchard led a short but successful raid on the San Juan Capistrano Mission in 1818--until Spanish reinforcements ousted him. Historians say his pirates found little of value but fell in love with the local wine. . . . There’s a festival at the mission this weekend--food and entertainment--to mark the event. . . . Come in your favorite pirate outfit and you can even win a prize.