Eskimos

The familiar painted smile may soon be gone from the happy faces of Pacific Southwest Airlines planes as US Air completes its takeover of the San Diego-based line, but at least the happy Eskimo will continue to beam from the tails of Alaska Airlines jets. As Alaska expanded its routes into the continental United States, airline officials became concerned that the Eskimo symbol was too parochial for the line's ambitions and modern status.

Deus ex machina , or "god from a machine," is a theatrical term dating from ancient times and is used to describe an implausible character or event that intervenes to save the hero from certain disaster. For Carlsbad-based Langert Golf Co., there couldn't be a more perfect description of Prince Holdings, the well-known racquet sports equipment manufacturer based in Princeton, N.J., that last month acquired Langert for $1.4 million.

Taco Bell, the Mexican fast-food chain with the "run for the border" slogan, on Thursday started selling south of the border for the first time--from a food cart in Mexico City. Taco Bell, owned by Purchase, N.Y.-based Pepsico, said it will operate in Tijuana by fall. The food carts will initially offer only soft-shell tacos, burritos, nachos and Pepsi drinks. Taco Bell said its entry into Mexico is part of a plan to expand aggressively overseas.

Few Eskimos live in Montreal. Nevertheless, this charming and sophisticated capital of French-Canadian culture is a center for Eskimo art. Some exceptional galleries and shops are showing and selling sculptures, carvings, prints and handicrafts produced by Eskimos in their settlements and towns far to the north inside the Arctic Circle. The largest Eskimo population is in Arctic Canada. They are racially related to the American Indians, but their customs and language are different.

His friends noticed nothing especially amiss on the last night of Terry Akeeagok's brief life. That evening he had played hockey. The town's team had recently chosen the quiet, moody 18-year-old to be its goalie in a coming tournament. His grandfather had planned to take him out to the edge of the sea ice the next morning to hunt polar bears. Instead, Akeeagok went home from the hockey game, turned up some rock music on the stereo in his room and hanged himself with a telephone cord.

Delicious Cookie Co. sandwiches two shortbread cookies around peanut butter and jelly for Skippy & Welch's Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich Cookie. And Tootsie Rolls and Eskimo Pie are collaborating on Tootsie Pops, where Tootsie Rolls are surrounded by orange, cherry or grape-flavored ice shells. Crunch Quandary Now you can buy Nestle's Crunch bars molded with the words "It's Crunch Time" and one of 27 NBA basketball team logos.

More than half the residents of an isolated Arctic village were evacuated as storm surges threatened to flood their slender barrier island, the latest chapter in their losing battle against the sea. With no road system within hundreds of miles of Kivalina, about 100 people, mostly seniors and children, boarded small propeller planes to the regional hub city of Kotzebue.

Shortly after President Reagan and Secretary Gorbachev meet in Moscow, an event of profound symbolic significance will take place at the opposite end of the vast Soviet landscape. An Alaska Airlines 737 jetliner will sojourn from Nome to the Soviet city of Provideniya on the Bering Sea. This "friendship flight" will be carrying the governor of Alaska, the state's congressional delegation and about 100 Americans of Siberian Yupik Eskimo heritage from St. Lawrence Island and the Alaska mainland.

Hungry Eskimos, armed with U.S. court-ordered permits to kill 50 caribou from a protected herd, prepared for an emergency hunt to get fresh meat for their southwestern Alaska village of Kwethluk. U.S. District Judge H. Russel Holland ruled that Kwethluk's urgent need for meat outweighed state desires to protect the herd until it grows big enough to support such hunts in the future. "We're real happy about it," said Kwethluk Village Council Vice President Moses Nicolai.

Former West Virginia quarterback Major Harris completed one of four pass attempts for seven yards and was sacked twice in eight third-quarter plays as the British Columbia Lions defeated the Edmonton Eskimos 24-23 in their exhibition opener in the Canadian Football League on Thursday night. Doug Flutie, who signed with the Lions on Monday, and former New York Jets defensive lineman Mark Gastineau did not play.