Oxymoron

George Avila went home to Fresno this week with a gift for the whole family--a healthy new recipe for tamales. During childhood Christmases, the student at UC Irvine learned from his mother and grandmother to make the traditional meal used by Aztecs for ancient festivities. These weren't those uptown tamales you can order nowadays from the catalogs of Neiman Marcus and Williams-Sonoma, the latter for $42 per dozen plus $8.50 shipping.

You can get a pretty good clue to the fluffy, undemanding nature of bubblegum music by just looking at the names of some of the groups featured on a bubblegum retrospective just released by Varese Sarabande Records. They include Crazy Elephant, the Fun and Games, the Banana Splits, the 1910 Fruitgum Co., Salt Water Taffy and the Archies.

Your article "Operation: Superior Child Care" (June 4) is so biased by the liberal agenda that it should have been in the Opinion section. The most important sentence is deep in the article: "Such fees [that are charged to parents] do not cover the costs of operations, so the Defense Department picks up the balance." "High quality child care" is an economic oxymoron because if salaries are raised to levels that are necessary to attract qualified care givers, the service becomes too expensive for working parents.

Summer school, and jumbo shrimp, of course. Friendly fire, famous poet, common sense, and, until very recently, safe sex. Blind date, sure thing, amicable divorce. Also there's loyal opposition, social security, deliberate speed. How about dysfunctional family? Eyes blackened, hearts crushed, the damn thing functions. Some things we say should coat our tongues with ash. Drug-Free School Zone?