Word: iras
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...treats the topic seriously, realizing that we concern ourselves too much with it, that we cannot live without it and that for some it can be the focus of a lifetime. Maggie Moran in Breathing Lessons is one of those people for whom love is everything. Maggie and Ira have been married for 25 years when they travel across Pennsylvania to attend the funeral of Maggie's best friend's husband. The novel alternates between Ira's and Maggie's points of view and is told mostly in flashbacks...
Even dramatic new evidence of widespread cocaine use by pregnant women probably underestimates the extent of the problem. Addressing a meeting of the New York Academy of Sciences held in Bethesda, Md., last week, Dr. Ira Chasnoff of Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital reported that a study he directed of 36 U.S. hospitals found that at least 11% of 155,000 pregnant women surveyed had exposed their unborn babies to illegal drugs, with cocaine by far the most common. "There are women who wouldn't smoke and wouldn't drink," he says, "but they can't stay away from cocaine...
...Ira Opper wonders how he got along without Surfline. A TV sports producer by profession and beach bum at heart, the Californian dials 976-SURF almost every day. For 95 cents a call, Surfline reviews beach conditions along 485 miles of coast from Santa Cruz to San Diego, updated twice daily based on reports from 100 part-time scouts. Says Opper, 39: "It's like having a direct line to King Neptune." Thanks to devoted dialers like Opper, the 3 1/2-year-old Surfline handles 1.2 million calls a year in California and has expanded to three area codes in Florida...
...journalism much earlier than whites do. Though some are lured away to more lucrative fields, many are frustrated by limited opportunities to move up. "People who have worked hard, been on the rewrite bank, done the police beat are not being promoted as fast as their white counterparts," charges Ira Hadnot, a vice president of the Institute for Journalism Education, a nonprofit agency that has helped train 400 minority journalists. Black men fare even worse than black women, says Ernie Schultz, president of the Radio- Television News Directors Association, in part because "white males feel threatened by them...
Much of Breathing Lessons takes place while Ira and Maggie are in their car. Driving with one's spouse is, of course, a leading cause of marital tension, especially if one of the party has just banged up the conveyance. Max's funeral provides an opportunity for the class of '56 to indulge its nostalgia. Serena insists on showing her wedding movies. Snatches of Moonglow, I Almost Lost My Mind and Unchained Melody are recalled. Sugar, the aging class beauty, sings Que Sera, Sera during the service and wonders if it was in good taste...