Harlem Renaissance Poets Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 7

Harlem Renaissance Poets - Essay Example The author’s role and importance will be described, and the elements of double consciousness in their poems will be identified. Subsequently, the primary themes in the poetry of the time will be described and finally, I will present my own poem that expresses the identified themes of the Harlem renaissance. Poetry had a significant place in this movement because of its brevity of expression. There were many scholars of the time who stand out as representatives of the movements. Langston Hughes, a poet and scholar, was an outspoken critic of the racial polarization between the White and Black races in America. He also criticized some Black writers who he saw as adopting Eurocentric values while still championing for social equality. His poems explored the Black experience with a sensibility that captured its struggles, resilience, beauty, and complexity. Although he was later criticized for being a racial chauvinist, Hughes introduced a new literary aesthetic that celebrated African-American forms of literary expression (Shaduri, 2010). Hughes’ emphasis on racial consciousness and Black cultural nationalism would later influence many writers. Hughes’s recognition of the dualism of his experience as both encompassing the African and American is aptly captured in his seminal poem The Negro Speaks of Rivers. In The poem, the persona declares his involvement with the rivers Euphrates, Congo, Nile, and Mississippi. As a result of the persona’s diverse experiences and imbrications in the cultures of the African and American continents, the persona reminds the reader that: â€Å"my soul has grown deep like the rivers.† While there is a psychological, cultural, and artistic dilemma invoked by the involvement of both cultures and histories with each other, Hughes’s refrain suggests transcendence over them, implying complexity and richness of the African-American experience. Countee Cullen also engaged and questioned the complexity of the

According to Schmidt and Mandel Essay Example for Free

According to Schmidt and Mandel Essay Sepsis is an inflammatory systemic response to infection. The symptoms are produced by the host’s defense systems rather than by the invading pathogens (Schouten et al. , 2008). Sepsis is a frequent cause of admission to intensive care units (ICUs) and it is one of the leading causes of death among hospitalized patients (Alberti et al. , 2003). It is a public health concern and it continues to be a burden on the healthcare system (Ely, Kleinpell and Goyette, 2003). Despite advancing medical technology, the rate of patients in intensive care units diagnosed with sepsis is continually increasing. According to Schmidt and Mandel (2009), even when optimal treatment is provided, morbidity due to severe sepsis or septic shock is approximately 40 percent and can exceed 50 percent in the most critically ill patients. Early recognition of sepsis and sepsis-associated infections is essential to treating and controlling it from escalating to advanced stages that are associated with higher mortality rates (Lukaszewski et al. , 2008). Unlike other diseases or trauma, the initial signs and symptoms of sepsis are subtle and can easily be missed by health care practitioners. See more: Homeless satire essay Sepsis involves the activation of the coagulation cascade along with downregulation of anticoagulant systems and fibrinolysis (Schouten et al. , 2008). This cycle becomes exaggerated because inflammation induced coagulation produces further inflammation. Sepsis is associated with hypovolemia, hypotension and endothelial dysfunction. The following report will examine a patient’s course of illness during her stay in the ICU at XXXX. This paper will provide a discussion on the patient and her past Running Head: Sepsis medical history, the pathophysiology of sepsis, the clinical manifestations of sepsis, the patient’s clinical course, and finally, a summary and critique of the case management. Patient Information Mrs. E is a 73 year old female with an extensive past medical history. According to her medical chart, her history includes type II diabetes mellitus, obesity, hypothyroidism, dyslipidemia, hypoglycemia, chronic kidney disease (due to hypertension and diabetic nephropathy), hyperuricemia and gastritis. She has a history of breast and uterine cancer. As a result, she has undergone a left lumpectomy and she has had a hysterectomy. Mrs. E. is an ex-smoker and she has been diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). In June 2009, Mrs. E. was being investigated for transaminitis, and an MRI in the same month suggested a periampullary mass. She underwent Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangio Pancreatography (ERCP) on August 26, 2009 at Trillium Health Centre in Mississauga. The ERCP results indicated papillary fibrosis and stenosis; however no masses or stones were discovered. Mrs. E. presented to the emergency department at Trillium Health Centre on August 27, 2009 in septic shock due to an intra-abdominal source. She was then taken to the operating room for a laprotomy for cholecystitis. It was discovered during surgery that Mrs. E. had a gangrenous gallbladder. The surgery team drained a supraphrenic abscess, sutured the intestine and repaired a ventral hernia. She was then admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) at Trillium Health Centre. During her stay in the ICU, cultures were taken on successive days that confirmed Klebsiella, pneumonia, and sepsis. She was treated with ceftriaxone and flagyl. Mrs. E’s renal function progressively worsened and her creatinine steadily rose. She developed thrombocytopenia due to sepsis. Mrs. E. began to become less responsive to furosemide treatments and was diagnosed with acute renal failure. As a result she was transferred to xxxxxx for hemodialysis. Upon arrival to xxxxxxx, Mrs. E was intubated, ventilated and sedated. On initial examination, her heart rate (HR) was 88 BPM, blood pressure (BP) was 189/59 mmHg, temperature was 36. 7 degrees celsius, her respiratory rate (RR) was approximately 22 bpm, and her oxygen saturation was 97%. Mrs. E. had generalized pitting edema throughout her entire body. She also presented with periods of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation and as a result was given amiodarone. The amiodarone infusion helped to bring Mrs. E back to normal sinus rhythm. On assessment, Mrs. E. had inspiratory crackles with decreased breath sounds to the left lower lobe of her lung, and ecchymosis of her upper extremities. Based on the evidence she presented with, including laboratory evidence, Mrs. E. was diagnosed by the renal physician at The Credit Valley Hospital with acute on chronic renal failure. The acute component was determined to be secondary to sepsis and hypertension perioperatively. Disease Process Pathophysiology Sepsis is a clinical condition that complicates a severe infection and is characterized by systemic inflammation and widespread tissue injury (Neviere, 2009). When coupled with acute organ dysfunction, sepsis can lead to severe life-threatening complications, including death (Lukaszewski, 2008). Individuals suffering from sepsis display signs of inflammation at tissue sites remote from the original insult such as vasodilation, increased microvascular permeability and leukocyte accumulation. During sepsis, the inflammatory response causes extensive damage to an individual’s microcirculation (Neligan, 2006). According to Schouten et al (2008), sepsis involves the activation of the coagulation cascade coupled with down-regulation of anticoagulation and fibrinolysis. An intricate link between inflammation and coagulation exists within the body (Neligan, 2006). When a pathogen is present in the bloodstream or when tissue injury occurs, an inflammatory response occurs. The response causes a stimulation of the immune system to produce interleukin-1 (IL-1), interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF? ) (Neligan, 2006). These cytokines are the main catalysts of the inflammatory response and cause the release of several agents including, interleukin-8, histamine, kinins, serotonin, selectins, and neutrophils. When the above compounds are activated, local vasodilation occurs, cytotoxic chemicals are released and the invading pathogen is destroyed (Neligan, 2006). The inflammatory response can be excessive at times and causes local cellular destruction (Neligan, 2006). In septic patients, damage to their own tissues occurs throughout the body in the vasculature and endothelium. The release of the proinflammatory cytokines, specifically IL-6, causes activation of the coagulation cascade (Neligan, 2006). Coagulation can be activated by either the intrinsic or extrinsic pathway following a particular tissue damaging event (Neligan, 2006). The intrinsic pathway is the slower of the two pathways and it requires that all factors are present within the blood for clotting to occur (Marieb Hoehn, 2007). However, when blood is exposed to a factor that resides under the damaged endothelium, called tissue factor (TF), the extrinsic pathway is activated (Marieb Hoehn, 2007). The extrinsic pathway is shorter than the intrinsic pathway as it bypasses several steps of the intrinsic pathway. Each clotting pathway 6 requires ionic calcium and involves a series of procoagulants, and eventually forms a common factor X (Marieb Hoehn, 2007). Within the extrinsic pathway, tissue factor binds to activated factor VII. The complex that results activates factors IX and X (Marieb Hoehn, 2007). When factor X has been activated, it complexes with calcium ions, PF3 and factor V to form prothrombin activator (Marieb Hoehn, 2007). Prothrombin activator catalyzes the transformation of the plasma protein prothrombin to the thrombin, an active enzyme. Thrombin catalyzes the formation of fibrinogen and eventually into fibrin (Marieb Hoehn, 2007). Thrombin, in the presence of calcium ions, activates factor III in order to bind the fibrin strands closely together (Marieb Hoehn, 2007). The last step in the normal clotting cascade is fibrinolysis. Fibrinolysis is responsible for removing clots once the healing process is complete (Marieb Hoehn, 2007). Without fibrinolysis, vessels have the potential to become completely blocked because clotting occurs continuously (Marieb Hoehn, 2007). Plasmin, a digesting enzyme, is responsible for breaking clots (Marieb Hoehn, 2007). It is produced when the plasma protein plasminogen is activated. Plasminogen is incorporated into a forming clot, however it remains dormant until it is activated by an appropriate signal or tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) (Marieb Hoehn, 2007). Activated factor XII and thrombin can also activate plasminogen. In a septic patient, the fibrolytic system is inhibited (Neligan, 2006). Cytokines and thrombin stimulate the release of plasminogen-activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1), from platelets and the endothelium (Marieb Hoehn, 2007). Thrombin is an activator of inflammation and an inhibitor of fibrinolysis. Thrombomodulin, a modulator of fibrinolysis that activates protein C, is also impaired by inflammation and endothelial injury.

Earth An Inner Terrestrial Planet :: Essays Papers

Earth An Inner Terrestrial Planet Size: About 8,000 miles in diameter Distance: 1 A.U. from the Sun Day: About 24 hours Year: About 365 days General Description: Earth may be the most unique of all planets because of the life forms we know exist here and the way they utilize the Suns energy. The Earth is composed of a great amount of water, mostly in the form of oceans, which make up most of its surface. It also contains various gases, of which make it possible for us humans to exist and is a system that exists between plants and animals here. Core/Interior: The Earth has three layers to it's interior, the inner core, outer core, and mantle. Of these the outer core is thought to be liquid. Like most of the terrestrial planets at birth, the Earth has been molten and undergone some differentiation allowing the heavy material which is consisting mostly of an iron, nickel, and cobalt core making it's density five and a half times the density of water. Surface: Earth probably has the most unique surface with all its various landmasses and water systems. It also has polar caps, volcanoes, and continents that have trees and living organisms moving about on its surface. Much of the tectonic activity on Earth created new landforms and changed other landmasses. Atmosphere: The Earth has one of the most versatile atmospheres because of the way the solar system here picks up water and carries it around the Earth for redistribution. We have a thick atmosphere that consists mostly of oxygen and nitrogen that helps plants and animals survive so well here on Earth. We also have a "greenhouse effect" that warms our atmosphere and it's surface. Satellites: The Moon is the only satellite known to exist to Earth. Magnetic Field: The Earth has a superior magnetic field due to a core consisting of iron and nickel. Currently the rotation of the Earth and its Coriolis effect help to create this pull of the tides from the oceans. The northern lights or lurora Borealis can be seen at various times in a mystifying view of beauty.

The Prevalence Of Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, And Binge Eating D

The Prevalence Of Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, And Binge Eating Disorder How prevalent is anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and other eating disorders? Without the knowledge of research, one is likely to think eating disorders are quite prevalent in society today. However, research proves that eating disorders, in general, are not as prevalent as one might think without any knowledge of the subject. Prevalence of an eating disorder refers to the number of cases of an eating disorder within a population. When discussing the prevalence of anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and eating disorders, it is important to realize and understand the risk factors and characteristics that help to better explain the prevalence of such disorders. This paper will discuss the diagnostic criteria used to diagnose anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and eating disorders, as well as the risk factors and characteristics involved with each disorder. The prevalence of eating disorders in college men will also be discussed along with the risk factors and characteristics that lead to these prevalence rates. Prevalence and Diagnostic Criteria for Anorexia Nervosa In order to understand the importance of the prevalence of anorexia nervosa it is important to generally understand the DSM IV criteria for anorexia nervosa. In order to qualify for diagnosis as an anorexic, a Patient must maintain an abnormally low weight (I 5% below expected weight for height and age). One must also have severe concerns about shape and weight, which is usually seen as an intense fear of gaining weight, in order to be classified as an anorexic. One who qualifies as anorexic also has low self evaluation about shape and weight. Also, in post-menarchal females... ...c cases? The American Journal of Psychiatry 1996; 153:386-394. Fairbum, Christopher and Terence Wilson. (1993). Binge Eating. New York: Guilford Press. Garfinkel, Paul, Elizabeth Lin, Paula Goering, and Cathy Spegg: Bulimia nervosa in a Canadian community sample: prevalence and comparison of subgroups. The American Journal of Psychiatry 1995; 152: 1052-1062. Kendler, KS, Neale Maclean, R. Kessler, A. Heath, and L. Eaves: The genetic epidemiology of bulimia nervosa. American Journal of Psychiatry 199 1; 1627-163 7. Olivardia, Roberto, Harrison Pope, Jr., Barbara Mangweth, and James Hudson: Eating disorders in college men. American Journal of Psychiatry 1995; 152:1279-1291. Walters, Ellen, and Kenneth Kendler: Anorexia nervosa and anorexic-like syndromes in a population based female twin sample. The American Journal of Psychiatry 1995- 152: 64-75.

The Thousand and One Nights: Abridged, Restructured

Jeff Stephens Dr. Swenson English 2111 11-22-11 The Thousand and One Nights: Abridged, Restructured, but Ever Lasting You may have read the story many times; you may have even watched the live-action movie or animated film, but only a few have been able to discern the unique traits inherent in The Thousand and One Nights. Willis G. Regier, a writer for World Literature Today, wrote that â€Å"the Nights has been read, admired, studied, illustrated, adapted for the stage, and Disneyfied† (321).The traits that I would like you to remember are how I used interruption to structure the story and how I implemented love within the stories to help me win back King Shahrayar’s trust and pacify his fear of psychosexual replacement. While telling the king stories of grandeur and impossibility, I snuck in little snippets of truth and morality. Richard Burton, once said, â€Å"Without the nights, no Arabian nights,† by which he meant that in dividing the story into separate e venings it was given structure and without that structure The Arabian Nights would be no more than a collection of short stories (qtd. n Van Leeuwen 183). Burton could not have been any more correct. However, I would also like to point out that without the nights themselves, my own story would have ended long before the king changed his mind in the case of my death sentence. Structure in a story like The Arabian Nights is like the branches of a tree that bears fruit; not every branch will produce the fruit, but all the branches will have leaves to help collect the energy to make the fruit.In the same way that a tree bears its fruit, my mini-stories bear the fruit of change within King Shahrayar’s heart. Through my stories, I was able to help the king reclaim some of the hope, understanding, and even love that he had once lost because of his unfaithful wife. I also showed him that women could yet be good and kind, faithful and true, and be intelligent without the wickedness wh ich so many other storytellers have been unwilling to show over the centuries.Van Leeuwen wrote an excellent article that mentions how odd it must seem in my breaking up the stories with the nights, but he also says that by breaking them up I multiplied the dimensions and meanings within the stories themselves and gave a kind of fluidity to the whole thing. I like Van Leeuwen’s interpretation of my actions. He describes the most basic interruption as the break between the fantasy world of the stories that I tell and the world of the frame story in which I, myself, take part. Incidentally, he did his homework on the subject.During that time it was quite usual for my people to use frame stories in order to create a more profound and comprehensive anthology. In using these frame stories, rather than teaching a lesson directly to the listener, we can teach vicariously through the understanding of the frame story’s characters’ understandings. When I decided to try an d save the rest of the kingdom’s women from our vengeful king I knew that a direct approach would never work, so I had to drop him coy little hints in the form of fairytales, bedtime stories, and religious parables and sayings.Although a king be a foolish man, it doesn’t make him less of a king, it just means he is less of a man. So, using the art of interruptive story telling has been around for a very long time, even long before my own time, but Van Leeuwen has a much better grasp on the many useful techniques that using frame stories and interruptive techniques can yield as well as how they help to structure a story by allowing intervals between different perspectives.Van Leeuwen also describes how the stories that I told King Shahrayar could be directly related to the frame story in which he experiences so many wrongs on behalf of women. My poor husband was practically raped by a woman being held captive by a demon, he was cheated on in his own home by his wife and a common servant, and he watched as his brother suffered the same disgrace in multiplicity. Van Leeuwen says, â€Å"As a mechanism for the generation of meanings, the juxtaposition of viewpoints enhances the cycle’s character as an initiation into new forms of knowledge† (185).Throughout the stories there are always several characters that give an account from their own perspective about what has happened in the past in order to help the reader’s and the protagonist’s understanding of the problem and how to remedy the situation properly. When I told the story about the fisherman and the demon, for instance, the demon was fixated on killing the fisherman because no one else had come to release him in hundreds of years. However, the way the fisherman saw it, the demon owed him a reward for being the one to release him after so much time.Allowing both parties to speak their thoughts about the situation in conversation made it much easier to discern a mediat ion point. In other words, knowing both sides of the story helped to rectify the situation amicably for both parties in the end. I was trying the show the king that jumping to conclusions is never a good way to solve a problem. His ex-wife’s betrayal leads him to pronounce vows with a new woman each day and then break those vows by killing them the next so that they would not have a chance to betray him first.I was able to slowly give meaningful and constructive criticism of King Shahrayar’s decisions over the course of many nights and because of that criticism he changed on the inside. He became whole again, with an understanding that he had found a woman (myself) that would never betray him. Throughout my Thousand and One Nights, love is a catalyst to reveal the true nature of the person within a given character, because love defines us. Love of one’s self versus love for others, love of money versus love of one’s family, love for love’s sake ver sus love for the sake of sex and wiles.Wills G. Regier pointed out that â€Å"Love is everywhere†, and I could not agree more. Within every expression of love there is a story to be told about those involved and the feeling of love in and of itself. I told King Shahrayar stories of this sort each night, some with violence and murder, some with mystery and suspense, and some with sexual escapades. OK, a lot with sexual escapades. I practically bored the man to sleep some nights! I had to improvise to continue to keep his interest in my stories, but I always tried to find ways to wrap them up with love.My king seemed to have forgotten what love really was, so I needed to remind him of the feeling he so desperately sought even if, to begin with, it was sought unconsciously. Regier actually nailed it when he said that I gave King Shahrayar spiritual instruction a couple of times (311). I was attempting to do just that by reciting proverbs and Muhammad’s sayings. I was atte mpting (and apparently successfully so) to help him regain his moralistic views and understandings of the world. Love plays a large role in one’s understanding of how people view each other and how and why the react in the ways that they do.He needed to understand that part of why he reacted to his ex-wife in such an over-the-top manner was because he loved her so much that it hurt him more deeply than anything had ever hurt him before. He needed to understand that love and the loss of love was what drove him to such drastic measures. John J. Brugaletta wrote an interesting essay about my stories regarding the different allegorical properties from which new knowledge could be gleaned when comparing the situations in the stories to situations in real life (7).He was right, I was providing stories that the king could relate to at the time. There seemed to be some ominous trend in the women of my day to be more sexually attracted to black men. Honestly, it was probably more to d o with the fact that black slaves tended to be in better physical condition than the white nobility, sitting in their lush palaces, eating meat and drinking wine all day, and going on hunts for pleasure rather than out of necessity. Some of King Shahrayar’s emotional issues undoubtedly stemmed from his seeming fear of â€Å"psychosexual† replacement by the black slaves.Brugaletta says that â€Å"the societies in which this book took form were preoccupied with a sense of inadequacy in sexual competition with blacks† (6). One way or another, every story could be directly proportionalized with King Shahrayar’s own life-experiences. I engineered the stories to reflect King Shahrayar’s mishaps in a kind-of worse-case scenario type of schema to help him reconcile with his unhappiness and help him to understand that while his wife was at fault in cheating on him, so was he in his exacting vengeance upon all the women of his kingdom because of one womanâ⠂¬â„¢s infidelity.While my king and husband listened to my stories, I was able to postpone my own demise and prevent others from falling to the same fate as my predecessors. As long as I kept the man intrigued, the king stayed his bloody hands. I showed him through my stories that he was missing out on living life and he understood that although he had become an angry, bitter tyrant, he could change his ways and become a loving husband and king again. Through my stories, he was able to trust women and believe in their goodness again. Works Cited Brugaletta, John J. The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. † Masterplots, Fourth Edition (2010): 1-6. Literary Reference Center. Web. 22 Nov. 2011. Lawall, Sarah N. , and Maynard Mack. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Second ed. Vol. B. New York: Norton, 2002. Print. Leeuwen, Richard Van. â€Å"The Art Of Interruption: The Thousand And One Nights And Jan Potocki. † Middle Eastern Literatures 7. 2 (2004): 183-198. Ac ademic Search Complete. Web. 22 Nov. 2011. Regier, Wills G. â€Å"Shahrazad's New Clothes. † World Literature Today 84. 2 (2010): 30-34. Academic Search Complete. Web. 22 Nov. 2011.

Learn About Wine Legs or Tears

Learn About Wine Legs or Tears What does it mean when a wine is said to have legs or someone refers to tears of wine? Wine legs or tears of wine are the droplets that form in a ring on the glass above the surface of a glass of wine or other alcoholic beverage. The drops continuously form and fall in rivulets back into the liquid. You can see the effect in the shadow of this glass of wine. Cause of Wine Legs While some people think wine legs are related to the quality, sweetness or viscosity of wine, they are really indicative of the alcoholic content of the wine and are caused by the interplay between adhesion, evaporation and surface tension of water and alcohol. How Wine Legs Work Capillary action draws a small amount of wine up the surface of the wine glass above the liquid. Both alcohol and water evaporate, but the alcohol has a higher vapor pressure and evaporates faster, producing a region of liquid that has a lower concentration of alcohol than the rest of the wine.  Alcohol has a lower surface tension than water, so lowering the concentration of alcohol raises the surface tension of the liquid. The water molecules are cohesive and stick together, forming droplets that eventually become heavy enough to fall back down the glass in streams into the wine. History of the Explanation of Wine Legs The effect is called the Marangoni or Gibbs-Marangoni Effect, in reference to Carlo Marangonis investigations into the effect in the 1870s. However, James Thomson explained the phenomenon in his 1855 paper, On certain curious Motions observable at the Surfaces of Wine and other Alcoholic Liquors. Test It Yourself The Marangoni effect more generally refers to the flow of liquid caused by surface tension gradients. You can see this effect if you spread a thin film of water over a smooth surface and add a drop of alcohol to the center of the film. The liquid will move away from the alcohol drop. Swirl a glass of wine or liquor and observe the wine legs or tears of wine on the glass. If you cover the glass and swirl it, wine legs eventually will stop forming because the alcohol will be unable to evaporate.

The Impact of the Dust Bowl on the Environment

The Impact of the Dust Bowl on the Environment Many accidents and natural disasters have done serious environmental damage to the United States. Some of the most famous events include the  1989  Exxon Valdez  oil spill, the 2008 coal ash spill in Tennessee, and the Love Canal toxic dump disaster that came to light in the 1970s. But none of these events, despite their tragic consequences, come close to being the worst environmental disaster in the United States. The worst was the 1930s Dust Bowl- created by the drought, erosion, and dust storms, or black blizzards, of the so-called Dirty Thirties. It was the worst and most prolonged environmental disaster in American history. The dust storms started at about the same time that the Great Depression really began to grip the country, and continued to sweep across the Southern Plains- western Kansas, eastern Colorado and New Mexico, and the panhandle regions of Texas and Oklahoma- until the late 1930s. In some areas, the storms didnt relent until 1940. Decades later, the land is still not completely restored.  Once thriving farms are still abandoned, and new dangers are again putting the Great Plains environment in serious jeopardy. Causes and Effects In the summer of 1931, the rain stopped coming and a drought that would last for most of the decade descended on the region. Crops withered and died. Farmers who had plowed under the native prairie grass that held the soil in place saw tons of topsoil, which had taken thousands of years to accumulate, rise into the air and blow away in minutes. On the Southern Plains, the sky turned lethal. Livestock went blind and suffocated, their stomachs full of fine sand. Farmers, unable to see through the blowing sand, tied themselves to guide ropes to make the walk from their houses to their barns. Families wore respiratory masks handed out by Red Cross workers, cleaned their homes each morning with shovels as well as brooms, and draped wet sheets over doors and windows to help filter out the dust. Still, children and adults inhaled sand, coughed up dirt, and died of a new epidemic called dust pneumonia. Frequency and Severity of Storms The weather got worse long before it got better. In 1932, the weather bureau reported 14 dust storms. In 1933, the number of dust storms climbed to 38, nearly three times as many as the year before. At its worst, the Dust Bowl covered about 100 million acres in the Southern Plains, an area roughly the size of Pennsylvania. Dust storms also swept across the northern prairies of the United States and Canada, but the damage there couldnt compare to the devastation farther south. Some of the worst storms blanketed the nation with dust from the Great Plains. A storm in May 1934 deposited 12 million tons of dust in Chicago and dropped layers of fine brown dust on the streets and parks of New York and Washington, D.C. Even ships at sea, 300 miles off the Atlantic coast, were left coated with dust. Black Sunday The worst dust storm of all hit on April 14, 1935- Black Sunday. Tim Egan, a New York Times reporter and best-selling author who wrote a book about the Dust Bowl called The Worst Hard Time, described that day as one of Biblical horror: The storm carried twice as much dirt as was dug out of the earth to create the Panama Canal. The canal took seven years to dig; the storm lasted a single afternoon. More than 300,000 tons of Great Plains topsoil was airborne that day. Disaster Gives Way to Hope More than a quarter million people fled the Dust Bowl during the 1930s- environmental refugees who no longer had the reason or courage to stay. Three times that number remained on the land and continued to battle the dust and to search the sky for signs of rain. In 1936, the people got their  first glimmer of hope. Hugh Bennett, an agricultural expert, persuaded Congress to finance a federal program to pay farmers to use new farming techniques that would conserve topsoil and gradually restore the land. By 1937, the Soil Conservation Service had been established, and by the following year, soil loss had been reduced by 65 percent. Nevertheless, the drought continued until the autumn of 1939, when rains finally returned to the parched and damaged prairie. In his epilogue to The Worst Hard Time, Egan writes: The high plains never fully recovered from the Dust Bowl. The land came through the 1930s deeply scarred and forever changed, but in places, it healed. . . After more than sixty-five years, some of the land is still sterile and drifting. But in the heart of the old Dust Bowl now are three national grasslands run by the Forest Service. The land is green in the spring and burns in the summer, as it did in the past, and antelope come through and graze, wandering among replanted buffalo grass and the old footings of farmsteads long abandoned. Looking Ahead: Present and Future Dangers In the 21st century, there are new dangers facing the Southern Plains. Agribusiness is draining the Ogallala Aquifer- the United States largest source of groundwater, which stretches from South Dakota to Texas and supplies about 30 percent of the nations irrigation water. Agribusiness is pumping water from the aquifer eight times faster than rain and other natural forces can refill it. Between 2013 and 2015, the aquifer lost 10.7 million acre-feet of storage. At that rate, the aquifer will be completely dry within a century. Ironically, the Ogallala Aquifer is not being depleted to feed American families or to support the kind of small farmers who hung on through the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl years. Instead, the agricultural subsidies that began as part of the New Deal to help farm families stay on the land are now being given to corporate farms that are growing crops to be sold overseas. In 2003, U.S. cotton growers received $3 billion in federal subsidies to grow fiber that would ultimately be shipped to China and made into cheap clothing to be sold in American stores. If the water runs out, there wont be any for the cotton or the inexpensive clothing, and the Great Plains will be the site of yet another environmental disaster.