UPDATED 1:56 P.M.
The Bolivar County Coroner’s office in Mississippi identified the victim shot at Delta State University as Professor Ethan A. Schmidt, according to the personal Twitter account of Jake Hyman, a CBS Radio News reporter. Hyman reports that Schmidt was a professor of American History at the university.
BREAKING: Bolivar County Coroner’s Office ID’s the deceased Delta State University professor as Ethan A. Schmidt. He taught american history
— Jake Hyman (@JakeHymanNJNY) September 14, 2015
UPDATED 1:50 P.M. A gunman shot and killed a professor at Delta State University in Mississippi on Monday. The campus remains on lockdown, asking those on campus to stay indoors away from windows as the shooter remains at large. CNN reports that the victim was male and was in his office at the time of the shooting. Delta State is a small college (just over 3,000 undergrad students) and is located in Cleveland, Mississippi, just on the Mississippi-Arkansas border.
DEVELOPING: Police responding to active shooter on Delta State Univ campus. Witness tells me happening at Jobe Hall. pic.twitter.com/9aRVwecyOS — Sarah Bleau (@sarahbleauFOX13) September 14, 2015
Video of students at Delta State barricading their classroom while in lockdown. (Video via Heavy.com) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNqqJ99I_Gc&feature=youtu.be UPDATE: 1:13 PM Delta State sent out another Tweet telling students to remain in buildings on the campus.
Campus remains under lockdown. Please do not leave the building. Stay away from windows. More information will be sent out as available. — Delta State (@DeltaState) September 14, 2015
Delta State University has confirmed one fatality. Campus remains under lockdown. Please stay inside and away from windows. — Delta State (@DeltaState) September 14, 2015
This is a developing story that will be updated frequently.
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Is Video Game Addiction A Real Thing?
Much like gamers themselves, instances of gaming addiction are often stigmatized.
While stories of deaths stemming from three-day gaming binges in internet cafes are hyped in media coverage, gaming addiction in the United States is more often characterized by someone sacrificing their work, school and social life in order to progress in the digital space.
Psychologists such as Douglas Gentile at Iowa State University have studied video game addiction for decades and asserts that our access to broadband internet and the spread of technology have only increased addiction numbers.
Gentile believes that the global gaming addiction rate falls somewhere between 4 and 10 percent of gamers.
Who is and isn’t addicted is often hard to determine, as researchers offer contrasting definitions of what constitutes addiction.
In an interview with CNN, Gentile says games become compelling because they satiate our basic human needs for autonomy, belonging and competence.
Games put you in control, they can offer a sense of community and most games have skill curves that allow players to feel successful while playing.
Recent additions to modern games include systems designed to keep the player engaged through unpredictable reward systems.
Games such as Destiny have been called out for their random number generator (RNG) loot systems that randomize the rewards dropped for players after completing a mission or objective.
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Titles boasting millions of players such as Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Rocket League and Overwatch feature cosmetic items that are unlocked through a system that most closely resembles a slot machine.
In Call of Duty, items that bear a significant impact on gameplay are obtained through this same RNG system, giving an edge to players able to obtain higher-tier items.
Those unable to secure the best rewards are encouraged to keep playing or spend even more money on a micro-transaction system to gain an edge over others or secure coveted in-game items that hold little to no value outside of the digital game space.
Through these examples, one can assume that not only are modern games hooking players with feelings of empowerment and belonging, but the addition of systems that closely mirrors gambling has created a dual threat of addiction for gamers young and old.
But statistics and insights from psychologists only go so far in explaining the real-world impact gaming addiction can have on an individual.
Speaking from personal experience, I can recall how detrimental my teenage gaming binges were when I would sometimes spend more than 24 hours at a time playing a single game.
I would ignore school work, reject spending time with family and not leave my house for days.
The concept of these marathon sessions weren’t taboo in my friends group.
We would boast about having more than 1,000 hours logged in a game.
It wasn’t uncommon for us to lose literal days of our lives to these online experiences.
I’ve met people well into college with close to 3,000 hours played in an online multiplayer game.
They commonly have the propensity to brush off criticism about their time invested with explanations like “It’s the only game I play,” and “I still get my work done”.
But life isn’t a game, and too much time spent in the digital world can be detrimental to your health, work and social life.
This is all coming from someone who runs his own gaming website, who hosts a gaming and tech talk show at his college and has poured months, if not years of his life into video games and the culture encompassing them.
I’ve seen how gaming can foster creativity, establish connections between generations and empower the physically disabled.
But I’ve also witnessed the impact being too deeply enveloped in a particular game can have on a person.
I’ve seen friends fail classes, fracture relationships and miss out on amazing opportunities, all because they couldn’t pull themselves away from the TV or computer screen.
Although gaming addiction has no fixed definition, its credibility as a real issue in the present day should be undisputed.
The complications gaming addiction creates may originate from time spent in a digital space, but the effects are tangibly existent in reality.
There’s no reset button for the real world.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in the world. You can write for us.
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Bernie Sanders Needs To Drop Out Now
Bernie Sanders said in his victory speech in California after winning the Oregon primary that he could still win the Democratic nomination for President.
It will be a steep climb, but we have the possibility of going to Philadelphia with a majority of pledged delegates pic.twitter.com/dY6zZd4dQu
— People For Bernie (@People4Bernie) May 18, 2016
He’s pedaling a fantasy.
While Sanders could *technically* still beat Hillary Clinton (and I could *technically* still make the NBA), he has close to no room for error. Neither does the country.
While Sanders is waging an ideological fight to further he and his enthusiastic supporters’ agenda, the United States is starting down the horrifying possibility of a Donald Trump presidency.
The time for high school civics games is over with. Bernie Sanders should drop out of the race and immediately endorse Clinton so that she can have more time to unite the Democratic Party and prepare for the long election fight to come.
Sanders has repeatedly said that the number one priority should be to stop Trump from being President. This is the correct priority. After all, Trump is a barbarian who is willing to do just about anything to get elected.
Clinton has been careful in recent weeks (after it became clear that Sanders didn’t really have a winning path) not to anger Sanders supporters by calling for him to drop out. She also stayed in until all the votes were cast in the 2008 primary when she lost to then Sen. Barack Obama.
But that was a very different situation (high levels of excitement in the Democratic primary) and the stakes didn’t feel quite as high as they do now, with the specter of Trump on the horizon.
While Clinton has rightfully not called for Sanders to drop out, he should still do it on his own. I’m sure he won’t and a strong case can be made for his staying in the race until he is mathematically eliminated. But what good would that really do for the party and for the Sanders movement?
Bernie has made his point. And the party will never be the same because of his hugely successful and revolutionary campaign. It would be a real shame if his actions over the course of the next few weeks gave Trump the cover needed to score important victories on Clinton.
And just for the sake of argument, Sanders doesn’t really have one anymore. He is running as a figurehead of a movement and not as a legitimate candidate for the Democratic nomination.
That’s great, but he can do it from another platform and not as a candidate that is causing resources to be devoted from Clinton that should be used on Trump.
Before any Sanders supporters say something nasty in the comments, lets just get all the facts out there.
Sanders is behind Clinton by more than three million raw votes.
Sanders is behind Clinton by nearly 300 pledged delegates.
Sanders is behind Clinton by nearly 500 super delegates.
Before entering Tuesday night (where Sanders narrowly won Oregon and narrowly lost Kentucky), he would have had to win 90% of the remaining delegates to win.
Clinton would basically have to have her name taken off the ballot in the remaining states for Sanders to win, and even then he still might lose it.
Bernie has lost his argument for staying in the race and its time for the real fight to begin.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in public affairs. You can write for us.
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It’s Time For The U.S. To Do More About The Refugee Crisis
Earlier this month, the photograph of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi, who drowned trying to flee to Greece with his brother and mother, horrified the world and focused its attention on the ongoing refugee crisis in Syria and throughout the Middle East.
Since the Syrian Civil War started nearly five years ago, more than 210,000 Syrians have been killed, and an estimated 10 million Syrians have been displaced inside the country or in camps in neighboring countries. As the Syrian Refugee crisis worsens and now spreads to Europe, many now question what the responsibility of the western world is in helping to resolve both the refugee crisis and the ongoing conflict in Syria.
Many nations and world leaders have attempted to lend aid to refugees seeking asylum. Turkey has taken in over 1.9 million refugees who have fled the conflict in Syria. Another 1.1 million have fled to Lebanon, nearly 637,000 have been taken in by Jordan, and Germany is expected to take in 800,000 refugees by the end of the year.
While many have been welcoming to the refugees, many throughout Europe have come out viscerally against accepting refugees. The Prime Minister of Slovakia has refused to accept any refugees and while a spokesperson for the Hungarian Government said they would abide resettlement of refuges, the government has also constructed a 109-mile razor tipped fence around its border to keep migrants out of their country.
Meanwhile the United States has accepted 1,500 refugees thus far and is preparing to accept at least 10,000 Syrian refugees. This figure would be allocated out of a U.S. quota of 75,000 total refugee admissions slated for the next fiscal year. Many Americans; however, fear that even this is too many. Congressional Republicans have raised concerns for months over the possibility that Syrian extremists, including ISIS sympathizers, could enter the country passing themselves off as refugees.
It is understandable that when the world is faced with a horrific crisis, that fear seizes the hearts of many. Undeniably, there are challenges when meeting a crisis of this magnitude. While the future is unclear; however, history is always there to guide us.
History most clearly remembers actions, or the lack there of. Following Kristallnacht, thousands of Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria fled to the United States trying to escape the growing shadow of Nazism. Then as now, the conflict seemed to many Americans to be a distant one and none of our affairs. Then as now, many people feared what would happen if we accepted these refugees in the wake of the nation’s economic turmoil. Ultimately the United States never increased its quotas for refugees, and as a result many lives that could have been saved were lost.
We are once again faced as a nation with people seeking refuge from a faraway conflict. Men, women, and children all hoping to find peace and mercy in a world that they know is far too often chaotic and unmerciful. We can either chose to commit the same mistake twice, or we can act like the world leader that we truly want to be.
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