Don Roach

Well, it’s been a little while since I’ve updated the blog. There’s been good reason – at least as far as I’m concerned. Sometime in July I had the bright idea of becoming the next poker stahhhh!! Seriously, I’d been playing for free for years and recently had a modicum of success that inspired me to try it out for real. I found a site where I could buy-in cheap, $10 dollars cheap, and opined, “If I can win with this $10, then I’m good. If not, well at least I gave it a shot.” In the ensuing months I took the $10 to $202 as recently as three weeks ago. I am now down to about $29, such is the life of a poker player, no?

During my six month Odyssey on the felt, I’ve really discovered how much of a skill game poker is. It’s all about getting your money in ahead, riding the ups and the downs and getting used to the occassional “bad beat”. Imagine you have pocket aces and some guy calls you with 72 off suit – or suited – and the board comes out 777. Hehe. You’ll find many players completely angered by such situations but I’ve taken the same approach with poker as I have with life – I will not be denied. Bumps are going to happen but if you stay focused on the goal…your talent and skill will prove if you’ve got it or not.

I strongly recommend people try the game of poker, in much the same way I vehemently suggest people try chess, you learn a lot about yourself in these games. What I’ve learned from poker is this, patience is paramount, and while I’m generally a patient guy I have lapses and those lapses are the reason I’m no longer at the $200 I was at just a few weeks ago but is also the reason I know I’ll get back there over the next couple of months.

In life, I tend to play it very patiently for the most part but when I lose that patience there I tend to do stupid things. Example, circa 2003 I was in a difficult living situation and I punched my windshield. I ended up cracking the windshield costing about $1400 to replace. Not really a wise move.

I say all this to say, poker has afforded me a window into my best and my worst – tempered zeal with patience is perhaps my greatest strength. Unrestrained aggression being my worst and most closely hidden weakness. As you play the game of poker you too may learn about yourself and use that information to face and overcome the different challenges we all face.

I always find morality-based issues interesting. In a world where many people are saying, “As long as it doesn’t hurt me, I don’t care”, I’m encouraged to see people standing up for morality. Below is a video I created discussing Chariho High School’s decision to ban sexually suggestive dancing at its homecoming utilizing the well-loved character, Elmo.

As we noted with the “Party in the USA” video, more and more sex is becoming pounded into our children’s head. Warning, some material in the video may not be appropriate for children. *chuckles*

About two weeks ago, I contacted Sheldon Whitehouse regarding his vote against stripping ACORN from federal funding. Two weeks later, no response. I sent another message to his office with the text of my question today. I’ll do this weekly until there is a response.

I’m a music lover, everything but country, so from time to time I may share some music. Today’s song is Paramore’s That’s what you get. Great guitar work.

Is there anything you wish got more coverage on local/national blogs, tv, or radio? I like research – at times – and there are many topics out there that are very interesting to me, but I’d like to know what things you find interesting.

One example for me is an interesting case of the Black Panthers intimidating voters but the case was thrown out despite video evidence (see below)! What’s up with that?

This will be a series on my autistic six-year old, Don. I’ll be writing about his triumphs, challenges, and everything in between. Autism is a challenging debilitation, but I think as you’ll read over the coming months, that with effort, love, help, and faith it’s not a challenge that cannot be overcome.

Part I: A child is born.

The date was May 23, 2003.  At work, I had negotiated my way into a role I was not  technically qualified for but was more than ready to take on. I left work early in order to take my wife to her OBGYN appointment. Married for a bit less than two years, she was three weeks from having our first child, a little boy. I figured we would go to the doctors and then go out to eat to celebrate my promotion. Well, that’s not exactly what happened.

The doctor did her thing and then said, “Mrs. Roach are you ok?” My wife felt fine. “Well, you’re eight centimeters dialated!!” Ok, now I was not the most up to speed on this whole birth thing but I did know that you needed to be at 10 centimeters to start pushing and that pain usually came around 3-4 centimeters. That my wife was sitting there as happy as a clam at 8 centimeters was shocking to both myself and the doctor. “You’re going to have a baby today,” the doctor deadpanned.

Continue reading…

A few weeks ago, I visited a friend and we had a lively discussion about religion in politics. His position – and he is a Christian – was that everyone should check their religion at the door when it comes to politics. The public has no interest in anybody’s religion and because it is such a contentious issue for everyone it should be relegated outside the political arena. I took a contrarian, and in my opinion a more correct, position.

The first amendment clearly states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof [...]

Thus, the framers did two things concerning religion:

1. They made it illegal for the federal government to create or submit itself to a particular religious institution. America broke away from England led by the King, who was the supreme leader of the Church of England, a church which had gone through many tumultuous years and various sects, mainly Catholicism and different Protestant denominations, battled it out every time the crown changed hands. Within America various states had different sects too and this clause focused on the federal government and it wasn’t until the 20th century that the Supreme Court brought this same ideology to the states.
2. They made it legal to practice any type of religion. The Supreme Court has since added a small but powerful addendum in that the practice of religion is not above the non practice of religion. The first amendment doesn’t directly deal with issue and later I’ll provide my take as to why.

What the framers didn’t do was to remove religion from the public sphere. On the contrary, the allowed for people to practice as they saw fit and promised to America that the federal government would not choose any on particular religion over another. England had gone through various twists and turns regarding religion and the framers weren’t going to make the same mistake.

There’s a fundamental difference between not establishing a religion and removing religion from the public sphere. We have things such as “In God We Trust” and  “God bless America” that are a part of our every day lives. If the framers intentionally wanted “God” removed from politics why has God been such a preeminent position?

I contend that it is because we were founded by mainly Christian men holding to various Christian beliefs. That influenced the way our country was shaped and is still shaped today.

But, even with all of that my main argument wasn’t historical context but more personal relevance. I believe that your value system permeates through everything you do. If you believe in God or some higher being that definitely affects your actions, thoughts, and judgment for good or bad. Our morals come from somewhere and while the last 150 years have been a pursuit of empircal morality many people discover their morality through their religion.

And that morality plays out in the public sector everyday. For instance, if my religion states that on Saturday’s people should do two backflips then it’s likely I would introduce or support legislation requiring people to perform backflips on Saturday. Furthermore, if there was also an underlying reason for the backflips I would support similar minded legislation.

In other words, a person’s value system cannot be “checked at the door” nor should we want it to be when it comes to decisions affecting our lives. We are not automatons. We are complex creatures and for many of us we believe that there is something greater than ourselves in the universe.

Regardless of where you fall on the spectrum, my point is that by the very fact we call ourselves Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or whatever we bring that baggage into the public arena. And in the public arena, the people should decide their fate – if they like “In God We Trust” it will continue, if they are fine with abortion it will be acceptable, and if they like the definition of marriage the way it is so be it.

Religion doesn’t kill a governmental system but so long as there is one religious citizen it will continually play a part and have a significant role in public discourse. And the framers never intended it otherwise.