FERS Disability: civil service disability retirement

OPM Disability Retirement: If life were a story

February 8, 2019

Could the First Chapter be changed? Who will write the final chapter? Does memory serve the dictates of truth, or does a bit of “fudging” occur as with every narrative told, taking liberally the artistic license to its extreme? Will it be a Dickensian opening or a Salinger’s scoffing of the details of birth? What genre would be encompassed: Fiction; autobiography; Science Fiction; a Narrative Poem, perhaps? Can fact and fiction be interwoven, and will the middle parts include characters long forgotten, and some individuals be left out deliberately just out of pure spite? […]

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: Weight of evidence

December 8, 2018

When you walk into a room full of people, how does one differentiate, define, separate and discern? Remember that once-popular fictional work entitled, Tarzan of the Apes by (originally) Edgar Rice Burroughs? There is a scene (whether from one of the various versions depicted on screen) where young Tarzan […]

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement from OPM: Purposive sequence

October 10, 2018

Are all things in a sequence “purposive”? If you are walking in the countryside and come upon a horse, a man and a pig, in that order, was there any “purposive” meaning in the sequence met, or was it random and a reflection of the chaos of the universe as a whole? If it had been in a different order — say, you first came upon the pig, then the horse, and finally the man — would there be a question as to either the sequence or the meaning of the sequence? […]

Attorney Representation for OPM Disability Claims: Fair Games

July 31, 2018

It depends upon how you read the concept, which word or syllable you place the accent or emphasis upon, doesn’t it? In one sense of the concept, it has to do with games found at the county or state Fairs — you know, where cotton candy is sold and prizes are awarded for the largest potato grown or the fattest pig shown. In another sense, it is in contrast to its opposite — of games where you have a good chance because rules are imposed and upheld, […]

Attorney Representation for OPM Disability Claims: Mountain climbing

June 21, 2018

Whether for the exhilaration of the activity or the sheer confrontation of the challenge looming, it is a sport that captures the imagination of the fitness-enthusiast, the romantic and the eccentric loner alike. It is the sport that engages the competitive spirit not against another’s ability or the coordinated capacity of large teams having practiced together, but against the inert heights of peaks and impervious rock faces that show no emotion as to one’s success or failure. […]

Legal Representation on Federal Disability Retirement Claims: Then, forgotten

September 9, 2017

To die is forgivable; to be forgotten, not so much. Perhaps that is why the 15-minute rule of one’s fame is so important to most people; that, to be “appreciated” in a life-long struggle just to remain relevant makes fools of us all, and the basis upon which con-men and scams continue to effectively play their course. It is, of course, the “then” that matters – that prelude to the state of being forgotten, that defines what a person’s life was, remains, and will continue to be in the future amongst and amidst the remainder of a family, friends and acquaintances left behind. […]

FERS & CSRS Medical Retirement: Of the worthwhile life

June 11, 2016

What determines value? More importantly, who judges worth? Is productivity the paradigmatic construct of comparative analysis? For, in order to assess the greater advantage of X over Y, some methodology of an objective basis should be applied in devaluing one as opposed to appointing the other as the beneficial contestant of an evaluative conclusion; or can we just arbitrarily gauge one over the other based upon personal preferences? Rawls has variously pointed out that we can be just as “reasoned” in our conclusions by applying a consistent model of application in the social justice […]

Medical Retirement from Federal Service: Profiles in Discourage

April 12, 2016

It is, of course, an obvious play off of the 1957 Pulitzer Prize winning work (publication date of 1955), describing 8 U.S. Senators who displayed courage in the face of criticism (an inherent oxymoron?). Whether or not, and to what extent, Kennedy himself wrote the work (Ted Sorensen, John F.’s speechwriter, finally conceded in his 2008 autobiography as much) […]

Federal Employment Medical Separation & Retirement: Putting forth an air of pretension

April 9, 2016

Why is it that changing one’s vernacular accent is considered pretentious? What if people, on a daily basis, came into the office and assumed a different dialect — the Northerner with a sudden affectation of a Southern drawl; a Midwesterner assuming the melody of the Irish; or the New Englander presuming upon a Jamaican tango; and the next day, in random turns, everyone played musical chairs with the spoken word and its vehicle of communication — why would we be critical of such a display of linguistic malleability? The phonetics of pretension remain predictably unacceptable; somehow, we know that a certain “putting on” of an accent is either bad or less than genuine. […]

Medical Separation from Federal Government Employment: The uncommon denominator

April 8, 2016

Why is it that the common denominator is always represented by the basest of related factors? The answer is simple, of course, and a tautology of sorts; for, that which is uncommon, by definition, constitutes a rare and prized feature, and through sheer economic application of supply and demand, the latter is heightened when the former is scarce. Thus, in issues of character and human essences, the core of an individual is represented by the base elements of evolutionary Darwinism, and would therefore constitute the most simplistic of instinctive drives; whereas culture, refinement and societal structures are developed beyond the commonality of base factors. […]