FERS Disability: failed duty fitness now what?

Medical Retirement from Federal Government Employment: Byzantine Iconoclasm & Compromise

November 7, 2015

It was a period in history when religious images and icons were considered heretical. It resulted not merely in the rejection of new such images, but in the active and aggressive destruction of venerated art, sculptures, etc., and the persecution of those who created or owned them. The term itself has come to represent an unyielding, irrational stance, unmoved by rational discourse, and even more to the point, aggressive in stamping out all opposition. […]

OPM Disability Retirement: The Indomitable Spirit of Pursuit

November 6, 2015

Preparation in pursuit of an endeavor should always embrace an uncompromising resolve to see it through to the end. Such an attitude is quite different, and distinguishable, from mere stubbornness when the facts faced or the odds stacked clearly and convincingly manifest an inevitable defeat. The former attitude prepares one to refuse succumbing to the innate fear and weakness inherently existent in us all; the latter, a failure of recognition beyond rational discourse and comprised of an obsessive impulse contrary to good form. […]

Federal Disability Retirement: Life’s Repertoire

July 2, 2015

It is one thing to have a stock of memorized pieces or performances from which one can reach back and employ, like an inventory of dusty artifacts which can be brought out for display upon request; quite another, however, to reveal it, dust off the residue, begin to showcase it, then be interrupted and, without missing a beat, to ad lib above and beyond the prepared piece. The tape recorder (does anyone even remember what that contraption is or was, in this digital age?), the CD, the digital device; once set, it can only be altered by enforced remixing. […]

OPM Disability Retirement: Ends and Beginnings

October 2, 2014

One can be pensive or mournful about it; anxiety levels likely attach to either event; one is described and defined as the conclusion and afterthought, the other, as a preface or introduction. The end of an event necessarily results in change, as does the beginning; and perhaps it is merely a circularity of unending infinity, or a linear continuum which extends beyond the horizon of concavity. […]