FERS Disability: federal firefighter medical retirement

Federal Disability Retirement: That promising future

March 6, 2019

One doesn’t have to have been that “golden boy” to have an inkling of a promising future; there just needed to be some hope, and a taste of success. Perhaps you came from a background where expectations were low; where higher education was a mere afterthought and nothing beyond an exclamation of gibberish and fantasy. Was success defined by negation? That if you didn’t do X, avoided Y and prevented Z, you were considered an anomaly and deemed as one of those who “made it”? […]

Federal Disability Retirement: The beginning, middle and end

May 8, 2018

It is a cognitive invention, as most events and occurrences are a continuum without such neatly-trifurcated wholes segmented into a tripartite of sectional constructs. That is why sophistry can rule — because thought fails to meet reality and conform with it. So the argument goes: An arrow shot from a bow can never reach its destination, as the the distance the arrow travels merely cuts the chasm between Point A and Point B […]

Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: The arbitrary life

May 5, 2018

Some would counter that it is a mere tautology; for, life itself is arbitrary, and the very definition of arbitrariness consumes the conceptual construct of living. Thus does the subject subsume the predicate, and vice versa; or, in this case, the adjective and the noun. But of course it all depends upon how we define both the adjective and the noun. Do we mean by “arbitrary” that things just happen without a cause, and that there is no “Grand Designer” that intervenes as in the old Greek plays where the expectation […]

Attorney Representation Federal Disability Retirement: Stress tolerance

September 16, 2017

More and more, the psychology of human endurance is being studied, evaluated, assessed and judged upon; but in the end, the complexity of the psyche may never be fully known, and even of that knowledge which we think we know, we may be completely in error about. We perform “stress tests” upon metal beams and overpass bridges in order to determine their viability and structural integrity; and through various engineering tools, […]

Federal Disability Retirement: Tantum ergo

December 6, 2016

It is the incipit of the last two verses of a Medieval Latin hymn written by St. Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas is best known for his inclusive osmosis by fiat of stretched logic to accommodate and force commensurability the texts of the ancients (i.e., Aristotle) within the essential boundaries of Christian theology. His methodology in accomplishing this feat was to posit the weakest of straw man arguments, then to systematically appear to knock them down, and then to declare a forceful conclusion as if the ergo naturally and rationally followed. That the conclusion is followed by verses subsequent, reflects how life works as well. […]

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: The reef beneath the lagoon’s surface

November 18, 2016

In every worthwhile venture, there is the inherent danger of failure, and more often, of encounters with obstacles while enduring the process. Some are apparent; others, hidden like the reef beneath the lagoon’s surface, of the jagged formations from sediments deposited and coagulated through time and shifting tectonics of unseen tidal forces. That is the greatest of dangers – of a peaceful hue by a lagoon in its invitation on the surface of beauty; yet, beneath, lurking unknown and unrevealed, ready to tear the undersides of an unsuspecting boat as it enters into waters mysterious in its captivating picturesqueness. […]

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The centrality of fringe

October 17, 2016

In whatever definition one wants to adopt, the meaning is clear: It is that which is on the outer periphery, and not central to the essence recognized. But what if the reversal occurs? Can that even be imagined? Can the fringe constitute a substantive centrality, and yet retain the stability of its essence? And, once the mirror conversion occurs, does the identification remain as it was, or do we accept the fringe elements as the convention, and the formerly known staid components as outside the normative foundations of an acceptable core? […]

FERS & CSRS Medical Retirement Benefits: Cloud of thoughts

October 7, 2016

The metaphorical connotation represents the state of many who wander about the earth; that is why the statistical reflection of accidents and injuries can never quite be diminished, and the constancy of conundrums concerning catastrophic clemency of uncharacteristic conduct can never conclusively conceal the calamity of creativity. Sorry, but once alliteration is initiated, it is difficult to extricate one’s self from the poetry of consonants and vowels dancing in tandem. […]

Federal Disability Retirement: Tethered, Tattered & Tortured

August 24, 2016

The first in the series connotes bonding; the second, the state of being; and the third in the tripartite application of this linguistic artifice, the conclusion to a life lived. Camus and Sartre represent the despair and loss of innocence – of a melancholy realization in the disillusionment of life’s aggregate experience – born in the early days of existentialism which uttered its first breath of strangulated gasps in the aftermath of the horrors of the First World War, only to be reinforced with experiential encounters of greater dehumanization during the Second World War; […]

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Tethered, Tattered & Tortured

August 23, 2016

The first in the series connotes bonding; the second, the state of being; and the third in the tripartite application of this linguistic artifice, the conclusion to a life lived. Camus and Sartre represent the despair and loss of innocence – of a melancholy realization in the disillusionment of life’s aggregate experience – born in the early days of existentialism which uttered its first breath of strangulated gasps in the aftermath of the horrors of the First World War, only to be reinforced with experiential encounters of greater dehumanization during the Second World War; […]