Early Retirement for Injured Federal Employees
It is the Roman Stoic, Seneca the Younger, who wrote that, “If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable”. It is, in the end, the essence of Stoicism — of living life without complaint and without being impacted by the hardships of the objective world, all the while clinging to a path of virtue unfettered by worldly concerns. […]
It is meant to determine the vulnerability of structural foundations, or to gauge whether, under certain extreme circumstances, it will withstand catastrophic levels of pressure for safety and soundness. Distress triggers the ultimate test; and whether a breaking point can be established is always a fear — of how low or high, and of what tolerance the test itself will reveal. Objects, composite elements meant to reinforce; and most of all, people […]
Would you hold a dinner party without preparing? Or attend an important meeting, host a regal gathering of accomplished celebrities or go camping in the wilds of winter’s ferocity — without making adequate preparations? The elaborate extent of such preparations is often correlated with the importance, significance, relevance and complexity of the issue at hand, […]
We all have them; some, more than others; and by either quality or quantity, we often judge as to the burdens overloaded in our lives, comparing to others by contrast the significance of the impact of each, whether large or small, tragic and grandiose or irrelevant like a speck of a fly upon a windowsill in the basement where no one visits, anyway. […]
Hope is the fragile string that first becomes frayed when avenues of discourse become closed and the corner that was once merely a lexicon of intersecting walls becomes a place where no exit can be found, anymore. Cornered animals and armies without a pathway for escape become desperate in their responses; and as survival is yet an instinct that has not evolved much beyond the stage; […]
The former often refers to architectural structures; the latter, to the exterior or interior paint, color and hue; and, together, they present to the observing eye the sensible objects that we experience through sight, smell and at least as to the former, tactile encounters. Words are funny things; we not only create and apply them, but concurrently establish rules for utility and usage such that restrictions apply, expansiveness beyond certain boundaries become prohibited, and modifications for allowances in the placement of a particular sentence are constrained. […]
They are almost imperceptible; in any event, we would not otherwise notice them but for the altered hue in morning’s glory of pink shades and yellow gleams of delight. From one angle and perspective, one might miss the subtlety of a purple shade not otherwise naturally given to observation; from another, a shift, quite impossible to grasp and declare, but there nevertheless, and that is precisely what occurs with the imperceptible light shifts we miss in the daily lives of busy modernity that destroys and in incremental deterioration withdraws from grace. […]
Will the electronic tablet ever replace paper’s longstanding sovereignty? The invention, dissemination and widespread availability of paper was a notable mark in human progression — if only for what it allowed in establishing communication, transfusion of knowledge and conveyance of data. Like Gutenberg’s movable type printing press, the cotton gin, the Model T Ford and the computer chip of modernity, such inventions became, in retrospect, tumultuous benchmarks of human advancement. If advertising images reflect a hope of an industry, it is clear that paper’s replacement is a target of that sector. […]
It first came to light in August, 1974, just prior to Nixon’s resignation from Office. A young reporter by the name of Dan Druthers asked the President: “Have you considered the exponential factor of time wasted in consumer affairs concerning crushed toilet paper rolls during transport and delivery? What has your Administration done about it? The American People demand an answer!” The White House Press Corps was aghast. No other journalist had had the temerity to heretofore question the Presidency with such forcefulness. The President, of course, was stumped, and shot back, “Mr. Druthers, what do you think you are running for?” […]
If words are to have meaning, then the care in using them must be protected. It is, of course, the conditional which must be accepted as true, in order for the contingency to be acted upon. In a society where populism prevails, and in accepting a false sense of what “democracy” and “equality” have come to mean, the suffering consequences of a nation’s language becomes destroyed in subtle tones of disengagement. Words lose their efficacy by multiple methods: overuse; misuse; refusal to allow for an expected impact to occur; or non-use by neglect and disregard. […]