Early Retirement for Injured Federal Employees
We often hear (and perhaps secretly scoff at?) the modern verbiage of a “Holistic” approach, where the missing consonant makes all the difference – as in the non-word, “Whole-istic”. It is the approach often ignored and replaced by its cousin – of looking at each stage […]
Do you have a linear, sequential methodology? Is the legal argumentation systematically constructed? Or, is the mish-mash approach consigned – of a hodgepodge of thousands of hands at needlepoint in creating a colorful quilt for the Fall Festival of creative designs? Is the Bruner Presumption invoked as an afterthought, and the Bracey-argument concerning accommodations defined in an obfuscated manner, such that the argument reveals more about what you do not know and understand, than of a pin-point accuracy as to the sharpening and attacking of the issues preemptively recognized? […]
Note that we are not positing that nature in general is cruel; for, in nature, predatory behaviors and devouring of one another is merely a tautological definition of nature itself, in the constant balance between prey and predator, betwixt overpopulation and dominance of one species over another, etc. No, the “our” refers to a specific species – of the human kind. Whether engendered and triggered within our genetic predispositions, or as Rousseau and Locke would have it, spurred on by the artificial constructs evolved from the social contract created for self-preservation, there is little denying that “our” nature is the cruelest of them all. […]
It is not always in the outward and very-public display of emotions, in which a battle is fought and won; often, it is the restraining of a capacity and potential to reflexively counter, but held back just at the point of harm, that determines the pinnacle of gaining prestige. Acts of bravery for a Plains Indian did not necessarily require harm inflicted upon an enemy; counting coup and the subsequent rise in respect and prestige could involve the mere touching of an enemy, while escaping unharmed despite that close encounter with the savage face of danger. […]
Of course, the title is more akin to Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover, as opposed to an interventionist deity of a personal nature. Yet, even of the latter, the question of whether any real influence can be gotten, or whether fate had already predetermined the course of future actions, is certainly debatable. If one ‘appeals’ to the guidance of a personal idol, but hears nothing, is there any distinguishable distinction to be made from that of a prime move, unperturbed by cries of tragic consequences? […]
Why is the filing of a Federal Disability Retirement application by a Federal employee or a U.S. Postal Worker often accompanied by a history of discrimination, harassment and persistent wrongs committed? Perhaps, because a person who files for Federal or Postal Disability Retirement is reflective of a general consensus of human nature itself: the microcosm of a delimited universe does not subvert the greater truth of humanity as a whole. Despite all of the legal protections accorded […]
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. […]
It is always a burden when the passageway beyond is a mist of obscurity. It helps to possess it, even in partial shades of inane generalizations; but lack of it, especially in youth, is neither a crime nor a blot of misdeeds upon one’s reputation so early in a life or career. We have known them, whether as a “type” or an individual; that rarity of endangered species where the target-point of life is an unwavering straight line directly from birth to death (or at least for the moment when a career goal is sought). Clarity of purpose is something one “ought” to have, but rarely manifested in the lives of ordinary people. We talk of a nation’s “manifest destiny”, […]
What if we never grew up with any? Is it not by metaphor and analogy that we all escape the citadel of ivory towers and the dangers of glass barriers and unseen traumas? They tell us that the early years of “imprint” are crucial for stability, development and self-discipline against asocial behaviors; yet, even after the crucial years following the correlation subsequent to the first encounter with the world, and just before the turmoil of puberty and into adulthood, there are indicators that failure of examples to take hold can still be corrected in order to prevent the ghastly concretization of personality misfits, where pathological deviancy may yet be avoided. […]