Early Retirement for Injured Federal Employees
What makes a “reason” to do something “compelling”, as opposed to voluntary or optional? Is it when the choices given are no longer existent and one must by necessity or default act — not out of choice but by being forced to? Is it the unwillingness of the individual that defines the act, or the lack of alternatives remaining that determines the defined moment? […]
What does it mean for the government to “shut down” because the Congress and the President were unable to come to a budgetary agreement? It is often the question that is focused upon, but may be the wrong one. The more relevant issue concerns the events that will occur after the cessation of the shut down. What happens afterwards? […]
Is that what we are all striving for? Is the myth that never occurs the one that urges us on? There are multiple idioms and pithy sayings by which “wisdom” is extracted and thought to be a solid foundation for acting and reacting in certain ways. “No one ever says at the end of one’s life, ‘I spent too much time with my kid’”. “Live for tomorrow and you will regret a month of Sundays”. “Time spent at work is time away from family.” […]
It is a French film directed by Daniel Auteuil, and depicts an age just before, during, and after the First World War, when rural life still embraced a contempt for modern values, and the pastoral context defined the the quietude of family life yet unblemished but for private shame of family secrets. It is in the title itself which reveals much; for, there is no independence of a person’s name, and the underlying theme throughout encapsulates the right to a surname, the identity of an individual, and how the interconnectedness of one’s essence, being and substantive community is itself defined by the proper ascription of who we are related to, how, and by what legitimacy. […]
H.G. Wells touched upon our imaginations in 1895 with his novel, The Time Machine, and ever since, the concept itself has been accepted within the cultural milieu of ideas incandescent. Mathematicians find it as a challenge to decipher; astronomy, an idea to ponder; astrophysicists, a vehicle to revitalize the despair of incomprehension; but for poets and prophets, it is the fodder for creativity and imaginations to become unfettered by want of belief. What child (or adult) does not ponder the mysteries of the universe by means of a device to enter a future yet unknown or a past replete with narrated stories of pirates, […]
The bifurcation of our lives is a habit of accepted normative behavior; for most, it is the simple divide between one’s personal life and professional endeavors; then, there are sub-categories of complicated spectrums, where criminal activity is pigeonholed from a daytime semblance of respectability, or deviant behavior is concealed from one’s reputation and facade of societal refinement. Those separations make for ease of transition, or used to. […]
If value of item determines retention of possession, then few trinkets would survive the test of economic viability; but a quick perusal of one’s home will often discover large caches of sentimental liabilities strewn throughout. What determines value, then? Is it the monetization of an item? Or perhaps the psychological attachment, combined with the economic forces in capitalism of supply and demand? […]