Legal Representation on Federal Disability Retirement Claims: Then, forgotten

To die is forgivable; to be forgotten, not so much.  Perhaps that is why the 15-minute rule of one’s fame is so important to most people; that, to be “appreciated” in a life-long struggle just to remain relevant makes fools of us all, and the basis upon which con-men and scams continue to effectively play their course.  It is, of course, the “then” that matters – that prelude to the state of being forgotten, that defines what a person’s life was, remains, and will continue to be in the future amongst and amidst the remainder of a family, friends and acquaintances left behind. […] Read More …

Medical Retirement from Federal Service: Profiles in Discourage

It is, of course, an obvious play off of the 1957 Pulitzer Prize winning work (publication date of 1955), describing 8 U.S. Senators who displayed courage in the face of criticism (an inherent oxymoron?). Whether or not, and to what extent, Kennedy himself wrote the work (Ted Sorenson, John F.’s speechwriter, finally conceded in his 2008 autobiography as much) has become historically irrelevant, for the legend has become the man, and has replaced the truth of clear lines that once constituted the demarcation between fantasy and reality. […] Read More …

Federal Employment Medical Separation & Retirement: Putting forth an air of pretension

Why is it that changing one’s vernacular accent is considered pretentious? What if people, on a daily basis, came into the office and assumed a different dialect — the Northerner with a sudden affectation of a Southern drawl; a Midwesterner assuming the melody of the Irish; or the New Englander presuming upon a Jamaican tango; and the next day, in random turns, everyone played musical chairs with the spoken word and its vehicle of communication — why would we be critical of such a display of linguistic malleability? The phonetics of pretension remain predictably unacceptable; somehow, we know that a certain “putting on” of an accent is either bad or less than genuine. […] Read More …

Medical Separation from Federal Government Employment: The uncommon denominator

Why is it that the common denominator is always represented by the basest of related factors? The answer is simple, of course, and a tautology of sorts; for, that which is uncommon, by definition, constitutes a rare and prized feature, and through sheer economic application of supply and demand, the latter is heightened when the former is scarce. Thus, in issues of character and human essences, the core of an individual is represented by the base elements of evolutionary Darwinism, and would therefore constitute the most simplistic of instinctive drives; whereas culture, refinement and societal structures are developed beyond the commonality of base factors. […] Read More …

Medical Separation & Retirement from Federal Government Employment: The Architect of Awe

There are murals of inspired souls, touched by a hand guided by forces unknown; of vaulted ceilings and high arches, and mosaics which are crafted, painted and tediously combined; and as one approaches such architectural wonders, the eyes are lifted upwards toward the heavens in such a natural order of elevation that there is no pause for self-consciousness. Contrast that to the technology of modernity, where huddled masses with sauntering forms and stooped shoulders look down upon the glare of Smartphones, […] Read More …

Federal & Postal Employee Medical Separation: The abstract concept of “the other”

Existentialism could only have arisen from the ashes of nihilism; Western Philosophy, spanning the spectrum of metaphysics, epistemology, Rationalism, Empiricism and the tradition of questioning origins, essences and the compendium of who we are and what it all means, does not lead to the natural annihilation of intellectual curiosity. But Existentialism, does. Why? Because Existentialism is an emotional reaction, rather than a rational rebuttal. From the horrors of Nazi concentration camps and the denigration of human dignity reduced to mere abstractions, the philosophy of negation of which it is characterized, […] Read More …

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The last hurrah

We dream of those moments; the final word in a debate which devastates the opponent; the retort which wows the audience; the closing statement that persuades beyond a reasonable doubt; the performance of a lifetime which defines the value of life itself. The final breath taken, the last hurrah heard, and the concluding catapult left not as a dangling participle, but as a substantive grammatical perfection, leaves the participants and viewers in silent awe in the wake of the closing curtains descending as the roar of the crowd becomes muffled because of the thunderstruck performance left with little doubt or residue for an encore. […] Read More …

Medical Pension from Federal Government Employment: Pulse of the heart, eyes of the mind

Lin Yutang is a preeminently accomplished writer of the last century who wrote incisive essays and works describing the great divide between China and the monolithic aggregate collectively referred to as “the West”. It was a different time of which he wrote, as the world was larger, more divided, and inaccessible to many; prejudices and biases still prevailed, and the attitudes of former colonialists still ravaged the minds of ignorance and fear, where political correctness had not yet tilted the ingrained cultural condemnations of group-think and herd mentality. […] Read More …

OPM Disability Law: The Fatigue of Profundity & Requirement of Repetition

Profundity is overvalued. With the advent of the internet and information technology, the widespread dissemination of seemingly esoteric array of knowledge and know-how (yes, there is a distinction with a difference between the two), everyone is vying for the heard voice, and the break-out from the herd. One becomes easily fatigued by seemingly deep insights, or “new” data and facts upon otherwise mundane concerns. […] Read More …