FERS Disability Retirement: “Oh, can I help?”

It is the grammatical interjection or discourse marker; in either usage, it is in response to some new or surprising information received. Thus do we often encounter that individual (we all know of at least one) who, sitting silently, idly and unnoticed throughout, suddenly perks up after all (or most) of the work has been done – whether in preparation of a meal; cleaning up after the dinner party; or where the main elements of a project have just been completed. And the uninvited interjection: “Oh, can I help?” […] Read More …

Federal Employee Medical Retirement: The timeworn tale

Are there such things, or just the boorish attitudes of impatient whims? Are adages, quips and kernels of wisdom never perceived by eyes afresh, or do tales told ever-incessantly by husbands through the course of lasting marriages, or by grandpa at each visit to the chloroform-smelling nursing homes where coughs and sputtering are interrupted by stories regurgitated between gasps filled with oxygenated rasping, merely bore us all? Of timeworn tales – where do they come from? When do they end? Is there a garbage heap of stories no longer told that old men and silent women visit, and leave behind the narratives no one wants to listen to, anymore? […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: The mortality reminder

When does mortality become a concern? Certainly, not during the youthful vigor when the future holds bright concurrent with the cellular construct yet expanding and multiplying. Is it with the first encounter that reveals vulnerability? And what is defined as a “healthy” sense of it, as opposed to an obsessive conduit to a dementia of nihilism? Does a “close shave” necessarily haunt everyone, or does it matter as to the sensitivity of a soul that such karma encounters? What “reminds” one of a future terminal, as opposed to becoming an all-consuming journey to avoid the ultimate consequence? […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: Tantum ergo

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. […] Read More …