OPM Medical Retirement Legal Representation: Sad stories

Is sadness relative?  Are there sad stories that are so sad that even the ones that were considered sad prior to the sadder story being told, somehow nullify the lesser sad stories and make them into not sad stories?  Do we, after hearing the sadder tale, turn to the first story teller and say, “Yours was not so sad, after all, and in fact you have it pretty good”?  If a person tells of having just buried his mother, and you ask, “How old was she?” […] Read More …

Attorney Representation Federal Disability Retirement: The running of days

How does it happen?  Where did it all go?  One day, you are a young man or woman, full of promises and hopes, dreams that defy any limitation or restriction of potentiality yet to be unleashed; and the next, an old man or woman, rocking back and forth, awaiting the grim reaper with its scythe and faceless chasm of darkness and despair.  In between, of course, there is a memory – of a blur, a constant rush from this activity to that, of emergencies, turmoil and tumults, of the proverbial peaks and valleys; in short, it is called “living life”. […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: The pendulum swing

Time used to “march on”, and the pendulum swing was a metaphor which everyone understood. No more. The digital age of technological superiority has made such inane profundities left stacked upon the history of obsolescence. But for cherished grandfather clocks in hallways of mansions forgotten, or in the mysteries of worn novels where the tick-tock represented the anticipation of the sudden death scream; the slow, mechanical device which moves to and fro, left to right, right to left, and into the eternal progression of marked time, is but an irritant for the noise it makes. […] Read More …

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Casuistry and Sophistry

It is often used to described “applied” ethics — that branch of moral questioning which evaluates and analyzes an actual case, as opposed to a theoretical artifice constructed for purely pedagogic purposes, devoid of flesh and substantive import. No longer constrained by the ivory tower of hypothetical unversality, and thus vacuous of feeling, real empathy and true relationships, casuistry naturally devolves into sophistry, where self-interested motives become ensconced. Devolution denotes a denigration of sorts; such a statement is not deliberate in its alliterative force, […] Read More …

Medical Separation a nd Retirement under FERS or CSRS: The nose beyond which

The human animal has reached a point of evolutionary pedigree where constant vigilance with the outside world is generally thought to be unnecessary; although, still when an individual walks through an unlit parking lot in the dead of night, the hairs which straighten and stand at attention on the nape of one’s neck would belie such an expression of civility amongst the savagery of newsworthy crimes printed daily. Most of us live and walk about completely immersed within our own thoughts and reflections; and when encounters with the “outside” world suddenly jolt into an awareness just beyond, to focus upon the individual, event or incident which indicated a need for such engagement, […] Read More …

FERS & CSRS Medical Retirement: Seasonal Rhythms

We are completely disconnected from the imposition of nature’s imperatives; through artificial means, we extend the light of day in the name of productivity, and prevent and shut it out for the sake of lengthier restorative sleep; we defy slumber and seasons of cocoon-like hibernation with unnatural heat, and resist the middle of the day where scorching temperatures and required siestas in other countries are ignored and scoffed at. […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: Facts and Explanations

There is often a widespread misconception that “facts” need no elucidation or explanation, and somehow speak for themselves. There are, indeed, times when self-imposed limitation of apparent eloquence and bombastic, grandiloquent and pretentious verbosity is of use; for, scarcity of adjectives and brevity of prose can leave the plains and tundra of a descriptive narrative’s call for less inhabitants, and not more, to reveal the beauty of the linguistic landscape; but even in such instances, facts still require explanation. […] Read More …