OPM Disability Retirement: Human & humane activity

Does the dropping of the single vowel make a difference?  Should it?  Or, should the very status of being “human” encompass and naturally include being “humane”, as well?  Should they not be synonyms, or even indistinguishable as an amalgamation of vowels and consonants, as opposed to two distinct words, even if one is considered as a mere extension of the other?  […] Read More …

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Giving lip service

What does it mean to merely give “lip service”?  Ultimately, it is the hypocrisy of committing to words the sincerity of inaction.  In other words, it is merely the utterance of words, with nothing to follow.  This is a society that speaks much, and does little.  We give lip service to the braggadocio of being a productive society, yet, […] Read More …

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Other people’s misery

Why is it that the misery of others tends to soothe our own? Yes, yes – we grant the common and appropriate responses of heartfelt empathy and facial frowns and perhaps even some tears; but in the end, is it because of the resulting comparative analysis – of a cold, rational and logical methodology of responsive behavior – that we appease the gods of fate in some primitive form of sacrificing others, knowing that so long as the traveling karma has not yet noticed our own plight of devious accord, we are safe for another day? […] Read More …

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: What we believe

Belief is a funny animal. So long as what one believes is never uttered, one can change them from day to day, or even from one hour to the next, without consequences attached. Of course, you can do that, anyway, and many do in this day and age. Once spoken, however, a belief takes on the figurine of a furnace-fired ceramic piece; to change is safe only in engaging the linguistic language-game with those who never heard of the belief, but there is a danger that such third parties could report back to the first party to whom the belief was conveyed. […] Read More …

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: Suspicion of Preemption

Preemptive strikes are often justified by anticipatory rationalizations; the “other” one was “going to” do it, so it is right that one should do it beforehand (whether we are certain of the other’s actions or not, and of course, that is the beauty of such argumentation; by raising the specter of suspicion, we skip over the question itself and deride those who would dare to question the right of self-defense). […] Read More …