OPM Disability Retirement: Escaping the Feudal Paradigm

Anachronisms rarely die a sudden death; instead, they fade over time, with vestiges and residual skeletons of facades and structures remaining stubbornly in place for decades, and sometimes centuries. The system of vassals paying homage and fealty to those who […] Read More …

Postal and Federal Disability Retirement: An Altered Life of Habituation

Loss of stature and status can come in many forms; we think too often in terms of financial status, of material belongings, where we live, with whom we associate, and the subtle evaluation of social consciousness in relation to our neighbors, friends and family. […] Read More …

Federal and Postal Disability Retirement: Suburban Sketches

Within the past 2 weeks: a rabbit’s nest is discovered in the back yard; then, in the early morning dawn of the next morning, that same discovery is met with a predator whose presence is feared only in the limited universe of suburbia — the neighborhood cat. Laying with […] Read More …

OPM FERS/CSRS Disability Retirement: To Be a Squirrel, for a Day

Watching them is an exercise of fascination; with nimble flight, to jump from a rooftop to the tip of a branch 10 feet away; scurry up and down trees with little thought (or is that merely a human projection without justification?) and no hesitation between the […] Read More …

Disability Retirement for Federal Government Employees: Asymmetrical Lives

Asymmetrical systems are an important principle which dominates organisms and prevails in the world around us. Symmetry involves balance and parallelism; a defiance through a counter-symmetrical eruption is normally an anomaly and deviation — a mutation in organic […] Read More …

Federal Worker Disability Retirement: The Paradoxical Soiling of Sacrament

Can a person enter a religious institution (i.e., a church, a mosque, a synagogue, etc.) without an intent to worship, but merely as an onlooker, and yet assume the role of a congregant without soiling the sacrament of its grounds? Tourists do that all the time, and perhaps […] Read More …

Medical Retirement Benefits for US Government Employees: The Maverick

It is sometimes referred to as an unbranded animal, often a calf or yearling; the fact that it is unbranded, implies that it doesn’t belong to a particular stock; ownership is not established; and secondary meanings include an inference of being unorthodox or different. […] Read More …

Postal and Federal Disability Retirement: Effective Negations

Why is it that some words are known primarily by their negation? For example, we use the word “unfettered” to convey the meaning of freedom and release, but rarely see the usage of its non-negative form, as in, “He is fettered”. […] Read More …