OPM Disability Retirement Law: The cruelty of our nature

Note that we are not positing that nature in general is cruel; for, in nature, predatory behaviors and devouring of one another is merely a tautological definition of nature itself, in the constant balance between prey and predator, betwixt overpopulation and dominance of one species over another, etc.  No, the “our” refers to a specific species – of the human kind. […] Read More …

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Natural empathy

Is there such a thing, or do we just fake it even when we do not naturally “feel” it? If the official, technical definition fails to make the distinction between “feeling” and “understanding”, does it not discount the differentiation of the traditional bifurcation – that of rational capacity as opposed to part of one’s emotional quotient? Further, if it is merely an emotion, do some have a greater capacity because of a genetic predisposition, while others at a minimal level acquired through accident of birth, and thus can one be held responsible for merely being who we are? On the other hand, if it has a closer affinity to an “understanding” one possesses, […] Read More …

OPM Medical Retirement: The silence erupting in the room

You go out for a moment – perhaps to smoke a cigarette (do people actually do that these days?), to “freshen up” (is that necessarily a sexist presumption, in that women are the only ones who need to do so, or wasn’t it more likely just a euphemism to avoid the crass declaration that one has to “go to the potty”?) or just to get away from the din of dinner conversation; and, upon reentering the room those eyes look askance, askew, and away from you. What happened? […] Read More …

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Preparing for more than a ‘maybe’

We never engage a project with just a ‘maybe’; to do so is to invite a preemptive failure, of sorts. On the other hand, there are rarely any guarantees in life; just as the victims of Madoff and other historical figures of thievery; a ‘sure thing’ is rarely that, and more likely its counterintuitive opposite. Chances and opportunities of a lifetime, of course, are touted as ‘maybes’ that should be considered. Those stories abound of youthful vigor in the parent’s basement tinkering with innovations that will alter the future course of technology and mechanized futuristic inventions; […] Read More …