OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: The picture album

Time was, every family had a picture album – that anachronism bound carefully in a large leather book-shaped monstrosity, kept safe where dust settles and mice scurry around; taken out for occasions where boredom is accentuated and friends or neighbors have stayed long past their welcome, and so it is taken out carefully, dusted off and laboriously paged through, telling of a history for each page, each photograph laid meticulously upon the thick plaster-backboard of a person’s history. […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: The dead, the dying and youth

Have you ever seen a flower arrangement that weaves together deadwood with bright and colorful summer explosions?  They tell us of that which reflects modernity:  The dead are forgotten in the background; the sick and dying are mere echoes fading quickly into a distant past; and it is only the vigorous who dominate and forcefully remain in the forefront.  How a society coordinates the interaction between the triad of life’s complex ingredients reveals the extent of its inner soul and character. […] Read More …

FERS & CSRS Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: Functional architecture

It refers to those unnecessary trappings; but of course, the immediate question which follows is: who determines necessity as opposed to aesthetic addendums otherwise of utilitarian vacuity. The traditional approach in functional architecture is determined by the general principle that a building should be designed by the paradigmatic governance of the underlying purpose for which the structure should be constructed. That is likely why government buildings are essentially drab and colorless, reflecting the purposive nature of a bureaucracy and administrative conduits. […] Read More …

OPM Accepted Medical Conditions

The problem with “lists” is that, the moment one realizes that one is not on the list, the tendency is to simply give up and go home.  But lists are rarely exhaustive; rather, most are merely to provide a “paradigm” or “type”, as opposed to exclusionary intent by failing to specify or name.  Thus, for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering preparing, […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: Of Tomorrow’s Dreams Delayed

We like to think that our lives progress unencumbered in a linear line of advancement, with nary a bump or an obstacle unconquerable, and but for the occasional exuberance of planned erraticisms, the journey should be a smooth ride without surprises. But just as planes sometimes fall from the sky, and nature betrays its perfection by mistaken errors of comedic turmoil, so the linear aspect of constancy often must confront the bumpiness of expectations. Life rarely turns out as planned, and the more we plan, the less we expect fulfillment. […] Read More …