OPM Disability Retirements: The verse of 1-liners

Can a verse stand alone, isolated in its metrical composition, without preceding or succeeding contextual delineations? Of what value can the singular have, without the surrounding aggregation of the whole? Like a scrap or fragment of a larger narrative revelation, of archaeologists and anthropologists working with but a piece of the greater story, the verse of 1-liners forever echoes for a harkening of others to join. John Donne poetically captured the sense of that isolation, and Thomas Merton wrote a reflective narrative upon that very theme […] Read More …

Medical Retirement from Federal Government Employment: The Wonder of Functioning

The complexity of the human condition makes one wonder about the capacity, endurance and ability of this animal who has created such a dysfunctional, technologically sophisticated universe. From genetic predetermination of uncontrollable susceptibility to behavior patterns, diseases and addictive personalities, to environmental factors which condition and influence; what we eat; the wide spectrum of tolerance (or intolerance) to stress; medication regimens which would otherwise knock out an elephant, to modern prosthetic devices which makes the Six Million Dollar Man of the 70s a mere skeleton of technological innovation; and where this post-information age of constant data and stimuli bombardment is a never-ending stream of stresses; […] Read More …

Federal Employee Early Medical Retirement: Sleep Disorders

Sleep disorders; non-restorative sleep; Sleep Apnea; Sleep dysfunctions; altogether, they can cumulatively comprise distinguishable medical disorders, but often are lumped together, and can encapsulate differing and almost opposite conditions, including idiopathic hypersomnia, […] Read More …

Medical Retirement from Federal Government Employment: Byzantine Iconoclasm & Compromise

It was a period in history when religious images and icons were considered heretical. It resulted not merely in the rejection of new such images, but in the active and aggressive destruction of venerated art, sculptures, etc., and the persecution of those who created or owned them. The term itself has come to represent an unyielding, irrational stance, unmoved by rational discourse, and even more to the point, aggressive in stamping out all opposition. […] Read More …