Back on duty - Conflict Resolution for the Danish cartoonists

Well… THAT was a long, unannounced break, wasn’t it, dears?

I know we mental nurses are supposed to be on unstinting duty 25 hours a day, 8 days a week, but as you know you can’t always squeeze it all in. It’s not that I haven’t needed desperately to blow off more than a little medicated steam, it’s more a case of finding enough quality time (and the motivation) to prize my tremulous fingers off the Nebuchadnezzar of Bombay Sapphire Gin that I received way back in December, courtesy of the staff Christmas party “Secret Santa” fiasco…

In a fit of unconscionable avarice Nurse Kravitz had put her own name into the hat eight times, not realizing that she’d have to buy presents for eight people if she ever hoped to get out of the room alive.

By the time Kravitz had been handed her fifth gift the sack was almost empty, and the penny had dropped. In the drunken riot that followed Maureen and Doctor Strangelove managed to sneak the terrified Kravitz into the kitchens, crammed into the heated compartment of a Hostess Trolley.

As the baying mob crashed through the doors in hot pursuit, Maureen and the Doctor just had time to shove the trolley containing the now-smouldering Kravitz out of the Service Entrance into the loading-bay, where it hurtled down the concrete ramp and shot straight into the electrified compound fence, causing the Asylum’s antiquated power station to blow several circuits, plunging us (and every town for a radius of fifty miles) into total darkness and mayhem.

The next day an emergency meeting of the Asylum Governing Board was called to discuss the urgent business of rebuilding our inadequate power supply. Should we go Coal, Gas, or Oil and recklessly perpetuate our catastrophically selfish polluting habits, or should we look at Hydro, Wind, Wave or what? Here was a perfect chance to get it right, and invest in a pollution-free, genuinely sustainable energy future. All it needed was Vision and courage. All it needed was intelligence. All it needed was decision-making made by someone without Shit-For-Brains.

Instead, what we’re getting is the reckless insanity of more Nuclear Power. Apparently that's what happens when you put Lunatics in charge.

Much more on this out-and-out lunacy over the weekend.

...But before I go, I must tell you that Professor Pizzo over in the American Annexe has put those controversial Danish cartoons up on the staff notice board so everyone can see for themselves what all the current hysteria is about. Maureen and I went for a peek this lunchtime, and I’ve gotta tell you, we couldn't even raise a titter.

Maureen thinks the Danes should be lynched for not being funny!

Though I prefer Calvin and Hobbes myself, here’s my solution to the prickly problem, based on over 30 years of dedicated Mental Nursing and Guinness-drenched Conflict Resolution…

(hat-tip to Simon Le Vans)