How do you solve a problem like Korea?

If North Korea were a person, the way corporations are in America, that person would be a creepy little adolescent who, instead of being bullied for his lunch money, takes everybody else’s lunch money by bringing a gun to school and insisting he isn’t afraid to use it. In his spare time, I suppose, he dresses up as a ninja and tortures small animals.

North Korea is kind of a sick puppy. One day he’s going to do some real damage. All the other kids at school just keep hoping today will not be that day.

Personally, I laughed when I read that North Korea’s stupid rocket fell apart a couple of minutes after launch. I thought maybe it would shut up the little bastard for awhile. But today the experts are saying it will only make things worse. To them, it seems likely that North Korea will go ahead with a full-on nuclear test. Saving face and all that. The evil dork’s pistol misfired, so he’s gone home to get his shotgun. It doesn’t help to call his parents, because China always just smiles and shrugs: Boys will be boys.

This is maddening. We keep signing deals to hand over our lunch money — food aid — and North Korea keeps breaking the deals before money even changes hands. It makes you want to kick that little monster right the hell out of school and keep him away until he withers and dies.

But you can only take a metaphor so far. North Korea is a miserable hellhole of a country, but it is a country, with nuclear weapons and a lot of artillery and starving millions and nothing to lose. You can’t ignore it any more than you’d ignore a ticking time bomb. It’s going to disintegrate sooner or later, just like that poorly-built rocket. And when it does, watch out.