You Can't Hug a Child With Nuclear Arms But Let's Try Anyway

Call me Mr. Touchy-Feely but North Korea reminds me of one of those people who get all obsessed with weapons because—wait for it—they're hurting inside. I mean, they act just like the crazy gun-nut neighbor with the tall fence and ramshackle yard with rusting washing machines and the "Keep Out" signs and all. And I declare I don't see why. Why can' they just, you know, lighten up? Stalinist dictatorships, cults of personality, bloated armies, it just all seems so 20th century, somehow. This seems less like an irresolvable conflict than it does a case of a country that's let truculent isolation become an ingrained bad habit. Yo, Comrade Kim! Lighten up, dude! Life's too short for all this tension.