TOUGH START: Talk about a rough first day on the job—Chilean President Sebastian Pinera was inaugurated Thursday in seaside Valparaiso and immediately had to issue his first presidential edict: Run for the hills.

We’ve had that same thought about Washington, but in Pinera’s case the warning to move to higher ground followed a magnitude 6.9 aftershock to last month’s devastating earthquake. That shock, itself as strong as the Haiti quake, triggered a tsunami alert and also caused the evacuation of the swaying government building in which he was inaugurated.

Let’s hope it’s not all downhill from here, in his just-launched term of office.

TOUGH FINISH: Of all the reasons we’ve ever heard for ousting a politician from office, “tickling a staffer to the point of breathlessness” is perhaps the oddest. The severe penalty has crossed that off our list of things to try around here.

OK, so maybe there was more behind former Southern Tier Rep. Eric Massa’s resignation than that. The allegations swirling around him do include groping and inappropriate comments, as anyone following this latest public scandal knows. But what’s up with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi commenting that this is a “very sick person”? We’ll be charitable and think she’s talking about his conflicting statements; otherwise, how does she square that with her support of gay rights, and how does it play back in her home district of San Francisco?

TOUGH TIMES: This just in—North Korea is looking in the couch cushions.

Faced with a crumbling economy and sanctions against arms exports, Pyongyang is looking desperately for cash and thinks it has found a way to get it from foreign governments: It’s hiking the rent for embassies, delegation living quarters, international organization offices and foreigner car rentals.

Too bad there aren’t any embassies in Albany.

TOUGH LUCK: Three Montana state office workers and a Helena policeman were put in isolation for several anxious hours last week after they were exposed to powder in a suspicious envelope mailed to the Labor Department.

Tests eventually showed the powder was what was left of a pain relief tablet and a suspected “triggering device” was a popsicle stick. Investigation led to a theory that both fell into the envelope while the woman who sent the letter lugged it around in her purse for a week.

The moral of the story has less to do with terrorist organizations than it does with purse organization. The males among us have always eyed those things with suspicion, anyway.