Ever since Somali pirates started making headlines last year, Jack Sparrow has been the pop-culture reference of choice for the corny journalists, late-night comedians and others who attempt to make news from the Gulf of Aden more relatable for an American audience.

But as I followed the story this month of a standoff between US warships and four teenage pirates who took an American captain hostage, my thoughts turned to a very different fictional character: the schoolboy-turned-street soldier named Michael from the HBO hit series “The Wire.”