Is Elvira Arellano — the recently deported Mexican illegal alien — the new Rosa Parks?

Some of her supporters describe her this way. But Arellano’s credentials as a “role model,” to say the least, fall short. Indeed, even some “immigrant rights activists” find the comparison embarrassing.

There is something more than a little bizarre with the latest Washington feeding frenzy over Sen. Larry Craig.

Don’t get me wrong. I think what Sen. Craig did in the men’s bathroom in Minneapolis was gross and sleazy. But is it really worthy of the press attention it has received this week?

I do not like lightning, hot one little bit. Rumor was that an uncle of mine was struck by lightning when he was a kid. I cannot testify to the validity of the account but, from an early age, I was taught that lightning was downright deadly.

Umm-hmm. Yep. The Alberto Gonzales thing never was primarily about Alberto. Witness some of the edifying commentary that accompanies our first Hispanic attorney general on his way back to Texas.

“They’ll walk out to the bleachers, sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. ... The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: It’s a part of our past.”

Last week we had a little mishap with the car. Unfortunately, it was an incredibly expensive little mishap, one that caused us to call the insurance company to see if we were covered.

Remember when you were a kid and your family decided it was time to buy a new car? You picked out a… oh, say, a Ford Falcon, ordered it in metallic blue, and waited for delivery.

Recent discussions by the City Council of Peachtree City and the board of directors for the Peachtree City Water and Sewer Authority (WASA) have taken place regarding an effort to provide sewer service to Tyrone.

“There’ll Always Be an England” - popular World War II song.

BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND — Perhaps there will not always be an England. An exodus unprecedented in modern times, coupled with a record influx of foreigners, is threatening to erode the character of the land of William Shakespeare and overpowering monarchs, a land that served as the cradle for much of American thought, law and culture.

The man heard us talking and leaned over toward the little table at which we were sitting in the famed Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel.

So Mother Teresa doubted! Wow. I found this out today while I was on the Internet. The woman whose faithfulness and dedication to God’s work inspired the world, no matter what the religion, had faith struggles. I don’t know why this surprised me so; everyone who seeks more than a cursory relationship with Christ has crises of faith. I guess it surprised me because she didn’t seem to be anything but an incredible woman of God and a tireless worker for his kingdom.

George Orwell, call your office. You can add to your list of opposites (“war is peace,” “ignorance is strength” and “freedom is slavery”) a new one. It is the emerging plan of congressional Democrats, joined by at least one Democratic presidential candidate: “losing is winning.”

Western Europe has a Muslim problem, and it is particularly acute in Great Britain, which is more intimately linked to constitutional traditions and procedures.

It’s been a hoot reading and listening to pundits and armchair legal analysts speculate on the fate awaiting Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick on charges of illegal dogfighting.

Last week, when Karl Christian Rove, born on Christmas in 1950, announced that he was ending his White House life, pundits eager to punch back had the best of all possible worlds: They could write the summing-up lines characteristic of an obituary without the constraints of courtesy to the deceased. The New York Times was typical in referring to Rove’s “infamously bare-knuckled political tactics.”

WASHINGTON — The unexpected, widely praised cut in the discount rate a week ago Friday only momentarily removed pressure from the Federal Reserve. While the Bush administration and conservative economists deplore bailing out improvident investors, leaders of the mortgage finance industry consider it unthinkable that the central bank will not take decisive action.

I had put off reading Cormac McCarthy’s “All the Pretty Horses” for years, having picked it up when it first came out in paperback in 1993. But a Colorado vacation seemed a perfect time to take it up again. There’s something satisfying about reading a book in sync with the locale where I happen to be.

“The Guy,” back in my day, was named Joe Granville.

With his slick black hair and dark suits, Granville looked the part of an insider who knew the stock market, but pulled back the curtains so the “little guy” could get some, too.

There is no doubt that some entertainment critics have glorified rap “artists” like Eminem, Snoop Dogg and Ludacris. Twenty years ago, pro-drug, anti-women and pro-violence lyrics would not have been embraced by the mainstream media for fear of public backlash. But today, bring on perversity in the name of diversity. Anything goes.

Did you know — better, would you have guessed? — that the top income-tax rate in India, which is the home of breast-fed socialism, is a mere 30 percent? That is down from 60 percent in 1979. How does that compare? Well, in the United Kingdom it is down from 83 percent in 1979 to 40 percent today; in the United States, from 70 to 35. In all three cases, it has been cut roughly in half.

Everything you hate about the culture of Washington is symbolized in two recent altercations involving two obnoxious Beltway buttinskis, one Democrat and one Republican.

We always get back to the same place, don’t we, whenever something goes wrong — the place known as How Can the Government Help?

NEW YORK — Benazir Bhutto arrived in New York three weeks ago, shortly after meeting secretly in Abu Dhabi with Gen. Pervez Musharraf. She leaves this week, without having heard again from Pakistan’s military ruler. More than merely deciding who rules Pakistan, global conflict against radical Islam may be at risk.

The drill was called Oklahoma; why, I don’t know. It had nothing to do with the wide open spaces; it was just the opposite.

It is not just in Iraq that the political left has an investment in failure. Domestically as well as internationally, the left has long had a vested interest in poverty and social malaise.

Last year, among the nation’s 10 largest cities, Philadelphia had the highest murder rate with 406 victims. This year could easily top last year’s with 240 murders so far.

This week, Nancy Jones Cornell, president of the Old Campbell County Historical Society (OCCHS) presents a story of her Joneses. Nancy writes:

All of a sudden we are bombarded with daily reports of a credit crunch and wild securities market fluctuations with mortgage and sub-prime lending at the root. What does it all mean?

PORTSTEWART, NORTHERN IRELAND — Britain’s New Labour, despite criticism from Prime Minister Gordon Brown of a government that has grown too fast and costs too much, has been quietly planning a vast expansion of government.

Mama thought I was crazy. It was not the first time. Nor would it be the last. But it was certainly the most memorable.