St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 17

EDITORIAL MONDAY, AUGUST 18, 2003 B7 COMMENTARY A FORUM FOR OTHER VOICES, IDEAS AND OPINIONS UTAH'S GOV. MIKE LEAVITT Bipartisan leader is good choice for EPA Complaints made by some environmentalists are premature. ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH For him to succeed, the White House and the Office of Management and Budget staff, and those people charged with cultivating (and collecting campaign funds from) Bush's constituen LJL 1 DAVID BRODER DOUGLAS C. PIZAC THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Utah Gov.

Mike Leavitt addresses the annual meeting of The Environmental Council of the States last week in Salt Lake City. cies in the oil and gas, mining, forestry and agriculture industries to say nothing of the president and vice president themselves will have to give Leavitt more freedom of action than Christine Todd Whit INDIANAPOLIS Among the colleagues of both parties gathered here for the annual summer meeting of the National Governors Association, there is near-universal praise for President George W. Bush's selection of Utah Republican Gov. Michael 0. Leavitt as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Leavitt is very much in the tradition of such Republicans such as Tommy Thompson and John Engler and Democrats Roy Romer and Jim Hunt who put aside partisanship at the NGA and found common ground on which governors of widely diverse backgrounds and views could work together. The Bush administration has made a hash of environmental policy, but if anyone can revive the badly eroded tradition of bipartisan support for protection of God's natural gifts to this nation, Leavitt has as good credentials as could be found. viewing him at these summer meetings of the NGA and to seeing him occasionally on his visits to Washington. He is one of the rare politicians who is out front of most public officials in identifying and thinking through emerging policy problems. Years ago, he recognized the potential of the Internet as a retail outlet and the implications of e-commerce for Main Street merchants and for states that are dependent on sales taxes for much of their revenue.

He brought that issue to the NGA and to Congress and has kept it on the agenda. More recently, he began working through the broad implications of the expansion of federal police powers in the interests of homeland security. Having him raise these issues with Tom Ridge and John Ashcroft will be an additional benefit of his coming to Washington. Others can comment better than I on Leavitt's environmental record in Utah. But he consistently takes the mil "nttmm Republicans could not dictate its agenda, Leavitt quietly organized resistance, reminding his GOP colleagues that without the bipartisanship of NGA, welfare reform and other measures they value never could have become law.

He will be a welcome addition to the administration and one who could well serve the country in a larger role in future years. Copyright Washington Post Writers Group E-mail: davldbroderwashpost.com long view of the needs of his state and nation and is almost invariably creative and constructive in building consensus as he did with Oregon's Democratic former governor, John Kitzhaber, in forming a regional environmental compact, and as he did in forging a multistate agreement to clean the air over the Grand Canyon. And he has guts. When some of the White House's political ideologues tried to break up the NGA last winter because man enjoyed during her tenure at EPA. And the environmental organizations will have to give him a chance to establish his bona fides.

Rather than fight his confirmation, they should use his confirmation hearings to engage him in dialogue and see what both sides can learn. I am an unabashed Leavitt fan. For a decade, I have looked forward to inter- CULTURE I THE GREAT FIRE OF 1849 Firefighters heroism deserves a memorial swijMiefWwiww.yfMv,J,?. AM CLJ C-i TTJ t- st in 'III inf null ii iWilMir il i liliiilil litiif-'riliiii 1 I1H11 minimi I tt? "Fnn nrnrF UULIMlLv By Louis Bayard No less an authority than "Entertainment Weekly" has declared "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," which airs on the Bravo cable channel, to be the hottest show on television right now. But frankly, it's becoming a major problem for some of us out here in the gay community.

I offer this open letter to the show's producers: Hey guys, don't get me wrong. I love the show. Really. The whole "Fab 5" thing, with the glam-our homos swooping in on the hapless straight guy and rendering him fit for society, love, career bonized fat off the fire? I ate it. As for this clothes sense that we gay men are alleged to have, well, I guess you haven't smelled my sandals late--ly.

You weren't there the other night as I rifled through my dresser drawer for even one pair of hole-free socks. I'm still looking. You didn't see the Gap shirt I threw on yesterday, the one so tessellated by wrinkles it seemed to be made of foil. You didn't see me trying to match a red tee to a glen-plaid shorts. Or the look on my partner's face when he stopped me just in time.

"The horror," said that look. "The horror." in four days. I By Mike Tsichlis Discussions about redesigning the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial to better integrate downtown St. Louis with the Gateway Arch open the door to consider the long overdue commemoration of one of the most catastrophic events to occur in St. Louis: the Great Fire of 1849.

The Arch grounds mark the site of the city's original fur trading village, founded in 1764. By the mid-19th century, it was home to the city's growing commercial district and a point of departure for westward pioneers. Now filled by meticulously kept green space, this 90-acre oasis once teemed with the sights and sounds of a booming river town. On the evening of A glamour-challenged writer urges the producers of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" to help make him the gay man everyone thinks he is. Mike Tsichlis is a freelance writer who holds a doctorate in public policy.

He is completing a book on the history of firefighting in St. Louis. May 17, 1849, a fire started abdard the steamboat White Cloud, moored on the north end of the levee near the present site of the King Bridge. Within minutes, the burning boat ignited the Edward Bates, a steamer docked next to it. The two flaming vessels began drifting downstream, I haven't shaved polished in haven't had my shoes MISSOURI HISTORICAL SOCIETY Volunteer fire captain Thomas Targee is credited with saving St.

Louis from the Great Fire of 1849, yet nothing honors him at the site of his heroic acts, He perished near what is today the south footpath between the Gateway Arch and Memorial Drive. gunpowder from the U.S. arsenal, Targee rushed home to inform his wife and six children of his dangerous plan, and kissed them good bye. He then took charge of the operation, successfully detonating several buildings. But soon after he carried a keg of powder into Phillips' music store on Market Street near Second, a thunderous explosion blew the two-story brick structure and the fire captain to bits.

Targee paid the ultimate price, but his plan worked. With help from a change in wind direction, one of America's most destructive urban fires was finally contained. Fifteen square blocks and more than 400 buildings lay in ruins. In the area, all that remains in its original condition is the Old Cathedral, the Catholic building that Targee, an Episcopalian, gave his life to save. The site of Targee's death is close to the south footpath that runs from the Arch to Memorial Drive, close to the area likely to be relandscaped under some current proposals; nothing commemorates the Great Fire of 1849.

How fitting it would be to recognize this cataclysmic event with a simple marker at the place where one man, in an act of pure civic heroism, gave his life to save his city. It's all a great big 10-gallon hoot and a half. Love the bitchy quips. Love the grooming tips. Love it when the style queens gather in the closing minutes like beer swillers at a sports bar to cheer their boy into the end zone.

But your show is placing enormous pressure on me and on the great silent majority of gay men who really aren't that fab. Think please think! about the message you are conveying to straight America. They come away believing that every homosexual is a hairstylist, runway model, interior designer, oenophile, chef and cultural commissar wrapped up in a form-fitting ribbed tee. It just ain't so. If I could describe to you the office in which this dispatch is being typed, you would be shocked shocked! at the level of squalor that a gay man, if he puts his mind to it, can attain: For example, to the wall above me cling the shreds of a wallpaper border chosen by the 7-year-old son of my house's previous owners.

Did I take down this mincing little frieze of choo-choos and sailboats and replace it with something more Tuscan or Grecian? I did not. Have I made any sorties against the spider web that has been gathering insect carcasses behind my bookcase since the middle Cambrian Period? I have not. Have at any time in the last decade, changed the cat litter that is even now stinging my nostrils with its effluvium? No indeed. Ah, but that doesn't matter. Gay men are great cooks, right? Hardwired right into our little Calphalon hypothalami, isn't it? Yesterday morning, I burned half a rasher of bacon.

This was not one of those I-was-distracted-by-a-gunshot kind of situations. No, I was there the whole time, watching the bacon resolve into soot and fume waiting, waiting for something a smoke alarm, as it turned out to jar me into action. And after I pulled my car- ABOVE: The "Fab 5" cast of Bravo's "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," from left, Ted Allen, Jai Rodriguez, Carson Kressley, Thorn Filicia and Kyan Douglas. Louis Bayard is a Washington, D.C., novelist and slob. three years.

I wouldn't know an ex-foliant from an exterminant. Don't you see? I lose this game on all points. And yet, thanks to you and your show, no one will believe me. Loved ones and strangers alike persist in thinking that my brain must be a golden hoard of exotic knowledge; They expect me to know the names of every kind of lily. They expect me to distinguish Tiffany from Baccarat from Sears.

They scour my medicine cabinets for moisturizers that have never lived there. If you guys keep driving home this vision of homosexual supercompe-tence, I will have to demand that the Fab 5 come over and remake my life, too. Then you will see that slovenliness knows no sexual orientation. It droppeth as does the sludgy rain from heaven, afflicting him that loves women and him that loves men. So come on, Fab 5.

Help me be the gay man I should be. And hurry. This cat litter is really starting to reek. Yours very sincerely, Queer Guy with a Straight Eye Copyright The Washington Post setting fire to two dozen boats docked at the wharf. Within half an hour, a mile-long stretch of the riverfront was engulfed in flames.

Carried by a strong northeast wind, the fire moved ashore and, soon, entire city blocks were ablaze. The rapid spread of the fire and a poor water supply overwhelmed the city's volunteer firemen. Panic seized the business district and nearby residential areas, as throngs of people ran with as much as they could carry. The urgency built as the inferno edged closer to the St. Louis Cathedral.

Fearing the firestorm would sweep through the city, leaders of the ten volunteer fire companies met in the street to assess their options. Among them was a 41-year-old captain from the Missouri Fire Company named Thomas Targee, who came up with the idea of creating a fire break by exploding a series of buildings along the fire's path. As soldiers left to retrieve THE HEALTH CARE GAP Eastern Europe still struggles to catch its western neighbors Tlie glowing reports about communist countries' health care systems were liberal myths. several years following the fall of the Berlin Wall. Much of the post-1989 reporting from the region was characterized by nostalgia for the communist era.

On April 11, 1990, CBS's Bert Quint filed a report from Poland: "This is MONA CHAREN I less modern medical equipment, r- And yet the idiocy persists and persists. We are still subjected to glowing -reports about Cuba's "free" universal health care and world-beating literacy levels. Today, the Post can write that in Eastern Europe, "The countries' com- munist officials left behind a threadbare health care system with equipment that barely functions and doctors so poorly paid that most expect cash in an envelope from patients to -top off their government salaries. Further, Germany spends $2,422 per person on health care each year, while Hungary spends about $315 and Poland just $246." It's amazing, isn't it, how capitalism has destroyed the wonderful health care systems of the communist east? Copyright Creators Syndicate what used to be the German Democratic Republic, she worries that political liberalization has cost her social and economic freedom. The kindergartens that cared for their children are becoming too expensive, and West Germany's more restrictive abortion laws threaten to deny many Eastern women a popular form of birth control." (Oh, but remember, here in the United States, land of abortion for any or no reason, the procedure is never, ever used as a method of birth control or so say the feminists.) When the Soviet Union went out of business, the real state of its health care system indeed all social services was revealed at last.

Instead of the gleaming socialist clinics presided over by crisp female physicians, we found a Third World system without even the rudiments of modern plumbing, much Marlboro country, Southeastern Poland, a place where the transition from communism to capitalism is making people more miserable every day. No lines at the shops now, but plenty at some of the first unemployment cen that it so casually acknowledges a reality that was, until very recently, hotly denied by the kinds of people who write for the Post. I refer to the fact that in all ways, including quality of life and very much including health care, the communist countries were vastly inferior to the free West. During the Cold War, liberals were always lauding the communist health care systems. Why, in the Soviet Union, they gushed, health care was "free" and nearly all of the doctors were women.

A two-fer! As I recount in my recent book "Useful Idiots," liberals remained melancholy about communism's passing for The other day, The Washington Post ran a front-page story about the "health gap" between Eastern and Western Europe: "As Hungary and nine other countries prepare to join the European Union next May, the bloc's leaders are paying much attention to closing the 'wealth gap' between the low-income, former communist East and the affluent West. But little has been said about the equally wide 'health A person born in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia or Poland is likely to have a shorter life than someone born in Sweden, Italy, Spain or France." What's interesting about this story is ters in a part of the world where socialism used to guarantee everybody a job." A U.S. News and World Report dispatch focused on concerned women in the east: "Like many other women in i ifti iffiiiWiinl.iiWiSilteilw'fi frmlftn friiltii Aiifr ifiiini iiiii 1 iftin Amlfri i..