We have this shower radio at home and I keep it tuned to CBS news — that’s how I get my first news fix of the day. However, the shower is large, boxlike, tiled and sound reverberates — sometimes with the water running, you get only half a story if you’re not really focused. I don’t usually really focus until dinnertime.

The news story, from what I can piece together, is concerning the commissioning and erection of a statue of the three firefighters raising the flag at Ground Zero. Apparently, to pay tribute to those fallen and our heroes of the Sept. 11 tragedy, an Iwo Jima-like statue has been commissioned of the three firemen who spontaneously, creatively and courageously raised the flag over the rubble of the World Trade Center site.

	The two historic flag-waving photos: (left) Flag raising at Iwo Jima and (above) Firefighters at Ground Zero are on the cover of recently published books.

You all recall the incredible symbolism of the Iwo Jima Memorial which portrayed American courage during the Second World War. To Americans of this war on terrorism, the moment captured by Bergen Record photographer Tom Franklin, seems to convey a similar pride in our people and their heroism and patriotism.

Of all the images of those tragic moments of Sept. 11 and the months that followed, this one is etched the deepest in the American psyche and closest to the American heart. It has brought many an emotional tear.

Now, the rub: The statue has been commissioned depicting a white, a black and a Hispanic firefighter even though it was three white firegfighters who actually won the moment and our hearts.

The debate has just begun and I think it is a wonderful debate: historical accuracy vs. political correctness. Or is it truth against hope; or reality as opposed to interpretation; or racism vs. brotherhood. The spinmeisters can and likely will go crazy with this one.

Gee, I could take either side.

First of all, considering the tragic moment, the effort of NYC firefighters Dan McWilliams, George Johnson and Billy Eisengrein symbolized to us more than any thing else – words, deeds, or pictures – our national resolve to overcome the Sept. 11 tragedy. Yes, timing is everything and they were there.

The soldiers that climbed the hill at Iwo Jima and are preserved forever in bronze were heroes in the right place at the right time. The credit is theirs.

A photographer was in the right place at the right time and exercised his craft with creativity and skill. The image his camera captured became the bronze sculpture that is probably as well known as any in our nation.

Since the firefighters stood at Ground Zero and raised the flag, their moment has been likened to the Iwo Jima moment.

The front of the holiday greeting card I received from my friends at the Bergen Record, the paper he shot it for, was this powerful image. I’ve seen it in magazines, on TV and emails. It adorns the cover of a new book, "Ground Zero Spirit (shown on this page). Photographer Tom Franklin has made the rounds on interview shows. His image is legendary Americana already . . . and there aren’t that many.

How can it be altered?

The losses suffered in that greatest of American tragedies were as multicultural and multinational as our City itself. The heroes at home, in the form of those brave firefighters and the police and EMS workers, and our heroes abroad who prosecuted the war in Afghanistan and will continue the war on terrorism have skin of every hue.

The funerals and memorial services over the past four months were said in remembrance of blacks, Hispanics, white, Christians, Jews, Muslims. Should a memorial be more inclusive than reality?

The controversial statue based on the Franklin photo is to be erected at the Fire Department’s Brooklyn headquarters in tribute to the 343 firefighters killed in the attack. The decision to represent different races was made by the Fire Department and Forest City Ratner, the property-management company that owns the department headquarters building and commissioned the work.

Incidentally, less than 6 percent of the City’s firefighters are black or Hispanic. Now there’s a story worth looking into.

Perhaps the Fire Department should recruit minority members instead of carving their faces into statues.

This City seems to be getting into controversies over the political correctness of art with some frequency. We all remember Mayor Giuliani’s attempt to dictate political and religious correctness to the Brooklyn Museum.

The tale of Queens County, political correctness and the statue of the borough’s namesake is abridged from my column of April 26th of last year:

Catherine of Braganza: Politics And The Arts

The misadventures of the beleaguered statue of Queen Catherine of Braganza seem to be a never-ending story. The homeless 35-foot statue of the Queen for whom our borough is named was originally commissioned by the Friends of Queen Catherine to be erected in Long Island City overlooking the East River.

Manuel de Sousa of the Friends of Queen Catherine headed the decade-long cooperative effort, funded largely by the people of Portugal, birthplace of Catherine who became the Queen of England. Beep Claire Shulman secured the plot of land from the Port Authority, and Long Island artist Audrey Flack won a design contest and was selected in 1995 to sculpt the Queen. Tallix Inc. was retained as the foundry to fabricate progressive bronze casts of the Flack sculpture and to make the final bronze full-scale monument.

Other than some grumbling as to the artistic beauty of the sculpture — it was plain ugly and old fashioned — the project went along smoothly until 1998 when some black groups protested the monument observing that Queen Catherine’s family had engaged in slave trade.

Under some pressure, eight years and several castings into the project, Shulman withdrew her support and the offer of the site for the statue to be erected. Tallix stopped work and the head of the 35-foot Queen was left outside on a scrap heap. Some attempts to complete it were made unsuccessfully.

It’s now more than a decade since de Sousa and his Friends of Queen Catherine first made the offer to the people of Queens to erect a statue of the Queen for whom their borough is named.

That offer was accepted and 10 years and $10 million later, we see the results of politics intruding into the arts.

Mr. de Sousa and the people of Portugal are owed an apology.

The statue deserves a home.

Even ugly art should not be judged politically.

Politics And Art

Taking a page from the Fire Department’s code of artistic and political liberty, Helen Marshall could perhaps resolve one of the biggest controversies of the Shulman years by fulfilling the commitment to the people of Portugal and finally erecting the statue of Queen Catherine of Braganza while addressing those who object to her family’s involvement in the slave trade.

She could get sculptress Flack to give Queen Catherine African features. Who knows, maybe there was some African blood hidden in her lineage? Surely the suggestion that the Queen for whom our borough is named might have had black ancestry might make her more palatable to those who convinced Shulman to abandon the plan.

Last week we reported that the painting of Queen Catherine would no longer hang in Borough Hall. Dan Andrews, a spokesperson for Helen Marshall, Queens’ first African American borough president, said, "Marshall’s plan is to reach out to Queens artists to shop around for ideas . . . that would reflect the diversity of Queens County."

Last month, newly-elected Brooklyn City Councilman Charles Barron called for the replacing of a painting of slave-owner President Thomas Jefferson that hangs in City Hall with one of Malcolm X.

Rudy wanted his image of the Virgin Mary and not the one depicted by an artist on the walls of the Brooklyn museum.

The Fire Department wants the heroic firefighters who raised the flag at Ground Zero on Sept. 11 to be remembered as white, black and Latino.

I’ve asked the Trib art department to reduce my waist by six inches, take the gray out of my hair and give me a bit of that Richard Gere chiseled chin. You’ll understand if the sketch in my column changes next week.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not taking sides — at least not too strongly — on this latest revision of history.

I don’t violently object if the Fire Department wants to modify reality for their statue of tribute.

I’d suggest that maybe they ought to modify their recruiting practices first.

But if we are revising history, why have three firemen?

If it was the last City administration, we might have seen a fireman, a Mayor and a New York Yankee raising the flag.

Or, how about a newspaper columnist, a stripper and a chef? You can pick their colors.