Our bloggers are saying…

If you're not checking out the local blogs on reviewjournal.com, here's just a sample of what you've been missing:

Good thing he didn't ask for a Shirley Temple

Columnist Jane Ann Morrison writes:

Inevitably, one name dominated the 50th Anniversary Salute to the Nevada Gaming Commission last week -- Frank Sinatra.

The entertainer's notorious epithet-laden, threatening phone call to the first Gaming Control Board Chairman Ed Olsen was one of the first tests of whether Nevada regulators had what it took to regulate the industry or would cave. Sinatra's hosting of mobster Sam Giancana was the first real test of the state's two-tiered regulatory system, and ultimately Sinatra was the first to blink.

But former U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan, one of two keynote speakers, shared a Sinatra story I'd never heard before, one involving the venerable U.S. District Judge Lloyd George, a man so respected and revered the federal courthouse carries his name.

Bryan took us back quite a few years, back to the days when George, a lifelong Mormon who never drank alcohol, was a lifeguard at the Sands Hotel. The leader of the Rat Pack was poolside and asked the young lifeguard, "Can you bring me a screwdriver?"

George complied and went straight to the engineering department. "Lloyd George brought Sinatra a screwdriver," Bryan said. Just not the kind Sinatra wanted.

Bada bing.

For more, go to www.lvrj.com/blogs/morrison/

Reality: Nevada's search continues

Columnist Geoff Schumacher writes:

I don't want to freak you out, but there is fluoride in Clark County's water. It's in there because it's a proven measure to reduce tooth decay in children. It's working, and nothing strange is happening to those of us who ingest the tap water.

But the rest of the state, including the Reno-Sparks area, goes without, largely because of conspiracy theories that fluoride is some sort of government plot to poison people.

Unlike those who believe the military is hiding a crashed UFO at Area 51, or those who believe the government has implanted tiny listening devices under their skin, the fluoride conspirators are actually harming the public. They testified Monday at the Nevada Legislature against a bill to add fluoride to the water in Washoe County. A doctor, of all people, testified that fluoride is an industrial waste product and causes all kinds of terrible diseases. If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say the bill is not likely to pass because of these kooks.

As a result, kids in the Reno-Sparks area will experience higher rates of tooth decay, and thus higher dental bills. Former Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, who got the bill passed in 2001 to add fluoride to Las Vegas water, didn't mince words in response to the conspiracy theorists speaking out at the Legislature. She told the Las Vegas Sun, "It says we're very backward."

Yep.

For more, go to www.lvrj.com/blogs/schumacher/

What's in a name? Everything

Publisher Sherman Frederick writes:

Reading Anthony Marnell III's comments in (Tuesday's) R-J Business section struck a chord with me. The National Labor Relations Board had issued a complaint against M Resort for firing six security guards who were allegedly caught going through the confidential employee files.

Any employer unlucky enough to have dealt with the NLRB knows that this federal agency, especially at the lower levels, is pretty much an extension of organized labor.

So, when Marnell says: "Whether they (the employee documents) were left out or in a locked drawer, it is not their right to be able to go through them. They can spin it however they want, but those are the facts. I am absolutely mystified that the NLRB would try to penalize the M for trying to protect the confidential information about employees and future applications."

I feel M's pain. It was a shock to me, too, when I first ran into the NLRB and discovered that this alleged "referee" is not an impartial judge at all. Business, in my experience, is guilty until proven otherwise.

If there is any doubt, or a fact that can't be proven beyond a shadow of doubt, then ties go the union. That's why it's called the National LABOR Relations Board, not the National EMPLOYER Relations Board.

For more, go to www.lvrj.com/blogs/sherm/

Grisly pics aside, mob book is interesting

Columnist John L. Smith writes:

Mob aficionados will kill for a copy of "Pay, Quit, or Die," which is on its way into publication by former Chicago Police Department Vice Detective Sgt. Don Herion.

I caught a glimpse of the book, and it's filled with interesting stories and some of the most grisly photographs I've ever seen. Suffice to say the families of certain deceased mob guys, some of whom had Las Vegas addresses, aren't going to like the pictures much.

Look for the book this summer.

For more, go to www.lvrj.com/blogs/smith/