Does my future include IRS charges?

By James Clark

The sugar buzz from all the cotton candy and funnel cakes still hasn’t worn off. Fair week has come and gone, and this year it seemed to pass about as quickly as a ride on The Himalaya.

If there’s one person who can’t complain about spending time at the fair, it’s my son Benjamin. He has ridden so many rides, when I brought him breakfast yesterday he handed me three tickets.

Since our family has made a tradition of going to Lake Winnie on Labor Day weekend, Benjamin has come to think of September as National Carnival Ride Month. One interesting thing about our trip to Chattanooga this year is we found gas was 20 cents a gallon cheaper than in McMinnville. With those kind of savings, I drove around for two hours just so I could fill up.

As for news of the odd, strange and curious nature, I was looking over wire reports last week when I noticed there is a Knoxville-area psychic who has been charged with tax evasion.

According to reports, David Guardino, 63, of Caryville, Tenn., is charged with hiding some $345,000 in annual earnings from the IRS.

Guardino has maintained to federal agents that he is a sorcerer who can predict the future. He even claims to have conversations with Elvis.

What surprises me about this story is a psychic was able to earn $345,000 in one year, at least according to the IRS. But what stuns me the most is if Guardino is really able to predict the future, wouldn’t he have seen these tax fraud charges coming? If he can’t do any better in seeing his own future, I’m sure not going to trust him with predicting mine.

In other news, Warren County has a great new jail and things really seem to be running smoothly out there, unless of course you are one of the people behind bars. Since the new jail has opened, the Standard has stopped receiving so many complaints about unsanitary living conditions out there.

In the old days, we’d get one or two calls a week about the jail conditions, with the caller always making some reference about the jail inmates being treated worse than dogs. All those callers will be happy to hear about a county in Oregon which is extremely concerned about its jail inmates.

So much so, Multnomah County, Oregon has proposed to spend some $600,000 on jailhouse art to enlighten its inmates. Now that’s an idea which surely won’t win the hearts of the Multnomah County taxpayers.

I have to say that could quite possibly be the worst idea ever by a government entity. Give them food and give them water. But don’t give jail inmates access to sculptures and paintings.

And in one final note, I must correct a mistake I made in a previous Business Pulse column. However, it turns out to be a pretty cool mistake because I received a call from Toyota North America spokesman Victor Vanoy.

I never imagined folks with Toyota North America paid much attention to Business Pulse, but apparently they do. Victor was referring to a past Business Pulse in which I credited a Toyota spokesperson for saying disparaging remarks about Toyota’s workforce in the South. The remarks claimed Toyota was having to use pictures instead of written directions to communicate effectively with some of its Southern employees.

Apparently those statements were made, but in my haste of looking through wire reports I attributed them to the wrong organization. That’s why I want to set the record straight and say Toyota was in no way affiliated with those remarks. It was my mistake entirely. I’m sorry (and it takes a big man to say he’s sorry). An official with the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association of Canada made those comments.