The Citizen-Times recently ran a list of new business incorporations that included this: Sixty Second Parent, LLC, 50 Bethel Road, Black Mountain, by Olson Huff.

That caught my eye, because Olson Huff is one of Asheville's most well-known and well-respected pediatricians. So I thought I'd see what I could find about "Sixty Second Parent." I found this:

After he founded leading software publishing company Typefi at the Innovation Centre at Sippy Downs in 2001, life has come full circle for entrepreneur Steve Huff.

The firm, which is about to move its international headquarters from California to Philadelphia because of tax and financial incentives, plus proximity to the New York market, has gone from strength to strength.

Typefi’s software is now used by the world’s biggest publisher, Random House, Lonely Planet and leading US companies in areas like health care and insurance.

Mr Huff said the business really had no choice but to set up a major presence in the US. ...

But after outgrowing the Innovation Centre and relocating its Australian office to Peregian Beach in 2005, Mr Huff has now moved back into the Innovation Centre with a new company he has founded called Sixty Second Parent.

He also has another new venture on the go called Club & Course.

Sixty Second Parent is a new parenting website, which will be launched on July 1. It will provide information and advice on parenting issues and will generate revenue through an online store and from advertising.

I also found this:

Highly-successful Sunshine Coast entrepreneur Steve Huff is set to provide a valuable lesson for local business people, educators and students at tomorrow’s Enterprise Tuesday event at the University of the Sunshine Coast’s Innovation Centre.

Mr Huff, who founded software company Typefi in 2001 as well as three other successful companies in Australia and the United States since, will discuss the topic “Avoiding Big Mistakes” at the free event from 4pm.

Typefi is now one of Australia’s most exciting software companies, with an estimated value of $40 million. Along with Typefi, Mr Huff also founded Praxis Systems, Club and Course, and his latest venture – Sixty Second Parent.

So I'm wondering if highly successful entrepreneur Steve Huff is related to Asheville's Dr. Olson Huff. Sounds like he might. Anybody know anything about Sixty Second Parent?

The NY Times has the story:

For nearly as long as rail lines have crisscrossed the country, there have been stories about wanderers covertly climbing aboard train cars and riding away from problems or speeding toward some glimmering promise on the horizon.

The paths of train hoppers, tramps, hobos and travelers, looking for work, adventure or merely free transportation, have been recorded in lyrics and in literature. Jack Kerouac, Jack London and John Steinbeck have written about them. They have populated the songs of Merle Haggard and Woody Guthrie.

More recently, filmmakers have documented the experience of riding the rails across the country’s varied terrain. And some of those works were recently screened in a storefront community center in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, as part of a traveling cinematic exhibition called the Hobo Film Festival, which is progressing from state to state by way of a $200 Toyota station wagon driven by a 31-year-old train hopper from Asheville, N.C., named Shawn Lukitsch.

On Wednesday night, Mr. Lukitsch stood on Tompkins Avenue outside the center, the 123 Community Space, where the films were to be shown. Tattoos of train tracks circled his right wrist, and he puffed on a small pipe as he described the appeal of viewing the landscape from inside an empty boxcar.

“It is pure, unadulterated, unhomogenized America,” he said. “You see everything from the seediest underbelly of industrial areas to rural places to people’s backyards with laundry hanging on a line.”

Mr. Lukitsch said that he began riding trains 14 years ago, while living in Milwaukee, and that he had logged about 120,000 miles through the 48 contiguous states as well as parts of Canada and Mexico. He has ridden on rail lines belonging to companies like Union Pacific, Southern Pacific, Norfolk Southern and Burlington Northern.

I find this a startling admission on the part of current Buncombe County Sheriff Van Duncan. Listen to this video clip of Duncan answering a question by WLOSer Russ Bowen about the federal investigation into illegal gambling that netted former Sheriff Bobby Medford. Medford was found guilty earlier this week of corruption.

Here, Duncan says that while he worked at the Sheriff's Department, he saw some things he didn't think were "quite right." Yet he says people went on about their jobs.

The real question is - why didn't someone blow the whistle on Medford? Maybe somebody did, but it sure doesn't sound like it was Duncan. I'd sure like to know how the federal investigation into Medford began.

Here's the press release:

Asheville, N.C. - Lying nearly naked on large trays and covered with clear plastic in front of signs reading, "Meat Is Murder," PETA members will mimic typical meat packages on Monday to kick off World Vegetarian Week. Other PETA members will distribute leaflets to passersby. The activists aim to demonstrate that all animals--not just humans--are made of flesh, blood, and bone; that humans and other animals have the same senses and range of emotions; and that eating meat is eating a corpse. The packages will contain oversized price stickers that warn, "Billions of animals are abused and violently killed because you eat meat. Get help! Visit GoVeg.com."

Date: Monday, May 19
Time: 3:30 p.m.
Place: In front of Vance Monument at Pack Square (at the intersection of Pack Square and Patton Avenue), Asheville

In today's factory farms, cows are routinely branded, dehorned, and castrated without any painkillers. Many die from pneumonia, dehydration, or heat exhaustion from spending days at a time without food or water on extremely crowded trucks during transport to slaughterhouses. Slaughterhouse workers sometimes resort to strangling, beating, scalding, skinning, and dismembering conscious animals to keep production lines moving.

"We are challenging people to really think about what 'meat' is," says PETA Manager of Vegan Campaigns Lindsay Rajt.

Looks like the news that Ashvegas broke earlier this week has made the round of media bloggers. First, The Gannett Blog picked up the news that executive editor Susan Ihne had been relieved of her job.

From there, the big-time Romenesko media blog picked it up.

Meantime, there's not much new coming out of the Citizen-Times. Nobody seems to know what's next for Ihne, or who will be hired to replace her. If you hear anything, drop me a line: sweetashvegas@hotmail.com.

Via Romenesko:

a funny list of rules -- old school TV news vs new school -- to illustrate how much things have changed.

Old rule: news is news.
New rule: news is marketing.

Old rule: news is never old.
New rule: news has an expiration date

Old rule: live shots compliment the story.
New rule: live IS the story

Old rule: weather gets the attention it deserves
New rule: rain is a lead story.

Old rule: Cover the issues
New rule: cover the emotions

Old rule: Staff experience is valuable.
New rule: 1 year is experience

Old rule: Cover breaking news.
New rule: make up breaking news

Old rule: Build credibility and you'll gain a bigger audience.
New rule: Reach more people through the Internet

Old rule: Be good storytellers.
New rule: more stories, less telling

Old rule: Report the facts.
New rule: report what people say

Old rule: Follow the news director's lead.
New rule: Who's the news director

Old rule: Consultants suggest.
New rule: Consultants control

Old rule: Ratings rule.
New rule: Demos dominate

Old rule: Know your community.
New rule: know your research

Old rule: Bad staff behavior is not tolerated.
New rule: address your questions to our attorneys

Loyal reader Robin asked me to pimp out some classes she's got coming up, and seeing as how she was so nice about the blog, I better oblige. She's hosting a series of Green Living classes at the Greenlife Community Center, 70 Merrimon Ave.

Green Living Class Series
-Greenlife Community Center - 70 Merrimon Avenue Asheville, NC
-6:00 - 8:00 pm
-$30/class or $100/all four classes
-Register online at www.thegreenrobin.com

Class One – Green Your Home (June 3rd)
This class covers topics such as identifying the best indoor air cleaning plants, choosing the most non-toxic furniture and home fixtures, and a review of green bedding and clothing. Additional topics include green building basics, all natural yard maintenance, greening your laundry process, and keeping an environmentally friendly home office.

Class Two – Green Your Body (June 24th)
This class covers topics such as finding out which organic produce you should choose and which items you may not have to spend the extra money on. Learn why you should select toxin-free personal care products, how to make your own cleaning products, and what food additives to avoid. Learn why the things we put on our body can be just as harmful as the things we put in our body.

Class Three – Conscious Consumerism (July 1st)
Do you know where the things you buy come from, who created them, and what resources were used to make them? Through a simple series of questions, find out where most of our shopping dollars are going and how we can make more informed choices to create real change. Topics discussed will include fair trade, buying local, and the simple living philosophy.

Class Four – Green Your Life (July 22nd)
This class covers topics such as how to reduce your energy and water consumption (what are your carbon and water footprints), what is and is not recyclable, how to compost, how to "green" your whole life, and how to identify greenwashing. Many additional green topics are covered – green burials, green entertainment, green pet care, and more!

That's the gist of the news - a jury this morning found Bobby Medford, former Buncombe County sheriff, guilty of corruption. He will be sentenced in about six weeks.

If you really want to know the truth about the controversial Parkside condo proposal, super-blogger Gordon Smith says you need to check out his blog - specifically the The Parkside Files. It's an extensive collection of documents he received through a FOIA request.

Check it.

If you want to know the truth about the Parkside condo project, developer Stewart Coleman says to check out his new blog, www.parksidetruth.com.

The ParkSide project continues to be slandered with misinformation. The many wonderful aspects of this project and the benefits to the City, the County, and the community are becoming buried in propaganda and we must attempt to dispel these allegations. The Downtown Commission and the Technical Review Committee have both approved the ParkSide project. Their guidelines encompass aesthetic and functional benefits to the Central Business District as well as health and safety details of the project.

There you go.

As Ashvegas reported here, Asheville Citizen-Times newspaper executive editor Susan Ihne is no longer top editor at the newspaper. The information was passed around today, but apparently there's been no official announcement.

How long will the newspaper remain mum about the leadership change? Gannett is always pretty quick about announcing change, especially when the company wants a positive spin on it. Here's the announcement about Ihne's arrival in Asheville. And here's the announcement about Bob Gabordi's transfer. Gabordi was the editor Ihne replaced.

Here she is, playing the hell out of the theremin.

Despite the ongoing hew and cry over developer Stewart Coleman's controversial purchase of property on Pack Square and proposal to build a condo building there, I'm here to predict that the project will happen.

It will be built, just not as it's currently designed. Follow me:

Coleman's project, known as the Parkside condos, has failed to meet the approval of a couple of key city committees and it has worked his way through the process such that his next stop is City Hall. His project had been scheduled to be heard by Asheville City Council in late May. Then it was rescheduled for June 11.

Look for Coleman not to push it all the way through to council. Coleman's not stupid. He knows he doesn't have the votes to win council's approval.

Coleman will go back to the drawing board and scale down the building to proportions that won't necessitate council review. He's got an 11-story project now, but that's too big - something small will be designed, in my opinion. He'll design something that fits, and the city boards will give approval.

There has been some behind-the-scene discussion of Buncombe County commissioners putting together $3 million or $4 million to buy back the property from Coleman, but I don't see a majority of commissioners agreeing to that. I just don't see it happening.

That's the Ashvegas prediction. Let's watch and see.