A slow-news-day column? This weblog agrees with CBS.MarketWatch.com’s Jon Friedman (registration required) who has a problem with the way editors put question marks in headlines on magazine covers.

Congratulations: Bonnie McElveen-Hunter, founder of the custom publishing firm Pace Communications and former ambassador to Finland has been named chairman of the American Red Cross.

Entrepreneurial press releases: For years, Scott Smith has been characterizing the owners of the magazine Entrepreneur as Goliath against his PR firm (playing the part of David), EntrepreneurPR. For years, Smith has issued press releases every time Entrepreneur sent him a letter ordering him to stop infringing upon their trademark. For years, Smith has tried to turn his defense into a cause, claiming the word “entrepreneur” is, well, too generic to trademark. The courts, however, [Macro error: Can't evaluate the expression because the name "ftpSite" hasn't been defined.]
his way. Now, with a federal appeals court upholding their $1 million judgement against him, the Entreprenuer folks are firing back a press release characterizing Smith’s efforts against them as “a smear campaign.”

Quote from the press release:

But in the end, Entrepreneur Media Inc. demonstrated that in order to maintain a 27-year-old brand in this highly competitive economic environment, you have to fight hard for it. Even if it means looking like the bad guy - at least for a little while.

According to the release, the victory by Entrepreneur Media is a win for small businesses who are leading the economy into recovery. Ignore those hyperbolic quotes and the release is a good presentation of the company’s point of view on the case.

Catch-up blogging: Due to inclement weather and a resulting four-hour visit to BWI’s wi-fi-less “B” Gate Area, I had the time to clear off lots of “stickie notes” from my computer’s desktop yesterday. I discovered that while my weblog was taking a vacation (for the record, I personally never used the word “murdered” to describe its vacation), there were some some magazine news items I may have blogged…

I may have blogged how a Veronis Suhler report “shows the waning influence of trade publications.” (via BtoBonline.com)

Or, I may have blogged about how in the past, we’ve heard of magazines using the term “going on haitus” as a euphamism for “going away permanently,” but now a magazine, by choosing the name, Haitus, in doing some early laying of groundwork for its own hiatus. The magazine is for “vacation and time-share enthusiasts.” I haven’t looked to see if I can puchase a group subscription so that all my friends and I may spend a day-each reading it.

Or, speaking of a magazine for vacation and time-share enthusiats, I my have blogged how, according to Charleston.net in South Carolina (you’ll have to take my word as the link is now dead), three of the famed Pawleys Island Hammocks are among Consumer Reports’ four preferred lounging net swings (lounging net swings?). The magazine “swooned” over the hammocks’ roominess and weave, according to the article. (Sorry, this weblog just can’t pass up hammock news.)

Had this weblog not been on vacation, I may have blogged about those poor folks in South Carolina potentially having one less magazine to read while lying comfortably in those Pawleys Island Hammocks if their state lawmakers don’t wake up and smell the lounging net swing. It appears that a South Carolina “legislative audit” recommended in 1996 that the state’s department of natural resources set up a wildlife store in order to pay for a magazine popular with the state’s hunters and fishers. Of course, now that the magazine is self-supporting due of the success of the store, the state legislature is saying the magazine can no longer use Wildlife Shop revenues to support the magazine.

If this weblog had not been on vacation, I could have blogged all that. See, you didn’t miss much.