As newspapers scramble for new ways to keep going in this downed economy and Internet-crazed world, Columnist P.J. O'Rourke has one not so far-fetched idea -- pre obituaries.

“The main advantage of the Pre-Obit over the traditional obituary is the knowledge of reader and writer alike that the as-good-as-dead people are still around to have their feelings hurt,” he writes for The Weekly Standard. “It was a travesty of literary justice that we waited until J. D. Salinger finally hit the delete key at 91 before admitting that Catcher in the Rye stinks. The book's only virtue is that it captures, with annoying accuracy, the maunderings of a twerp. The book's only pleasure is in slamming the cover shut--simpler than slamming the door shut on a real Holden Caulfield, if less satisfying. The rest of Salinger's published oeuvre was precious or boring or both. But we felt constrained to delay saying so, perhaps because of an outdated Victorian hope for a death-bed flash of genius.”

Truth, there are likely some who would pay for such pre-death information. Who knows?