So postulates LA Times staff writer David Colker, saying that the bad news about Pluto no longer considered a planet might be good for earthbound purveyors of products bearing its image or name. Its takedown last week could provide a heavenly boost to textbook publishers, celestial cartographers, astronomical groups and even an eponymous group of eateries.

First up, cartographers. Rand McNally & Co., long a venerable mapmaker, says that changing the text would not be much of a problem, according to travel division Vice President Kendra Ensor. "Because it's at the very end, near the edge of the page, it's easier to delete." And as for Drexel University physician Steve McMillan, his ASTRONOMY TODAY, a noted college textbook, almost deleted Pluto wholesale - but for one notable objection. "It would have been quite a coup," he said. "But I told my daughter, who was 10, and she said, 'You can't do that to Pluto!' So we didn't."

On a trade publication front, though no deals have as yet been reported on Publishers Marketplace about the rise and fall of the lonely planet, that has to change fairly soon...