Promises freely made and freely broken

I picked up the local paper today to see what would be in the "Simcha Supplement" it boasted about. It was set for this week. Actually, it was originally set for a date in May, but then started to show this date. Previously the supplement had been deferred, though the much touted feature ususally did appear several weeks later then originally promised, as the advertising people saw they needed more time to get the minimum number of ads in. But this time, there was no supplement and no note about its cancellation or postponement. It's just great that publishers get away with promising anything to their readers in their attempt to lure advertisers and then simply fail to deliver with nary an apology.

That is not to say that I think I or anyone else is seriously missing out. Previous "Simcha Supplement" features were really nothing to write home about. Essentially, the publisher moves his simcha related regular advertisers to that section and asks for a higher than stanadard price from new advertiser to appear in it by saying that so-and-so, and such-and-such will be in it. I guess this worked well enough more than once, though as some people do not have complete memory loss, they probably remember that it did not offer anything worthwhile.

I would feel utterly humiliated if I had publicly published such a promise and then failed to deliver. But as this publisher's work would be called a much greater success than mine, the fact is that there is no reward for keeping your promises.

I would also feel utterly humiliated if I mangled an ad into saying in big letters: "GREAT SEVINGS" [sic!]