Et tu, Brutus?

I rise to the defense of our good friend and semi-patron, Randy Petersen. He must have invested a great deal of personal capital to call in some chits and get the Delta people to show up. He got them to bring along 100,000 Delta SkyMiles, won by Tolarian, spiff, tudorcity and (?). I do not know whether he was feeding the questions, or someone on the staff (recall that at one point in the chat, he stated that he was in one part of the office, the staff were in another, and the Delta people were in their own office in ATL I think). However, even if he was, in the interests of getting future participation, I think it made sense to make it something other than a complete flame fest. If that happened, no one is ever going to show up in the future (from Delta or others). And, most importantly, Randy continues to provide this forum for us to exchange ideas and express our views on a daily basis (Yes, I know how things work, and that he gets advertising dollars, etc.) In my mind, Randy is to be highly commended for getting the Delta people here. If people want to complain about Delta, put that at Delta's door, not Randy's. Remember, Randy is a hybrid. Part objective newsperson. Part entrepeneur who gets revenues from the industry. That doesn't mean he has to fight our fights for us. Be thankful he provides a place for us to talk, exchange thoughts, organize ourselves, and suggestions on how to deal with the airlines and others. Think about this, how much organized resistance to the Delta changes would there be if FT did not exist, or if www.saveskymiles.com did not exist?

What I did think was in bad taste was those people who were flaming Randy during the hiatus between the session with Delta and the Randy chat session while Randy was still shown as logged on. I thought that was extremely inconsiderate.

Just my own personal opinion. Everyone is entitled to their own. "Though I may disagree with what you say, I shall defend to the death your right to say it." -- Voltaire.

Djlawman