I am taking the Salon RSS feed off my Yahoo home page this morning after reading this article. I am sick to death of the hate and vitriol spewing back and forth this election. This was not a piece of journalism, it was sensationalist writing. I will now avoid Salon for the same reason that I avoid Fox News.

and yet.....

HE VOTED FOR FISA!!!

This year will be a choice of the lesser of the two evils....

This is the first time that I have read an article in this forum and felt the urge to respond...

I swim in a different pool, and I know that what I do, making textures and 3d modeling, I do well. I am very good, but not the best....the concept of "BEST" will always be subjective, or we would only ever have one sports team.

It pains me to see a badly textured object. However, I take the time to appreciate that someone put effort into their model & render. Rather than assume that everyone who buys a computer and downloads some free software considers him/herself and artist, I assume that someone has made and effort to stimulate their mind, to better themselves. I also know that there are a lot of people with a lot more technical skill than myself. I truly hope that they don't look on me as you look on casual competitors.

You sound like a person who is dealing with a lot of pain and anger. You sound traumatized. Please understand that what happened to you was awful and you have a right to feel angry about it. However, you are projecting that anger onto others. Be angry with the people who hurt you. Making little girls compete like show ponies is abusive.

If you give a little encouragement to the people who tell you that they once competed, you may find that you are able to connect with them. Let other people feel good about themselves and you may find that you will begin to feel good about yourself.