I disagree with your premise Bob, I hope that you are not so insecure with
your manhood that you would find the success of others a threat.

Many of us older farts strive for excellence, we use various means to
measure how we compare to others. Do not confuse pride in accomplishment
with ego.

In spite of what the feel good types tell you, competition is a basic human
instinct. Keeping score is the way to quantify the competition.

To distain the accomplishments of others as "ego" is both supercilious and
lacking in the basic understanding of the human condition.

"Bob McConnell" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 18:19:04 -0600, Cecil Moore

Unfortunately, there are far too many for whom the value of their
license is measured in how many people it allows them to look down
their noses at. Their only motivation for moving up was so they could
gloat over how much better they are than anyone that isn't up to their
standards. This is also the primary reason that contests and awards
are rubbed in our faces in most of the magazines and newsletters. This
is the crowd the ARRL has been cutivating for years, because they
don't care about advancing the state of the art, or building their own
equipment, helping others, or any of the other aspects of the hobby
that used to make it great. They simply want to buy the newest,
coolest, fanciest or most expensive rig to help them along on their
ego trip, which keeps the advertisers happy.

Somebody let me know when QST no longer has any contests or award
notices in it. Then I *might* be interested in looking at it again.

Bob McConnell
N2SPP