Odd Screen Rending Issue

[Frank Jahnke]

I have an odd problem with screen rendering: many applications when
displayed give nice, sharp characters and graphics.  Others, though, do
not "focus" and stay very blurry.  

One example is invoking Gnome Terminal on an otherwise blank background.
It stays fuzzy.  If that window is raised over a different window, like
a browser showing only Google, then it snaps into focus.

How can this be corrected?  It is very disconcerting!

The system is Gnome 2.14.3/FreeBSD 6.1-R-p3.

Frank