asterisk users - Jun 2005 - Running 6 copies of Asterisk on my machine

I have a fresh install of asterisk on a Fedora FC3 machine.  (I'm new to
unix so forgive the next question if it's obvious).
 
Why does "ps ax" show 6 copes of asterisk running?
 

 3338 ?        S      0:00 asterisk -vvvg -c
 3370 ?        S      0:00 asterisk -vvvg -c
 3372 ?        S      0:00 asterisk -vvvg -c
 3374 ?        S      0:00 /usr/sbin/smartd
 3384 ?        Ss     0:00 /usr/sbin/acpid
 3393 ?        S      0:00 asterisk -vvvg -c
 3394 ?        S      0:00 asterisk -vvvg -c
 3395 ?        S      0:01 mpg123 -q -s --mono -r 8000 -b 2048 -f 4096
fpm-world-mi
 3396 ?        S      0:00 mpg123 -q -s --mono -r 8000 -b 2048 -f 4096
fpm-world-mi
 3397 ?        S      0:21 asterisk -vvvg -c
 3398 ?        S      0:00 asterisk -vvvg -c
 3402 ?        Ss     0:00 cupsd
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