I disabled XDM (sure is nice to have text config files) and rebooted. It came up at a regular login prompt, and no error messages. startx took a *very* long time -- said it couldn't find the hostname (something like that) -- but it eventually started XFCE. And the messages were back.
Something I forgot to mention: When XFCE starts and I open a terminal, the terminal comes up right away, but it takes a long time (30+ seconds, it feels like) to display the prompt. -- Glenn English
