I fixed my site – I went back to v3.1.3.
I’m good.
so far I’ve
deactivated the plugins – no joy
switched themes – no joy
When I switch to a plugin editor – Dean’s FCKEditor – it works (icons in the buttons display) but I don’t like the way Dean’s handles images – I’m not inclined to use it.
I’m backing up my site and going to try to replace the wp-admin and wp-includes folders as you suggested.
What a PIA!
I’m going to try to revert to a previous backup of my site before I screwed it up with the update.