Disappearing Desktop

My Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop folders and Icons are no longer visible on the screen. The panels are still there and the actual folder /home/jobattle/Desktop is still there with all of its contents still there but now there is a funny little thing on the upper right corner of the icon that looks like the icon to show the desktop The folder has 755 permissions. Also, if you try to drag anything to the actual desktop, it bounces back as if the folder were locked. You can drag things to the folder /home/jobattle/Desktop, just not to the screen desktop. It seems as if the two are no longer related. When I right click on the screen nothing happens. Other than this problem, the computer seems to be fully functional.

Oh, I also should mention that my screen background is the picture as was there previously.

I already tried moving all the folders into Desktop to a temporary folder and then moving them back to the Desktop folder with no improvement. I also used gconf-editor to uncheck and then recheck the apps-->nautilus-->preferences: show_desktop box

Any help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

John Battle