My Desktop seems to be "locked". How can I fix this?
Aha!  My clue was indeed the right lead (I think) -- removing the com.apple.FinderInfo attribute with

`xattr -d com.apple.FinderInfo ~/Desktop`


appears to have fixed the problem.  See https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2741291?start=0&amp;tstart=0 for a few more details.