I'm not exactly sure when, but starting a month or so ago, vim has been
acting weird when
I run it as root.  For one thing, there are messages
    Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server
on the console.  I presume this is an X authority thing, but I'm not sure
why it became an
issue when it wasn't before, and I've completely forgotten what to do about
it.  I'm generally
running a gnome-terminal 2.26.3.1 under KDE on plain Gento.

It's weird, I know, but I've been doing this for ages. Moreover, in spite of
weirdness, the editing session works.

Except that there are messages
   Xlib: No protocol specified
overlaid on the document scattered more or less randomly.  They can be
cleaned off by
control-L.

This is barely workable, and leaves me with a WTF sort of feeling.
Fortunately, I don't do a whole lot of editing as root, but there's always
something...

Any clues out there?

-- 
Kevin O'Gorman, PhD