KDM shutdown: messages are invisible

When I first installed 7.1, I noticed that when I did a shutdown from the graphical login manager KDM (which 7.1 installs by default), the X window terminated and I saw the normal sequence of shutdown messages in a text window (virtual terminal 1, I presume). But at some point as I was updating my system (alas, I don't know when), the behavior changed: now I get an immovable cursor on the screen until the computer actually shuts down, and no visible messages. Presumably the X server is still alive and controlling the screen but not doing anything. How can I see those shutdown messages again? Paul Abrahams