Thank you, Aaron.  I think I've determined that the problem is somewhere in this computer or in the install. It's not just the shape tool, unfortunately, but the text tool and other functions. I'm going to turn it in as a bug and hope it has popped up somewhere else. And meanwhile, I'll use Inkscape on my laptop, where it appears to work.  -Joe
----- Original Message -----
From: Aaron Elmquist
To: Inkscape User Community
Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 8:54 AM
Subject: Re: [Inkscape-user] Shape Tool

Joe this is probably a crappy hack, but it should work just the same.  
  1. Draw a horizontal and vertical line through the point where you want the star. 
  2. Use the align tool to align the object vertically to the horizontal line.
  3. Horizontally the object to the vertical line.  
I hope that helps.