Cannot control Airport status from menu bar

[Aquiles]

It seems I have two versions of the same problem: as shown in the attached image, the status of the AirPort connection is displayed in the menu bar, but it is dimmed, so I cannot control the connection from there and to do so I need to open system preferences/Network. The same seems to occur with the Scrips menu. What could be the source of the problem? Thanks!

 

[iToaster]

See if a restart will fix it.

 

[Aquiles]

I've tried restarting and nothing happens... Actually, the problem has been around for a long time... probably since I upgraded to Leopard from Tiger.