...not even on holiday!
This comic is one of many that circulate among vegetarians (in email, blogs and listservs) every year at Thanksgiving. I do not have a credit for it, but will guess that it's by Gary Larson or one of his legion of imitators. (Larson was often notably animal-centric in his comics, praised by no less than Jane Goodall.) 
The cover of Sarah Palin's book, GOING ROGUE, shows her looking angelically up to heaven. Love the dreamy clouds and the little flag pin. (Iconography ain't just for Catholics anymore!)Indeed, I have noticed this in Mr Daisy's endless videos of tea-baggers and Sarah Palin groupies. One man insists that Barack Obama translates (!) into "antichrist" in some ancient language; another woman claims she doesn't have health insurance and doesn't need any, by God. One shakes one's head in amazement. Palin would never disown a single one of these people, as Glenn Beck also wouldn't. They openly embrace the fringe, which is the notable new thing. This turns the wacko right-wing fringe into the mainstream, which is their whole goal. It moves the political discourse (one strongly feels the need to write "political discourse" in quotes) to the far right, and makes one unwillingly more comfortable with the Black Helicopter faction.
It doesn’t matter what the argument is about. What’s important is that once the argument starts, the two sides will automatically coalesce around the various instant-cocoa talking points and scream at each other until they’re blue in the face, or until the next argument starts.
And while some of us are old enough to remember that once upon a time, these arguments always had at least some sort of ideological flavor to them, i.e. the throwdowns were at least rooted in some sort of real political issue (war, taxes, immigration, etc.) we’ve now got a whole generation that is accustomed to screaming at cultural enemies as an end in itself, for the sheer dismal fun of it. Start fighting first, figure out the reasons later.
Sarah Palin is the Empress-Queen of the screaming-for-screaming’s sake generation. The people who dismiss her book Going Rogue as the petty, vindictive meanderings of a preening paranoiac with the IQ of a celery stalk completely miss the book’s significance, because in some ways it’s really a revolutionary and innovative piece of literature.And this might be why Rush infuriates many progressives on a level that Palin can't quite reach. He brings "facts" that sound real enough, and only when one thoroughly investigates, do you see how he bends those pseudo-facts (truthiness!) to suit the conservative agenda.
Palin — and there’s just no way to deny this — is a supremely gifted politician. She has staked out, as her own personal political turf, the entire landscape of incoherent white American resentment. In this area she leaves even Rush Limbaugh in the dust.
The reason for that is that poor Rush is an anachronism, in the sense that his whole schtick revolves around talking about real political issues. And real political issues are boring.
Listen to Rush any day of the week and you’ll hear him playing the old-fashioned pundit game: he goes about the dreary business of picking through the policies and positions and public statements of Democrats and poking holes in them, arguing with them, attacking them with numbers and facts and pseudo-facts and non-facts and whatever else he can get his hands on, honest or not, but at least he tries. The poor guy nearly killed himself this summer trying to find enough horseshit to arm himself with against the health care bill, coming up with various fairy tales about how state health agencies used death panels to try to kill cancer patients who just wanted to live a little longer, how section 1233 is Auschwitz all over again, yada yada yada.Grudge politics, perverted populism in these difficult economic times... tempered by just the right notes, such as having a prayerful dinner with Billy Graham.
Rush is no Einstein, but the man does research. It may be fallacious and completely dishonest research, but he does it all the same. His battlefield is world politics and most of the time the relevant action is taking place in Washington. As good as he is at what he does, he still has to travel to the action; he himself isn’t the action.
Sarah Palin’s battlefield, on the other hand, is whatever is happening five feet in front of her face. She is building a political career around the little interpersonal wars in the immediate airspace surrounding her sawdust-filled head. And in the process she connects with pissed-off, frightened, put-upon America on a plane that’s far more elemental than the mega-ditto schtick.
Most normal people cannot connect on an emotional level with Rush’s meanderings on how Harry Reid is buying off Mary Landrieu with pork in the health care bill. They can, however, connect with stories about how top McCain strategist and Karl Rove acolyte Steve Schmidt told poor Sarah to shut her pie-hole on election day, or how her supposed allies in the McCain campaign stabbed her in the back by leaking gossip about her to reporters, how Schmidt used the word “fuck” in front of her daughter, or even with the strange tales about Schmidt ordering Sarah to consult with a nutritionist to improve her campaign endurance when she herself knew she just needed to get out in the fresh air and run (If there’s one thing Sarah Palin knows, it’s herself!).
In this atmosphere, the only thing left to do is have at her. Eat her for dinner, engage in the same hateful nastiness that she engages is. Ridicule. But be careful. Do not be sexist, do not be ableist (concerning her disabled son Trig, although I think making fun of his name and calling him Twig is okay), do not be anti-large-family, anti-Christian, anti-Pentecostal or anti-rural. Got that? Because most lefties don't get it. Every time you engage in that behavior? She sees your anti-progressive hypocrisy and successfully uses it against us. "See?" she says to the rural hockey moms, "they really are making fun of us." And she's right. If I wasn't so gosh-darned busy raising all my kids, I would have paid better attention to all that entrepreneural jazz. But you mothers know how that goes: you buy a car wash, and then little Plug has a loose tooth and little Geezer lost his mittens and before you know it, guess what -- the darned cars aren't getting washed, and you have to sell the thing off for a profit! And there was Todd so busy building our house out of sticks he found while he was snowmobiling, I couldn't go off playing with businesses. So I said, "Doggone-it, I'm gonna stay right here, mend socks, wipe noses, and such like." But then one day I was clipping coupons for Sunny D and I saw the ad in the paper that said they were looking for a new Mayor for Wasilla, and I guess I just got a wild hair in me.Okay, funny! But one has to walk a fine line in that kind of satire, and I think Roy Edroso (author of those pieces) managed to succeed in doing that.
On David Letterman:
We get to bed early in Alaska, as we have to be up before dawn to catch and skin moose, so I never saw his show. But when we heard those awful things he said about Willow, I looked up some pictures of him, and sure enough, he was the spitting image of that gap-toothed man I saw years ago when I was shopping with Willow at Out of the Closet, who offered her a Mars Bar and then reached down and rubbed her little butt. I still remember how he ran and jumped into a helicopter while I screamed and several good citizens came at him with sticks. Also, a friend played me the theme music from the show and I would swear to you it was the same music that helicopter was playing as it flew away. Folks, this is the kind of thing we're up against!
Depending upon who you read, Jack Ruby was a petty strip-club gangster or an important mobster-friend of Sam Giancana.
At left: Mr Cyril is now 7 months old! 
I have decided to run for County Council, as I mentioned here. I figure it can't hurt. I know for sure I will get at least a dozen votes! Transgender Day of Remembrance was yesterday. Please pay your respects.Good reading for Friday: I am gonna be a grandma again! Am I old or what?
Photo of our esteemed governor is from WJBF-TV.COLUMBIA — Gov. Mark Sanford now knows what the State Ethics Commission believes he may have done wrong, but it will be next week before the public learns what ethics regulations the governor is accused of violating with his travel or campaign finances.On November 10th, we learned that Governor Sanford has $1.7 million left in his campaign finance account and actually has the right to use these funds to pay for legal fees generated by the State Ethics Commission investigation. Do you believe?!?
And the question of who gets to see the commission's report of its investigation remains unsettled and with it the request by House leaders to view the report and decide whether to pursue impeachment action.
After eight commissioners met behind closed doors for nearly seven hours Wednesday, the commission's executive director said only that they had found probable cause for ethics violations in the governor's case on multiple allegations.
Herb Hayden, the commission's executive director, said specific findings by the commission won't be publicly released until next week. “A finding of probable cause is not a finding of guilt,” Hayden said. “It is only one phase in the process.”
[...]
An administrative hearing at which the commission would hear Sanford's side and render a verdict as to guilt won't be scheduled until after the first of next year, Hayden said. That hearing would be closed unless Sanford agrees it should be open to the public, he said.
“As we have always maintained, Gov. Sanford supports the public release of the full and complete ethics report,” Bowers said Wednesday night. “We believe that once all of the facts have been considered, it will once again confirm that this administration has been a good steward of tax dollars and public resources.”
House Speaker Bobby Harrell has called on Gov. Mark Sanford to release a disputed investigative report into the governor's possible ethical or criminal violations stemming from his travel and use of campaign funds.They gave the report to Sanford's attorneys?!?
Harrell, R-Charleston, argued a Nov. 5 S.C. Supreme Court ruling made the report public, and that Sanford is not living by standards he has demanded of others.
"We are disappointed that Governor Sanford has broken his transparency promise by keeping this court-ordered public document secret," Harrell said in a statement. "After claiming to be a leader in the transparency movement and heavily criticizing others on this issue, the Governor’s insistence on secrecy goes against all his past actions on this issue."
Harrell has asked the Supreme Court to clarify their decision about whether the House and public can access the report. Sanford's attorneys and the S.C. State Ethics Commission have until tomorrow to file arguments in the case.
Sanford has asked the Ethics Commission to prevent staff from releasing the report to lawmakers or the public, arguing it could undermine Sanford's defense. Harrell also criticized the eight Ethics commissioners for choosing to give the report to Sanford's attorneys during a closed-door session.
... is a great song as well as the name of a restaurant in downtown Greenville, SC. This is their kiosk at Fall for Greenville (street fair) last month.
At left: St Elizabeth of Hungary, traditional holy card. In her short life Elizabeth manifested such great love for the poor and suffering that she has become the patroness of Catholic charities and of the Secular Franciscan Order. The daughter of the King of Hungary, Elizabeth chose a life of penance and asceticism when a life of leisure and luxury could easily have been hers. This choice endeared her in the hearts of the common people throughout Europe.Interestingly, in some iconography she is holding a basket of roses, and in some (as above) she is holding a basket of bread. (Bread and Roses?) Oddly, in the rose-depictions, there are poor people, but in the bread-depictions, she is alone. (?)
At the age of 14 Elizabeth was married to Louis of Thuringia (a German principality), whom she deeply loved; she bore three children. Under the spiritual direction of a Franciscan friar, she led a life of prayer, sacrifice and service to the poor and sick. Seeking to become one with the poor, she wore simple clothing. Daily she would take bread to hundreds of the poorest in the land, who came to her gate.
After six years of marriage, her husband died in the Crusades, and she was grief-stricken. Her husband’s family looked upon her as squandering the royal purse, and mistreated her, finally throwing her out of the palace. The return of her husband’s allies from the Crusades resulted in her being reinstated, since her son was legal heir to the throne.
In 1228 Elizabeth joined the Secular Franciscan Order, spending the remaining few years of her life caring for the poor in a hospital which she founded in honor of St. Francis. Elizabeth’s health declined, and she died before her 24th birthday in 1231. Her great popularity resulted in her canonization four years later.
Amanda Marcotte has proposed something pretty radical over at Pandagon that has everyone in an uproar. For this reason, attention must be paid. (I am duly impressed when any feminist can garner this kind of reaction, frankly.)I agree with Jeff here that it’s about time that we started viewing the release of privately made sexual photographs and videos to anyone other than their intended audience as a form of sexual assault. The motivation to do so is indistinguishable from that as a rapist---using sex as a tool to dominate and humiliate someone, while puffing up your own sense of power---and often the results could be even worse for the victim, because her assault was performed in front of a crowd. And I agree with Jeff that we need to consider Carrie Prejean’s ex-boyfriend the scum of the earth for releasing this video, and it’s true that it’s a case of sex being used against a woman to silence and humiliate her, as she’s claimed.I am thinking that "sexual assault" may not be the right word. Slander or liable? Do we need a new category for "visual assault"?
All that said, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with learning something from the fact that this video exists. That the video was released in an act of sexual assault, and should be treated as such. But that doesn’t mean that the act of making the video isn’t something that also matters, when the person who made it is a spokesperson for legally controlling and punishing the sexual behavior of others. I hope we can be nuanced enough about this to see that Prejean is both a victim and a horrible hypocrite. I think it’s important to realize that all these sex scandals involving the moral scolds of society demonstrate that right wingers really do get into being moral scolds because they want to reserve sexual pleasure for themselves while denying it to others. Also, that homobigotry isn’t really about some kind of strict view of human sexuality evenly applied, but that it’s basically just bigotry and attacking people for being in a minority.
Still, I think there’s a lot of clarifying value in thinking of the release of private photos and videos as a form of sexual assault, and thinking of the women in the images as the victims of this assault. Perhaps that will cause anyone who considers publishing these sorts of things to realize that they are participating in a sexual assault if they do so, and will cause them to reconsider. And for anyone applauding a man who releases this stuff, perhaps it will cause you to reconsider.
Onyx Lynx linked to a wonderfully thoughtful post titled The Plea of Helplessness, the Refusal of Responsibility, and Today's Progressives (from the blog titled Once Upon a Time...). With regard to every issue of consequence, Obama has embraced and even expanded the policies of the Bush administration that he and the progressives had claimed to profoundly oppose. From preventive detention, to increasingly intrusive surveillance at home, to the influence of "faith-based" activists and their preferred policies, to the continuing occupation of Iraq, the ongoing war in Afghanistan, which intentionally and with severe malice aforethought flows into Pakistan and threatens still wider regional destabilization, to continued confrontation with Iran via "crippling sanctions" and indefensible demands made of that country, backed up by the disgusting bullying which endlessly repeats that "all options are on the table" (thus perfectly mimicking Bush's behavior in every respect, all of which Obama and the progressives said they condemned) -- all of it is directly contradictory to what Obama and the progressives had claimed to stand for.And I have already announced here that I am running for a Green Party office next year. I have jumped ship and no longer have any (genuine) faith in the Democratic party.
And what is the primary defense they offer for these stances, all of which run counter to what they said they believed in and what they repeatedly indicated they would do once they controlled the executive and legislative branches? Their defense is exactly the same defense offered by the conservatives: they can't help it. This is the best they can do. Forces over which they have no control leave them no alternative.
Those forces may be "the system" itself -- despite the rather consequential fact that they now control all the operative levers of power...
You MUST read Rachel's series on becoming vegetarian. I identified with so much of it: Blocked Vegetarians, Vegetarian Impulses, Bearing the Vegetarian Word, Vegetarian Pet Food, and she also includes a variety of wonderful recipes, to make everything especially excellent. I am huge fan of Renee's blog Womanist Musings, because like me, she sees everything as interrelated and connected. I love her polemics and her perspective. Bowing to a foreign leader does not make him weak. It is an attempt on his part to curry favour with foreign nations that the US has angered over the last few decades. This bow while showing respect to a different culture, is predicated on the American desire to maintain its globally hegemony. The U.S has no intention of closing Okinawa, or dealing with the mass rapes that have been committed by American soldiers. No matter how diminutive these gestures might make Obama and by default the American people appear, they are token at best. Why make a big deal about a bow when it is clear that the US is still in charge of the unipolar world? Even if Obama were to kiss the feet Emperor Akihito, it would be clear to all the world which of the two men possess real power.Read it all... in fact, you should be reading Renee every day anyway!
More wonderful wimminz, new to my blogroll: Adoption Survivor, Mnemosyne’s Forgotten Daughter, Acts of Faith in Love & Life!, The Wolf Cave, Asperger Square 8, DQ's Windmill, Carol J. Adams, anti social butterfly (IMHO), and the Queen of Progressive Twittering, Progressive Pam. Welcome All!Your official Odds and Sods dose of cute comes from HARLEY, who looks exactly like my legendary and beloved cat from the 70s, Zeppo. As I told Harley's mama, I am sure Harley was Zeppo in one of his previous nine lives. 
I have had a pretty rough couple of weeks, as my plantar fasciitis reminds me that my feet are indeed the boss. When you work on your feet, you need them, and they won't be ignored. It has been reported plantar fasciitis occurs in two million Americans a year and 10% of the population over a lifetime. It is commonly associated with long periods of work-related weight bearing. Among non-athletic populations, it is associated with a high body mass index.Yes, I think we know what "high body mass index" means.
The pain is usually felt on the underside of the heel and is often most intense with the first steps of the day.This is an understatement.
In a comment on the post linked above, one commenter (Avalon) was critical because I have blogged about alcoholism, asserting that it is not the same as blogging about disability. (Admittedly, I had believed that it was in the same general neighborhood, at least.) Much of the evidence that genetic factors may lead to alcohol dependence has come from studies on twins and children of alcoholics who were adopted at birth and raised by nonalcoholic adoptive parents. Studies like these allow researchers to begin to tease apart the special influences of nature and nurture in the development of alcohol addiction. At present it seems clear that the basis of alcoholism is partly genetic, but the genetic factors alone cannot account for the development of the disease. The real value of the nature versus nurture studies so far is that they have identified certain traits, or markers, that run in families and predispose people to alcoholic dependence. Thus, they help to identify individuals who may be at risk for developing alcohol problems.Markers? Traits? Like those pesky traits I've talked about before, that I share with Mel Gibson?
Looking at the situation objectively, if alcoholism is passed through genes, the abnormality must be relatively new. As stated previously, alcoholism did not exist in the early colonization of America. In fact, it did not exist until the late 1700’s.Um, what?
Some would argue that the residents of the United States are largely immigrants and as a result the alcoholism gene was introduced later in history. Meaning, the “new” citizens are not of the same family tree as those of the 1700’s.
But, its important to point out, many cultures outside of the United States do not even know what alcoholism is; they do not have a word for it. People with different cultural backgrounds do not have different genetic make-ups.
But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a one know not to eat.Note the noun: drunkard. This would suggest a chronic state of affairs, rather than a few parties here and there.
1st Corinthians 5:11
I had put off reading and reviewing The Labrys Reunion because I knew it was gonna get to me, big time. Flipping idly through the novel, I could see that Wolverton was attempting an authentic examination (even if in a fictional setting) of some of the tensions between second and third wave feminists, as well as a thoughtful look back at the halcyon days of the feminist movement; a time of collectives, feminist theory, direct action, brainstorming and art like The Dinner Party. The antiwar movement was riddled with factions, but it was in the women's movement that she'd seen hand-to-hand combat. Down south, in that summer of 1965, no one had called her racist, because the pernicious face of racism had been only too clear, but at Labrys, white women who'd organized nothing more than their plane trips to get there felt free to level that charge against her. "Racist" because there were so few women of color at Labrys; "classist" because it cost money to go there; "anti-mother" because the child care facilities were seen as inadequate; "exploitative" because the child-care workers felt underpaid; "oppressive" whenever she took a stand that someone didn't like. It wasn't that she hadn't agreed with some of the charges; there was no more unanimity within the organizing collective than outside it. But how had the original purpose of Labrys--to train women in the skills of political organizing--become obliterated by the expectation that in the span of eight weeks Labrys would create a feminist utopia?
She'd wanted witnesses. She hadn't been able to live with the idea that her daughter's death might go unnoticed, unmourned, that Emma might pass from this world as if she'd never been. That's why, Dana reminded herself, she'd invited all these people. That's why she found herself sitting with them after all these years in a loft on the Lower East Side.In her acknowledgments, Wolverton admits that Charlotte Sheedy told her to "put a murder in it"--and unfortunately, it does read that way, like a murder was DROPPED into the story. I would have preferred a setting like the Democratic convention, or some other progressive event where the women might have run into each other, then set up a "reunion party" of sorts. But of course, this would not have the purpose of bringing the most radical women into the story-setting, which helps to provide the fireworks.
"You think because you're twenty-four years old you know everything?" Peg spat the words into the girl's sneer. "What do you know? Nothing! Your generation got liberation handed to you on a platter--choices, opportunities, lifestyles. When I was your age there was just one choice--marriage and motherhood, that was it. And if you didn't want that, if you had a brain and wanted your independence, you were a freak, and it was too damn bad."
Pouches of flesh swayed beneath her arms as she translated her rage into gesture. "The happiest day of my life was the day I threw away my girdle. Twenty years I wore it, every day, even if all I was doing was cleaning the house. My mother told me it was indecent not to wear it. And now I open up the pages of the newspaper, and once again they're being sold to women. 'Bodyshapers!' It's like we're going back in time!"
She hovered in front of Kendra's chair, commanding the young woman's eyes to meet hers. "And your generation says, 'What's the big deal? If we wanna wear girdles or push-up bras or lipstick--we're free to choose.' How am I supposed to feel when you celebrate the things that kept me in slavery? You spit on the symbols of my liberation! And then you tell me I'm humorless."
As determined as Kendra had been to keep the defiant smirk plastered to her lips, she could no longer maintain it in the face of Peg's outraged lamentation. She could not recall ever having felt so fervently about anything, and she felt a bit embarrassed for the older woman at the same time as she envied that intensity.
One hundred voices were already midway through the Serenity Prayer as she clattered down the steps into the musty basement that housed the AA meeting. A cluttered room crowded with folding chairs under the greenish glare of fluorescent bulbs: it felt like home.These are the perfect tiny snapshots and vignettes that make this book worthwhile and wonderful. I don't want to ruin the "mystery" of the murder-plot--but it is interesting (while not entirely unexpected). As always, the women argue all through the novel, validating and not-validating each other. As feminists always have.
[...]
The room held an assortment of people who would come together for no other reason: men in exquisitely tailored suits sat elbow to elbow with punk girls in skull earrings and black tights full of runs. Women with elaborate coiffures and perfect aerobicized figures applauded the stories of grizzled guys with trembling hands.
There, no one cared what she looked like, if her hair was lank with rain, her shoes waterlogged. No one judged if her politics were imperfect, or what the Senator from North Carolina thought of her artwork. No one minded how crazy or scared she felt--they'd all been there.
[...]
When Gwen had first come into these rooms, she'd fought so hard against the notion of being "powerless." She had already been a feminist for a decade, had dedicated herself to overturning women's conditioned and enforced passivity and helplessness. She remembered speaking up at one meeting early on, "I am goddamn well not going to admit that I am powerless. And don't even get me started on that God 'he' thing!" She'd had enough youth and enough arrogance to think she would bring the feminist revolution to AA. Everyone had just smiled and urged her to "keep coming back," which only pissed Gwen off more.
But she had kept coming back because she'd grown tired of waking up every morning with her eyeballs aching; she didn't know how else to stop drinking. It took her more than a year to understand that "powerless" didn't mean defenseless and victimized, but was a recognition that there were things that she could not control or will away.
I guess I shoulda used these for Halloween, but decided to save them for Friday the 13th. :)The series had a memorably famous whistled theme tune by [famous horror moviemakers] Hammer's Harry Robinson and title sequence involving a deserted and apparently haunted Battersea fairground.
And finally, the judge says NO.Here is my first blog post about this sordid debacle.
COLUMBIA -- A federal judge today ordered the state to stop producing "I Believe" license plates, ruling the case is a "textbook example" of a constitutional prohibition of government endorsing a specific religion.
U.S. District Court Judge Cameron Currie, who issued a preliminary injunction against the plates in December, on Tuesday issued a permanent injunction, finding the legislation creating the plates violates the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution and its 14th Amendment.
She also singled out Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, who pushed through the legislation.
"Whether motivated by sincerely held Christian beliefs or an effort to purchase political capital with religious coin, the result is the same," Currie wrote in her order. "The statute is clearly unconstitutional and defense of its implementation has embroiled the state in unnecessary (and expensive) litigation."
Infant of Prague and Sacred Heart of Jesus candles are from my Flickr page.I need 2 say again: if u participate in the fuckery of yoga, our religious practice, Kali Ma will shit on you. Consider yourself warned.[1]
I'd like to c ppl RT that flaming morsel of truth rather than the pretty white smiling familiesI'm sure she'll be happy she got a whole blog post, rather than a simple RT (retweet).
[to the woman practicing yoga] last thing: 4 u and any1 else who does this wack ass white ppl yoga know that u cannot achieve inner peace on a basis of racism
sweep the criticism of the Indian under the rug while you go enjoy the religious practice that white ppl steal from usHm.
I need 2 say again: if u participate in the fuckery of Christmas, our religious practice, Mother Mary will shit on you. Consider yourself warned.[2]Interesting.
Extremely busy this weekend...I barely got home in time for the Mad Men season finale, which I found disappointing. In fact, I can't remember the last season finale (or any other finale) that I've enjoyed. The worst in history was Battlestar Galactica, which was so upsetting in it's overall badness that I didn't even blog about it.
At left: Police Officer Kimberly Munley (Twitter photo)Ohhh, you sure have. May God Bless you for your self-sacrificing work.
Fort Hood, Texas (CNN) -- The police officer who ended the Fort Hood massacre by shooting the suspect was known as the enforcer on her street, a "tough woman" who patrolled her neighborhood and once stopped burglars at her house.
"If you come in, I'm going to shoot," Kimberly Munley told the would-be intruders last year.
It was Munley who arrived quickly Thursday at the scene of the worst massacre at an Army base in U.S. history, where 13 people were killed. She confronted the alleged gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, and shot him four times. Munley was wounded in the exchange.
That's just like her, friends and family say.
"I just felt more protected knowing she was on my street," neighbor Erin Houston said.
Munley, the mother of a 3-year-old girl, lives on a street where a lot of homes are vacant because so many residents are deployed at war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We sleep a lot safer knowing she's on the block," said Sgt. William Barbrow, another neighbor.
When Bryan Munley heard that his sister-in-law thwarted the alleged gunman in a shootout, he wasn't surprised.
"There's nothing that stands in her way. It completely makes sense that she did what she did," he said from Downingtown, Pennsylvania. "It was amazing. Without her, there would have been a lot more people killed."
He added, "She is definitely a tough woman."
Munley, 34, is being treated for her wounds. Her father, former Carolina Beach, North Carolina, Mayor Dennis Barbour, said his daughter is doing well.
"Her efforts were superb," said Col. Steven Braverman, the base hospital commander.
Lt. Gen. Bob Cone, Fort Hood's commanding general, described Munley as a "trained, active first responder" who acted quickly after she "just happened to encounter the gunman."
"Really a pretty amazing and aggressive performance by this police officer," he said.
Cone said Munley and her partner responded "very quickly" to the scene -- reportedly in about three minutes.
On social networking sites, she was lauded for her actions. One Facebook fan page was called "Sgt. Kimberly Munley: A Real American Hero" and had more than 1,400 members.
"My prayers for a fast recovery as well as my sincere thanks of an outstanding job," one person wrote. One woman added, "U got some brass balls, girl ... u r my hero!!!!"
Authorities say Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, opened fire at a military processing center at Fort Hood on Thursday, killing 13 and wounding 30 others.
Cone was asked on CNN's "American Morning" whether Munley's shots brought down the assailant and stopped him from shooting.
"That's correct," Cone said. "The critical factor here was her quick response to the situation."
Bryan Munley said Munley is married to his brother, Staff Sgt. Matthew Munley. He said Matthew was in Downingtown, outside Philadelphia, visiting his family when the shootings happened. The couple, married since 2006, have a 3-year-old daughter named Jayden.
Bryan Munley said Matthew had recently been transferred to Fort Bragg in North Carolina and has done two tours in Iraq. Kimberly was trying to find a job in North Carolina and was hoping to move there soon, Matthew said.
Matthew was at Fort Bragg on Friday, trying to get a flight to Texas to see his wife.
A page on Twitter lists the name "Kim Munley" of Killeen, Texas, near Ford Hood. It has a photo of a female police officer with the name "Kim Munley" on her uniform.
Its bio blurb has particular resonance in the aftermath of the incident.
"I live a good life....a hard one, but I go to sleep peacefully @ night knowing that I may have made a difference in someone's life."
