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..'All he ever cared about were guns. All I ever cared about was art'" (Martin 2000). Vowell's anti-gun politics and assassination fascination thus may have a personal dimension -- in the act of remembering violent American history, Vowell comes to terms with her past although retains her liberal politics.
Vowell does tie the issues raised by violence and assignations in the past to present-day attitudes Regarding one unwitting casualty in the attempt on Ronald Reagan's life, Reagan's press secretary James Brady who must spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair due to his injury, Vowell is proud that she is part of their campaign and writes how moved she is: "that he and his wife, Sarah, turned this rotten luck into the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is downright heroic. And not the soft-focus treacle that 'heroic' often implies. I'm on their mailing list" (Vowell 84). Unbelievably, she notes, two years after an attempt was made upon his life, Ronald Reagan still addressed the NRA convention. Brady, she points out, is striving to keep guns away from madmen and terrorists, unlike Republicans who clothe themselves in the rhetoric of patriotism combined with the rhetoric of guns.
Yet in her own past prose, Vowell has admitted to the seductive power of guns and the fact they have created a kind of bond between herself and her father. Her father even went so far as to reconstruct the past by making his own historically accurate and active cannon and Vowell went with him to try it out, she writes in the one essay in her collection Take the Cannoli "Dad shoots the cannon again so they can see how it works. The other hiker says, 'That's quite a machine you've got...
He's talking about my tape recorded and my microphone -- which is called a shotgun mike. I stare back at him, then look over at my father's canon, then down at my microphone, and I think, Oh. My. God. My dad and I are the same person. We're both smart-alecky loners with goofy projects and weird equipment. And since this whole target practice outing was my idea, I was not longer his adversary. I was his accomplice. What's worse, I was liking it" (Vowell 2000, p.23).
Politically and aesthetically, the liberal and anti-gun activist Vowell equivocates about the act of commemorating history and historical tourism. She loves reconstructed history, yet doubts its value, even while it moves her. It creates a bond between herself and her father and other Americans that can transcend politics, but can also polarize individuals. The book concludes that 'assassination vacations' can have their value, however they must not be used as a substitute for critical thinking about the past, or how we use the past to justify present policies.
Works Cited
Beato, Greg. "On the road with wisecracks and historical oddities.' The San Francisco
Chronicle. April 17, 2007. C3.
Handy, Bruce. "Assassination Vacation: Dead Presidents." The New York Times. May 8
Marin, Rick. Radio Daze. The New York Times Magazine. April 4, 2000.
Tumber, Catherine. "Dead Presidents." The Washington Post. April 10, 2005. BW12.
Vowell, Sarah. Take the Cannoli. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.
Walla, Christopher. "Greedy weirdoes and good-hearted men." Salon.com. April 26,
Works Cited
Beato, Greg. "On the road with wisecracks and historical oddities.' The San Francisco
Chronicle. April 17, 2007. C3.
Handy, Bruce. "Assassination Vacation: Dead Presidents." The New York Times. May 8
Marin, Rick. Radio Daze. The New York Times Magazine. April 4, 2000.
Trail of Tears was an important experience that forever changed the history of the Cherokee Nation and the United States. Several thousand Cherokee Native Indians lost their lives when forced to leave their homelands through laws put in place by Federal authorities. The beginning of the negotiation of several treaties to establish land boundaries and trade routes started in 1776 between the nation of Native Americans and the United States.
This must have made the sting of their losses in court -- and their losses despite winning in court -- even more bitter. They had learned and played by the new rules even though that system was unfair to begin with (in all fairness, the Americans should have used the Cherokee legal system to try and get what they wanted), but the system refused to give them fair access.
Disease ran through our people like wildfire, while others were simply to young or old to make the journey and gave up, to die alone by the side of the road. Some of the soldiers were kind to us, but others brutalized us and tormented the young women. My young daughter survived the trip, and together, we are trying to build a new life in the Indian Country. I
Cherokee Nation can be described as the government of the Cherokee people that is recognized by the federal government in the United States. Throughout its history, the Cherokee Nation has remained committed to safeguarding its people's intrinsic sovereignty while promoting and preserving the language, culture, and values of the Cherokee people. Moreover, the Cherokee Nation is increasingly committed to enhancing the quality of life for subsequent generations of Cherokee people
President Andrew Jackson built his political and military career on an aggressive approach to Native Americans. His exploits began well before 1838-9, when his Indian Removal Act signaled the deplorable state of affairs in North America. Around 4000 Cherokee died during the forcible removal program dubbed aptly the "Trail of Tears," as many more Indians were displaced and deprived of rights that had been previously been guaranteed by federal law.
The Congress eventually followed suit by enacting the Indian Removal Act which was greeted by the newly elected President Andrew Jackson. Americans should feel no regret for the disappearance of Indians from the face of the earth, Jackson argued. "Philanthropy could not wish to see this continent restored to the condition in which it was found by our forefathers," he said to Congress in his State of the Union