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In The Hoop
APRIL 24, 2001

Welcome to In The Hoop, Indianz.Com's occasional column about assorted Indian issues.

And we have a winner...
In The Hoop held its very first contest last week and we were glad to see so many people participate.

A number of readers correctly identified Tim Giago, then publisher of Indian Country Today and current publisher of the Lakota Nation Journal, as the writer of the 1997 piece about the new head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

But only one person could win and the first person who gave us the correct answer was none other than . . . Kevin Gover. Mr. Gover will get his very own Indianz.Com t-shirt for his quick emailing efforts.

As a result, some Boston Globe reporters may or may not investigate if the former Assistant Secretary solicited Indianz.Com for business prior to, after, or during his participation in the contest. Republican Congressmen may or may not comment on this alleged ethical outrage and then call for investigations into rampant trivia contests being held throughout Indian Country.

Name That Babbitt
While we await the results of such important work, we're having another contest!

It simple. Provide a caption to the following photo of former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt conversing with a 13-year-old seventh-grader from Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Previous In The Hoop winners cannot win nor can their family members but are welcome to submit ideas.

Jet-setters
In The Hoop recently heard that Dom Nessi, the BIA official who criticized his own department's trust reform effort, recently took a mid-week vacation from his job as Chief Information Officer to jump on the Concorde and fly to Europe. We're quite sure the trip wasn't made to ferret out a new software system to prevent reform projects from "imploding," however.

Fortunately, the Concorde is so fast that Nessi was able to return to Washington, DC, in time to be deposed by Alan Balaran, the court investigator assigned to the Cobell v. Norton lawsuit. But the holiday apparently wasn't relaxing enough to help him remember who was running the Office of Information Resources Management last year.

Meanwhile, the 11th-hour decisions to recognize the Duwamish Tribe of Washington and one band of the Nipmuc Nation of Massachusetts might have not been so last minute had former officials like Michael Anderson and Loretta Tuell not taken their own domestic trips right before the end of the Clinton administration, say Beltway insiders. (Both now work at Monteau, Peebles & Crowell in DC, by the way.)

Yo Quiero Free Trade
When President George W. Bush was at the Summit of the Americas pushing a hemispheric trade agreement over the weekend, he met with Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien for a brief photo-op.

So what did the frequently tongue-tied Bush have to say when reporters asked if the pair would be making any comments to the press?

Mr. Bush said he and Chretien wouldn't be answering any questions "Neither in French nor in English nor in Mexican."

In The Hoop can't wait till Bush visits a reservation and tries to speak Lakota, Dine, or some other Native language. If he ever ventures to Indian Country, that is.

In Your Hoop
Got a tip? Have some insight? You might be published here. Email In the Hoop.