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●● ✦ T HE S UNDAY J OURNAL ✦ LOW KEY ◆ J ANUARY 8, 2006 Supreme Court nominee S ECTION Alito shows you don’t E DITORIALS ✹ 2 have to be loud to make an impression & The West B DIMENSION ◆ B8 New Mexico Readers Gave Mountains of School Supplies efore the eye can take in the totality of JIM BELSHAW floor. it, the smell of the room in the market- Stacks of other supplies spread out from the ing section of the Albuquerque Pub- backpacks — writing tablets, water colors, lishing Company makes its presence modeling clay, tape dispensers, crayons, chalk Bknown. It’s the smell of new school stuff — new and pencil sharpeners that spill over the sides pencils, new crayons, new paper — all manner of large boxes. of blank slates waiting for a kid to fill in a future. Scissors, brought in one by one, fill a box. When the eye catches up to the smell of Next to it, an entire store display of scissors sits newness, an appreciation for thoughtful intact, the whole thing donated in one fell generosity permeates the room as well. Of the Journal swoop. In November and December, I wrote three " A box full of pens still in their original columns concerning a request from U.S. Army packing makes me wonder how one might say Maj. Bob Bateman in Baghdad. He and a to collect supplies and ship them. “Paper-Mate” in Arabic. ADOLPHE PIERRE-LOUIS/JOURNAL handful of American officers and enlisted How much did you give? A multicolored stalagmite of three-ring Last month, Betty Sanders dropped off 10 soldiers had begun what he called a “de facto Here’s one measure: So much that the Journal binders rises from the floor. A box of erasers, a backpacks filled with school supplies at the adoption” of a Baghdad school. will hire professional packers to put it all Albuquerque Publishing Company. Sanders is box of calculators, staplers, staples, push pins, They needed school supplies. You responded. together. protractors, compasses and stacks of one of many who have donated school supplies Albuquerque lawyer Bill Snead offered $1,000 Along one wall of the marketing office, a for children in Iraq. to help pay shipping costs. The Journal offered mountain of backpacks spreads out onto the See IRAQI on PAGE B4 JOSH STEPHENSON/JOURNAL The Rev. Millan Garcia elevates the consecrat- ed host, the body of Christ, for the congrega- tion to venerate as altar servers hold his vest- ments and ring a bell at San Ignacio Church. Latin Mass Volcanic rock in the foreground and the rising Sandias in the background illustrate two dominant features of the Rio Grande Rift. Attracts Worshippers ■ About 75 people regularly attend RIFT ZONE the rare, traditional Catholic Albuquerque is the perfect spot to watch the planet pull itself apart service held at San Ignacio Church Story by J OHN F LECK ■ Photographs by P AT V ASQUEZ-CUNNINGHAM ■ Of the Journal B Y P AUL L OGAN Journal Staff Writer orth America is tearing apart, Sandra Conlee says the hour drive from Santa right beneath our Albuquerque Fe to Albuquerque is worth it so her family can feet. attend a Latin Mass. The valley slicing down New “I’m tired of the liberalism,” Conlee says. “I Mexico’s middle is opening ever like the old conservative rite.” Nso slowly, a rift in Earth’s crust. Conlee, her husband and four children were You don’t need to wave goodbye just yet, among about 50 people who attended Mass last but if you live on Albuquerque’s West Mesa, Sunday at San Ignacio Church. Numbers were the Sandias are ever-so-slowly pulling away down a little because people were out of town, from you. Along the tearing edges of deep says the celebrant, the Rev. Millan J. Garcia. crust, magma is slowly burbling up from Participants follow the Latin Rite service with below. a Latin-English missal, which notes when to Rio Rancho is headed west, while kneel, stand and sit. Albuquerque’s northeast heights heads east. Through the service, organ music accompa- “Effectively, New Mexico is encroaching on nies singers. Everything is in Latin except the Arizona and Texas,” said geophysicist Greg priest’s sermon. Anderson. When Garcia sings, “ Dóminus vobíscum,” the On geologic time scales — and by choir and congregation respond, “ Et cum spíritu “geologic,” scientists mean “very, very, very tuo.” long” — North America seems to be Translation: “The Lord be with you.” “And splitting, and we’re living on the seam. with your spirit.” For centuries, Latin was the Roman Catholic “What we’re seeing here,” explained Church’s universal language. But the Latin Mass University of New Mexico geophysicist was pushed to the side in the 1960s when Mousumi Roy, “is parts of North America reforms of the Vatican II council allowed the trying to break apart.” service to be conducted in native languages. You cannot see or feel the Earth moving Perched on a tripod embedded in bedrock, this GPS instrument is part of a suite of instru- Latin is considered a dead language but flick- beneath your feet, but you can see its results ments measuring ground motion in New Mexico. ers like an unquenchable flame at 600 churches — the valley of the Rio Grande, the jutting in the United States and Canada. crest of the Sandias, the volcanoes dotting ern side — the Sandias and Manzanos, for Many of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe’s 300,000 the valley’s west side. example — are also a result of the complex members probably don’t know about San Igna- Now a loose-knit team of researchers is processes happening beneath Earth’s sur- cio’s uncommon Mass. Archbishop Michael trying to determine how fast it is happening. face as the crust thins. Sheehan allows Garcia to celebrate the Latin “The rates are very slow,” Roy said, “and But what scientists know so far is based Mass in the archdiocese each Sunday at noon. so they’re very difficult to measure.” largely on a static picture — looking at the When supporters placed an advertisement in But with a network of new detectors now landscape today for clues to what happened the Albuquerque Journal about a Latin Midnight being arrayed around the state, the in the past. Roy, Aster and Davidson are part High Mass on Christmas, he says, attendance scientists think they have a shot. of a new generation of scientists who finally doubled. have the tools to watch the slow-motion An average of about 75 people have attended Think of it like pizza change in Earth’s crust as it happens. each Sunday’s Latin Mass during the past five To help think through what’s happening, years, Garcia says. grab a big slice of pizza — it’s got to have a University of New Mexico geophysicist Very slow motion Catholics who favor the Latin Mass are hope- lot of gooey cheese — and begin pulling it Mousumi Roy is leading a team measuring Compared to the Rio Grande Rift, the See LATIN on PAGE B5 apart. See the way the cheese stretches and movement of the Rio Grande rift. action in places like California and Alaska is thins? Scientists say that is what is happen- positively speedy. ing beneath our feet. The pizza metaphor isn’t perfect. It doesn’t Plop down a global positioning system In our case, the thinning cheese is the Rio explain a lot of the results — the volcanoes Some Vatican II changes satellite receiver in Alaska, Anderson said, Grande Rift, running from a narrow gap in along the rift’s western margin, for example, ■ and within a matter of weeks it will have Mass is said in the community’s language southern Colorado down through the broad created where the rift has weakened Earth’s moved enough for him to measure. valleys of central and southern New Mexico. crust and allowed magma from below to rise ■ Altar and priest face the people It’s been happening for millions of years, a to the surface. ■ More community involvement in sacramental slow opening in Earth’s crust. The line of mountains along the rift’s east- See RIFT ZONE on PAGE B4 rites ■ More lay people involved in services B4 T HE S UNDAY J OURNAL NEW MEXICO & THE WEST ●● A LBUQUERQUE,JANUARY 8, 2006 States Near Agreement To Share River Water B Y K ATHLEEN H ENNESSEY am more than optimistic that we Colorado River system. At voirs, Lake Mead and Lake resolved. She said Nevada was deal is based on ideas, not num- The Associated Press will meet the Feb. 2 deadline.” issue is how to allocate water Powell. willing to agree to put aside its bers. Officials from the seven riv- from the river when flows are “We want to be operating as a plans to tap the Virgin River “It’s still fragile. The devil is LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Repre- er-basin states spent nearly low and reservoirs can’t supply system, rather than as two sep- and pay for improvements to still in the details, so we’re sentatives for New Mexico and two days behind closed doors normal amounts to each state. arate reservoirs,” he said. the lower-basin system if it was putting the details together,” six other Western states that trying to compromise on a Water officials, who have In the past, the states have compensated with water. said Herb Guenther, director rely on the Colorado River said drought-management plan that been working on the plan for sparred over various issues, The states also have been of the Arizona Department of Friday that they are on track to will pass federal muster.

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