The Boston Herald reported that Scalia had made an obscene gesture. Scalia responded with a scathing letter to the editor, accusing the newspaper staff of watching too many episodes of The Sopranos. He said the gesture wasn't obscene, but dismissive.
Monument Valley has been eroding for the last 50 million years. Once this area was a flat plateau of sandstone layered with shale. As the Colorado Plateau rose, vertical faults were formed and the plateaus slide upwards from each other. The faulting exposed the lower levels of shale to erosion.
The Mojave Desert ischaracterized by short, mild winters and long, hotsummers. Death Valley is an elongated fault-boundedbasin formed as the valley floor drops relative to thesurrounding mountains. The part of the valley belowsea level is approximately 120 km (75 mi) long andbetween 8 and 18 km wide (5 and 11 mi).