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The first time the United States tried to kill Osama bin Laden was in the summer of 1998, in Khost, Afghanistan. A dusty, mountainous region in the southeast of the country, Khost was a hospitable place for radicals; the Taliban controlled the area, and Pakistan, which frequently supported Islamists, was just across the border. Bin Laden had recently built a training camp there, and invited terrorists from around the Muslim world—Pakistan, Kashmir, Chechnya, Saudi Arabia—to learn how to conduct jihad. The camp, which he called the Lion's Den, was situated in a place of some personal significance. During the anti-Soviet jihad, in the nineteen-eighties, bin Laden had participated in a legendary battle there between the mujahideen and the Soviets. The experience, he felt, had transformed him from the politically inclined heir to a construction fortune into a warrior.
In May, 1998, bin Laden summoned journalists to a press conference near his base, at which he discussed "bringing the war home to America" and expressed the hope that "by God's grace, the men . . . are going to have a successful result in killing Americans and getting rid of them." On August 7th, suicide bombers trained at his camps attacked the U.S. Embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, killing two hundred and twenty-four people, including twelve Americans.
Two weeks later, the Clinton Administration struck back, attacking a factory in Sudan that was thought to be an Al Qaeda chemical-weapons plant. The same day, it fired seventy-five Tomahawk missiles from warships in the Arabian Sea at the base in Khost. According to the C.I.A., bin Laden was scheduled to be at the base that day, presiding over a summit meeting. Some twenty terrorists were killed, but bin Laden escaped; he had reportedly left hours earlier, alerted by a former chief of Pakistan's intelligence service, the I.S.I.
George Tenet, the director of the C.I.A., put a five-million-dollar bounty on bin Laden's head, and, three years later, after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan, in pursuit of bin Laden and his deputies. Whether or not the ensuing war has been intended principally, as President Obama says, to "disrupt, dismantle, and defeat" Al Qaeda, it has certainly been intended to prevent places like Khost from harboring terrorists.
In ten years, some things have changed in the region. As the American military has adopted the counter-insurgency principles advocated by General David Petraeus, the soon to be replaced commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, it has come to believe that it is essential to enlist Afghans as our allies. Accordingly, the Army's main fighting unit in the area—War Squadron, four hundred men spread out over four bases—works side by side with Afghan soldiers and strives to engage local leaders. But, after more than fourteen hundred American lives lost and countless billions of dollars spent in Afghanistan, the southeast remains in many ways unchanged from the place that housed the Lion's Den: an area of tribal intrigue, anti-American sentiment, and quickly shifting loyalties.
A few months ago, a group of visitors from War Squadron held a meeting with Pacha Khan Zadran, a leader of the influential Zadran tribe, to ask for his help in fighting the Taliban. Zadran, who is in his late sixties, is an extraordinary-looking man, with a face like something devised by a Claymation animator. At the meeting, he wore a black turban topped with a flamboyant cloth fan and trailing a yard-long train. He has a horizontal stripe of eyebrows dyed jet black, a great proboscis, a handlebar mustache, and bassetlike jowls. His ears are massive, resembling dried apricots loosely attached to the sides of his head.
A young American soldier assessed the warlord's appearance with raised eyebrows. As he shook his hand, he grinned and said, "Wassup, pimpin'?" Zadran looked quizzical and didn't seem to understand. The commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Lutsky, cuffed the soldier's shoulder and pushed forward to introduce himself and his entourage. Zadran waved his guests to sit down on sofas, which ringed a meeting room in his local headquarters, in a mountain pass between the strategic cities of Khost and Gardez. Outside, a large billboard displayed Zadran's picture.
The meeting was conducted through an interpreter, a muscular young Afghan whom the Americans called Arnold, after Arnold Schwarzenegger. Lutsky, a small, wiry man of forty with a boyish face and a New Jersey accent, leaned toward Pacha Khan and told him that he had been looking forward to their meeting. Lutsky arrived in Khost province in January, 2010, taking command of a volatile wedge of territory along the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier that included Zadran's traditional turf. He was meeting Zadran to try to persuade him to assemble a paramilitary security force.
The force would be part of the Afghan Local Police Initiative, a U.S. and NATO program that supplies weapons and rudimentary training to as many as twenty thousand Afghan villagers, in the hope that young men employed by the government won't be tempted to work for the Taliban. The program is a key element in the counter-insurgency doctrine, and, for the Obama Administration, these local units are crucial. The United States has announced that it will begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in July and will complete the process by 2014; President Hamid Karzai said recently that the Afghans will assume control of seven of the country's thirty-four provinces this summer. But the Afghan National Army and the police are widely seen as ineffective and corrupt. If there is to be an orderly "transition" to Afghan control of the battlefield, the U.S. needs better allies in the area.
The problem is that Khost borders the Pakistani province of North Waziristan, a lawless place that serves as a sanctuary for jihadis. After the fall of bin Laden's base at Tora Bora, his fighters retreated to hiding places inside Pakistan. To all intents and purposes, North Waziristan remains their headquarters. It is also the home base for Jalaluddin Haqqani, an Afghan jihadi leader whose group of Pashtun fighters is a linchpin in the alliance among Afghanistan's Islamists, Al Qaeda, and, despite its denials, Pakistan's intelligence service. It was Haqqani who, after Tora Bora, hosted bin Laden in his Pakistani refuge.
Although the U.S. has thousands of troops in the area, the Haqqanis operate across the border with impunity, taking advantage of their tribal connections and knowledge of the local smuggling routes to carry out audacious strikes. In recent years, with the aid of the I.S.I., the Haqqanis have become increasingly active, fostering spectacular suicide commando attacks in Kabul, Khost, and elsewhere. The most recent of these, a suicide car bomb that exploded in a Khost marketplace in February, killed eleven Afghans.
Lutsky was interested in Zadran partly because his tribe had long been rivals of the Haqqanis. During the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, the Haqqanis allied themselves with Al Qaeda, while Zadran's men fought alongside the Americans. "We need a leader of the Zadran tribe to unite the subtribes and defeat the insurgency," he told Zadran. "And when I think of the person who can do this I think of you."
Zadran smiled and made an offer: "If you pressure Karzai to name me as the head of these three provinces"—the contiguous, tribally linked provinces of Khost, Paktika, and Paktiya—"I promise you no more problems in them." Zadran, in a long career in Afghan politics, has not made a virtue of constancy. He fought against the Soviets in the eighties, before joining the U.S.-backed campaign against the Taliban, in 2001. After the ouster of the Taliban, he was named governor of Paktiya province, but locals protested his appointment. Karzai removed him from the post, and, soon afterward, Zadran shelled the cities of Gardez and Khost. For a time, Zadran resorted to banditry, with his fighters extorting money from motorists on the road that passes his headquarters. Nonetheless, he was allowed to participate in the 2005 parliamentary elections, and he won a seat. In the most recent elections, he was voted out, a result that he claimed was due to fraud.
Lutsky alluded tactfully to Zadran's electoral problems. "Even if it were to turn out that, for whatever reason, you were no longer a member of parliament, we know that you would still be the leader of the important Zadran tribe," he said. "And we look to you in that role."
Zadran said that he was ready to help Lutsky, but complained that the Americans had not always acted upon the information he had given them, allowing enemy suspects to escape. (The opposite was also true. In 2002, more than sixty Afghan tribal elders were killed by U.S. warplanes after being misidentified as members of Al Qaeda. The U.S. military apologized for the incident, calling it a tragic case of "mistaken identity," but there were reports that Zadran had relayed false information in order to eliminate rivals.) Lutsky countered politely that he had been acting decisively since he arrived in Khost. "I know the government's weak," he said. "I want to work more through the tribes, because they are strong."
Zadran offered to organize a tribal militia, an arbakai. Or, he said, he could pick twenty men to work with the Americans as a special liaison force. Such a group would need arms, vehicles, and communications equipment, as well as American financing. Which would he prefer? Lutsky hedged, saying that if Zadran could organize a local police force, under his own leadership, it would be "very helpful." In the meantime, if Zadran's men could lead the Americans to Taliban weapons caches, he was authorized to pay out reward money.
Ignoring this, Zadran said, "When my men have intelligence, you will pick them up in Black Hawks, and they will lead you to where the enemies are, and you will drop bombs on them."
"We should work on both initiatives," Lutsky said, and then changed the subject. He had heard that Zadran was building a house in the city of Khost, and he asked when it would be finished. Zadran said, "When you guys give me enough money to finish it," and they both laughed.
The two men exchanged cell-phone numbers, and Lutsky and his men climbed into their armored vehicles and drove off. He was pleased. The meeting had allowed him to check off a couple of important boxes on the score sheet of counter-insurgency doctrine: a "key leader engagement" that offered an opportunity to secure greater control of a "key terrain area." As an American counter-insurgency adviser explained it, "What we're doing here is a very big hand wave. The idea is to work as best we can to create little bubbles of civilization and see where it gets us, see if we can't connect them up." The adviser stressed that, in and around Khost, "partnering with Afghans is a key element of what we're doing."
In 2009, there were only about five hundred "partnered" operations; last year, there were more than ten thousand. Still, tense relationships are common among the coalition partners. Last year, the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, reportedly characterized Hamid Karzai as erratic and clinically bipolar. Worse, in April, an Afghan military pilot killed eight American soldiers and a civilian contractor at Kabul airport; it was the eighth such attack this year. Situations like these underscore the quandary that confronts the United States and its partners in Afghanistan. The Taliban are canny and ruthless, and they share cultural and religious links with the civilians living on the battlefield. How can the U.S. find reliable local proxies to train and arm and share intelligence with? Who, ultimately, can take over Afghanistan's security?
Lutsky's area of operations—his "A.O.," in military parlance—feels like a place at the edge of the known world. His base, Forward Operating Base Clark, sits on a flatland about twelve miles from Khost. On the far side of the city is Camp Salerno, NATO's regional military headquarters, and F.O.B. Chapman, an adjacent C.I.A. base. Set behind dreary defensive fortifications punctuated by high-tech communications masts, the bases seem like mirages on the Afghan plain. In daytime, the skies flash with metallic light as helicopters come and go, and F-15 jets roar past. At night, the only noise is the barking of dogs.
The small city of Khost is situated in a mountain valley crisscrossed by dry riverbeds and bullock-tilled fields. The mountains rising eastward to the Pakistan border glisten with minerals. To the west, a road leads up a deep canyon and over the mountains to Gardez, passing through a smattering of hamlets carved out of mud and stone. Except for the occasional shepherd, few people are visible. The road is periodically clogged by convoys of gaudily painted "jingle trucks," cargo wagons festooned with dangling metal ornaments that clank tinnily as they move. The rest of the traffic is nearly all military.
The center of Khost is a welter of traders' streets, arrayed around the governor's mansion and the police headquarters. The town is crowded with people, motorbikes, and brightly decorated shops, but it retains a conservative provincial air. Unlike Kabul, where there has been a construction boom in recent years, only the outskirts show evidence of new wealth: a handful of colorfully painted villas with ornate wrought-iron balconies.
Khost has a long tradition of resistance to political and social change. In 1924, the local Pashtuns rose up against King Amanullah, a modernizer who sought to emancipate Afghan women. During the Soviet war, the mujahideen besieged the Russians and, for a time, surrounded their airfield on the edge of town—today's Camp Salerno. In the spring of 1991, after the Russians had withdrawn, Jalaluddin Haqqani seized the city; it was among the first to fall to the mujahideen.
In part because of the Haqqanis' persistent influence, Khost province remains one of the most dangerous places in Afghanistan. A recent study showed that, of the four hundred and ninety-seven U.S. casualties suffered in Afghanistan last year, four hundred and eight occurred in the provinces that border Pakistan. Mike Boettcher, a veteran network news correspondent, who is also a terrorism expert at the University of Oklahoma, told me, "In the context of what's going on in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Khost is the centerpiece. It's right up against North Waziristan, which is the one place the Pakistani Army won't go."
On December 30, 2009, a Jordanian suicide bomber posing as a defector blew himself up at F.O.B. Chapman, killing seven American C.I.A. agents, in one of the most lethal attacks ever carried out against the agency. Nonetheless, the C.I.A. station continues to provide much of the raw intelligence for the U.S. Army's field operations in the area. When American military officers allude to their C.I.A. colleagues, they refer to them as "O.G.A.," meaning "other government agencies," and it is clear that their work in the area is of primary importance. While the U.S. Army often points to its efforts to engage with civilians and train the Afghan Army, the C.I.A. and the Special Forces have been carrying out violent covert operations, like the spectacular killing of Osama bin Laden. Boettcher said that North Waziristan, just next to Khost, is where "the secret war is going on at its fiercest—over eighty per cent of the drone attacks are there." C.I.A. drones with laser-guided missiles regularly target Al Qaeda, Taliban, and Haqqani suspects. In September, 2008, a strike against the Haqqanis killed at least twenty-three people, reportedly including one of Jalaluddin Haqqani's wives and ten other relatives. The C.I.A. also operates an Afghan paramilitary force of three thousand fighters out of secret bases along the border with Pakistan, several of which are in Khost. All of this has created an atmosphere of suspicion that makes collaboration, of the sort that Lutsky is supposed to encourage, very difficult to achieve.
Stephen Lutsky was born in Clinton, New Jersey, where his father worked as a municipal engineer and his mother as a secretary. Clinton, in the central part of the state, has remained rural, because, Lutsky says, "it doesn't have an off-ramp." He enlisted in 1987, straight out of high school, and then "went green to gold," meaning that he went to college in order to receive an officer's commission. He attended Valley Forge and Lock Haven, both in Pennsylvania, and earned a biochemistry degree in 1992. Lutsky was assigned to Fort Hood, Texas, and then served in Bosnia, Albania, and Kosovo. He and his wife, Denise, whom he married in 1995, have a ten-year-old son and an eight-year-old daughter at home, in Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
Since 2003, Lutsky has had three deployments in Iraq; Khost was his first in Afghanistan. In all of them, he has developed a reputation for seeking out combat. In Iraq, he said, a rocket-propelled grenade hit his Humvee, and he was peppered with shrapnel, some of which is still inside his body. He'd had a dental X-ray recently and what looked like a cavity in one of his molars was revealed to be a metal fragment in his jaw. In Afghanistan, he has the distinction of being one of the few American officers to survive a suicide bombing—two of them, in fact. The right side of his face is scarred with red welts, from his cheek to his eyebrow.
The first bombing was on March 8, 2010, three weeks after Lutsky took charge of F.O.B. Clark. That morning, he told me, he was reviewing operations and intelligence at his Tactical Operations Command, or T.O.C., a large room in a prefab warehouse on the base. Lutsky shared command of the area with his Afghan National Army counterpart, General Mohammed Asrar Adqas, but their respective groups of soldiers didn't mingle much. At Clark, the Americans live alongside about a thousand Afghan soldiers, in separate but adjoining compounds; the Afghans are trained by a special team of U.S. military instructors. At the T.O.C., the two groups of officers meet each morning for a briefing and planning session. The meetings are conducted through interpreters like Arnold, because few of the Afghans speak English and almost none of the Americans speak either of Afghanistan's two main languages, Pashto and Dari. While the Americans peer at laptop computers connected to their field units, the Afghans communicate orders through bulky field radios that they lug with them.
Lutsky and Asrar were at a morning briefing when the news came that a group of suicide bombers had entered Khost and were being pursued by the police. One bomber had detonated himself; the A.N.A. had killed another; and the police had two more trapped inside a building. "General Asrar said he needed to be there to see what was going on," Lutsky told me. "I said, 'I'm going, too—I'm your partner.' "
When they arrived, one of the bombers had climbed to the roof, and the situation had become a standoff. "To end the thing, me and four or five of my guys had to kill the guy on the roof with grenades," Lutsky said. They fired into the building three times, using a grenade launcher, and when they entered they found the remaining bomber wounded but still alive, sitting propped up against a wall. "He had a detonation cord on him, and I saw his hands move," Lutsky said. He shot the bomber in the head, and one of his N.C.O.s shot him in the chest. "That's when he exploded."
Lutsky was about fifteen feet away. "My right arm was numb, but I thought I was fine, that I had just been hit by debris," he said. Later, doctors at the base found six ball bearings in his neck, his right arm, and his right leg; others had been deflected by his sunglasses and flak vest. The doctors dug out four of the ball bearings but left one in his arm and another in his leg, because they were too deeply embedded. Lutsky rolled up his sleeve and pointed to a spot on his forearm. "You can feel it," he said. I pinched the flesh and felt a hard round shape. Lutsky smiled. "I can get it to come to the surface with a magnet."
The suicide bombers had been sent from Pakistan by the Haqqanis, apparently to attack the Afghan government's administrative complex in Khost. Lutsky was wounded only because he had put himself in the action. But, a few months later, on October 10th, he was the object of what seemed to be a more targeted attack: a suicide bomber blew up a vehicle as his convoy drove past.
Lutsky thinks that General Asrar may have known about the bombing. In the preceding weeks, relations between the two men had grown tense. "Initially, we thought Asrar was a really good commander. We'd been working together for nine months." Then, at election time, in September, "something happened," he said. "There was a rumor that Asrar was going to be replaced. He wouldn't interact with us anymore, and wouldn't leave his office."
A few days before the bombing, Asrar confiscated a truck loaded with acid. "We thought it was going to be used for making H.M.E."—homemade explosives—Lutsky said. "We found out later it was for cutting opium. He had plans to sell it. He also had some detainees he was planning to release—he was planning on getting paid to release them."
Without revealing his suspicions, Lutsky seized the truck, and, working with Asrar's deputy, with whom he had built an alliance, he devised a way to keep the detainees in custody. "In the morning update at the T.O.C., Asrar said, 'We have got to release these detainees—we can't hold them this long.' " His deputy suggested that they be handed over to the provincial police chief. Lutsky, on cue, offered to transport them to the office. "I said, 'I can take them there, because I've got to take the acid there, too. We can do that in the afternoon at fourteen hundred.' "
Asrar was obligated to come along, Lutsky told me: "We are partners, and we're supposed to do everything together." But that afternoon Asrar was nowhere to be found. A little after two, Lutsky's convoy left the base and turned onto the road the soldiers called Virginia, leading to Camp Salerno. After a few kilometres, a car pulled over to let the convoy by, "like every car does," Lutsky said. "Our A.N.A. escort passed, the acid truck passed, my vehicle passed. And then that's when it blew up." The bomber triggered a six-hundred-pound bomb, creating a thunderous explosion. "Fortunately, he pulled the button either too late or too early. So we had damaged vehicles, but it didn't hurt any of us."
Lutsky jumped out of his vehicle and heard a woman screaming, "My son is dead." Three boys were injured, one of them ten years old, one fourteen, and one a six-month-old infant. Lutsky says he ran to the ten-year-old. "We grabbed him, and that's when the blood started spraying. Femoral artery. Chunk of the vehicle took a huge piece right out of his thigh." While Lutsky was tending to the boy, he said, he looked up and saw Asrar standing over him. No one else from the base had yet arrived. "It was just very strange that General Asrar was the first guy on the scene. He was there quick." Shaking his head, Lutsky said, "I suspect that he knew something was going to happen."
Asrar denies any wrongdoing. "If the Americans prove that I had any relationship with the opposition forces, then I am ready to be court-martialled," he said. "I served in Khost for four years and nobody ever filed a single complaint against me." A spokesman for the Ministry of Defense later said there was no evidence that Asrar had collaborated with the enemy. But Lutsky maintains that Afghan soldiers and local officials privately accused Asrar of corruption. "There will always be some level of corruption in this country, but we refuse to accept corruption that affects the morale, training, and effectiveness of the A.N.A. soldier, and any corruption that will affect the coalition," Lutsky said. "If he wants to have illegal checkpoints and extort money, O.K. If he wants to sell off some gas, O.K. If he wants to give his soldiers second-rate food and sell what he's getting for them from us, well, we can work with that. But if he wants to tell the enemy when we are going to conduct an operation, then we just won't tell him."
Asrar vanished the day before I arrived at Lutsky's base, and the rumor among the Afghan soldiers was that he had left for Kabul. Lutsky told me that Asrar's deputy had written to the defense minister and asked for the General to be removed. There had been no official response, so Lutsky didn't know what Asrar's absence meant, but, he said, "I sure hope it means he's gone."
Lutsky drove into Khost to see the police chief, General Abdul Hakim Ishaqzai, with whom he was friendly, to ask about his missing partner. We travelled, as Lutsky did whenever he left the base, in a convoy of three MRAPs—mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles. Oncoming cars pulled off the road as we approached, and when they didn't our gunners cursed and aimed their machine guns at them. As we drove into Khost, the Pashtun men on the streets either ignored our convoy or noted it with neutral or hostile expressions.
Hakim was a thin, bearded man wearing a dark-blue uniform covered with medals. He received Lutsky graciously in his office, a large room with heavy drapes and an old-fashioned wood bureau set with surveillance monitors. After the two men exchanged formal pleasantries, Lutsky said that he had a problem and would be grateful for the Hakim's advice. A day or two earlier, his troops had come upon a group of men, wearing civilian clothes and armed with AK-47s, who were detaining other men, presumably to extort money. The robbers had turned out to be A.N.A. soldiers, one of them an active-duty major. Lutsky explained that he had turned them over to the A.N.A., but he wondered what he should do to follow up. Hakim said, "Unfortunately, such abuses are occurring throughout the security forces. This won't change overnight, but it is up to the commanders to make sure their forces are clean."
Lutsky asked if he ought to raise the matter with Asrar when he returned to Khost. Hakim gave an irritated look and said, "I've known General Asrar ever since I was a child. We went to school together. But here in Khost it has hurt my heart to see that he doesn't have the whole province in mind, only his own interests."
It wasn't just Asrar that Lutsky was concerned about. He had recently urged that two police officers whom he suspected of working with the Taliban be fired; he later learned that they were back at their jobs. Studying Hakim's face, he said, "I was surprised to see they had letters from you authorizing them to have their arms returned to them."
Hakim nodded and said, "I was pressured by the Ministry of the Interior to do this. Believe me, if there was no pressure I would disarm these people. They will not help build this country."
One morning, Lutsky mustered a team of his men for an operation in Shembowat, a village a few miles from Clark. Intelligence had come in that insurgents had stayed in the village overnight and cached explosives in a latrine there. Lutsky asked an A.N.A. unit to accompany him, but the unit, led by a moonfaced young captain, arrived forty minutes late. Lutsky's men spoke contemptuously of the Afghan soldiers, calling them lazy and unreliable.
Outside the village, we made our way through stubbly fields to a group of walled farmhouses. The Afghan soldiers fanned out to provide security; some of them were local men, who wore black face masks to protect their identity. A few farmers eyed us blankly; a man working the ground with a wooden hoe carried on as if we weren't there. A man and a woman were making fuel patties out of dung and straw, slapping them onto a dirt wall to dry in the sun.
With Arnold translating, Lutsky told the A.N.A. captain to explain to the villagers that he and his men needed to search their houses. The officer looked distinctly uncomfortable, and he hung back, scowling, as Lutsky led his team in the searches. For the next four hours, they went from compound to compound, and the Afghan soldiers trailed along. Women appeared in doorways to shout at the Americans. To show respect for the villagers, Lutsky told the Afghans to conduct the house searches while the Americans went through the compounds' walled yards, picking their way amid tethered cows and rudimentary outdoor kitchens.
In one compound, Lutsky found a suspicious recess in the base of a haystack, and he wondered aloud if that was where the explosives were. There was nothing there, but Lutsky was still suspicious, and he asked one of his men, a lanky red-haired sergeant named Rhyss Heeter, to climb down into the family's sewage pit to investigate. Heeter sighed and began descending, inching his way down the rounded sides of the pit until he vanished. As Lutsky waited, the A.N.A. captain chatted amiably with the owner of the house, a bearded man in his thirties who smiled throughout the search. Heeter eventually climbed back out, his pants and boots smeared with excrement; he had found nothing.
A few minutes later, on a pathway outside the compound, one of Lutsky's men found a small adobe structure and opened its wooden door. He gave a shout. The explosives were inside, attached by wires to a cell phone. Lutsky barked at everyone to step back as the bomb-disposal team was summoned. After a few minutes, a small, wheeled robot was sent in to disengage the phone from the explosives. As everyone took cover, the explosives were blown up in a sudden blast of noise and dust. We left the village as we had come, followed by the blank stares of the locals.
Back at the base, I asked Lutsky, "Who is your real enemy here?"
"You mean what is keeping us from being successful?" he responded. "I'd say it's somewhere between apathy and misunderstanding. To us, the solution seems very simple: all the villages and the people and the subtribes have to do is join together and agree, 'We're just going to say no to the Taliban.' If they did that, the Taliban wouldn't be able to survive. But, unfortunately, because this war has gone on so long, people are tired. They just want to be able to have an honest job, have food on the table, let their kids go to school, and be able to go to sleep at night without their house blowing up. . . . They're in survival mode. My guess is that if the Taliban come to their door and ask, 'Will you let me sleep here tonight?,' they're probably going to say, 'O.K.,' and not say anything to us about it, because, if they do, they're afraid the Taliban will kill them." When I asked about the moonfaced Afghan Army captain, he shrugged unhappily but said nothing.
Twenty-five of Lutsky's soldiers lived at an isolated base called Combat Outpost Spera, situated high in the mountains, just a few hundred yards from the border with North Waziristan. Spera was subject to constant Taliban mortar fire, and though the men were rotated out every three months, Lutsky was often concerned for their safety. One of the men at F.O.B. Clark described Spera as "a bullet sponge," maintained purely as a marker of the American presence on the front line.
The American counter-insurgency adviser told me that Spera would likely be shut down, because it didn't conform to the new U.S. counter-insurgency strategy for Afghanistan. For a start, he pointed out, Spera wasn't anywhere near a "district development center," the Army's label for a populated hub. "We're looking at our presence in places where there aren't many people and asking, 'What are we doing there?' Spera is one of those. It's on an insurgent ratline, yes, but the truth is that the insurgents can go around it."
Lutsky took me on a three-day visit to Spera, which was accessible only by helicopter. The camp, surrounded by pine-covered granite ridges, was a mess of jury-rigged wooden bunkers and sandbag-lined dugouts for mortars. There were machine-gun towers and observation platforms, a hut that served as a gym, and a deck where the men lounged and smoked cigarettes. Camouflage netting hung overhead. The soldiers' life revolved around the T.O.C., where they gathered to watch TV and check their e-mail. It operated out of one room of a rustic structure that resembled a hunting cabin, with plank floors and a rough brick fireplace. Three times a day, American-style meals were served by a big man called Cookie. In the evenings, some of the men played Risk or cards. Others fed ammo boxes into the fire to keep warm.
The soldiers pointed toward the ridgeline northeast of Spera, saying that just over the border there was a Pakistani military outpost. Every evening, the young officer in charge of Spera, First Lieutenant Paul Corcoran, spoke for a few minutes with his Pakistani counterpart over a field radio. There was a stilted quality to their exchanges; the Americans suspected the Pakistanis of being complicit with the insurgents who regularly attacked them.
Near the entrance to the base was a room occupied by ten Afghans, including the commander of the A.N.A. contingent. Other Afghan soldiers lived below the base, in an old qalat, or family compound, next to the airstrip and the crumpled remains of a white Russian helicopter. The Afghans were rarely seen outside their qalat, and the ten who shared Spera with the Americans were apparently there only because regulations required it. They had their own cook fire outdoors, and seldom mixed with the other soldiers.
On the outside wall of the gym shack, someone had scrawled a scoreboard: "ANA 1, Hendrix 2, Cats 9." Staff Sergeant Shawn Buzzell explained that it had to do with "some problems" between the Afghans and an American soldier named Hendrix. When the Afghans arrived on the base, they brought a pet cat with them. "The cat took a shit on Hendrix's sleeping bag, sir, and, ever since, he's tried to kill it a lot," Buzzell said. "But the Afghans are pissed off at him, because they say cats are sacred." He joked, "I guess you could say Hendrix doesn't have a great deal of respect for the Afghan people, sir."
One morning, Lieutenant Corcoran, a blond twenty-four-year-old from North Attleborough, Massachusetts, set up a patrol into the surrounding hills. Before first light, fifteen Americans and as many Afghans left the base on foot and climbed to the summit of a large hill to the west. To provide air cover, a surveillance drone was sent overhead. The area looked down on a dry riverbed that extended toward Miran Shah, a Haqqani stronghold in North Waziristan. Insurgents periodically made their way into Khost by circumventing the Pakistani military base across the border.
Not long into the patrol, Corcoran ordered a group of A.N.A. soldiers ahead to a hilltop called Texas, which had a good view of an insurgent access route. For an hour, the American soldiers huddled in silence against the side of a rocky escarpment. Corcoran, speaking over a radio through his interpreter, asked for a report, but there was none. Finally, the interpreter admitted that the A.N.A. soldiers had decided not to go. An argument ensued, and at last some Afghan scouts set out toward the hill. Within minutes, word came back that they had spotted five "Taliban"—men in civilian clothing carrying weapons—on an adjacent hill. The Americans checked their weapons and gear excitedly, whispering to avoid giving away their location. Corcoran issued new orders of position, and the drone circled closer. After another half hour, we heard the crack of gunshots from across the hill. Over the radio, an interpreter told Corcoran that the advance party had fired on the "Taliban"; sadly, they had all escaped. Corcoran waited for the drone to spot the intruders, but it found no one. At mid-morning, he called off the mission. By then, some A.N.A. soldiers, tired of the mission, had already left for the base.
That evening, Corcoran stopped by the cook fire, where Spera's A.N.A. corps commander, a pleasant-faced young man named Mohammed Hamid Agar, sat warming his hands. Hamid had not gone on the morning patrol, but had sent one of his junior officers. Corcoran, despite his frustration, had accepted it as the Afghan way of doing things. But why, he asked, had Hamid's men, against his orders, fired at the "Taliban"? Hamid replied calmly that he had talked with his junior officer about it; the soldiers had fired at the men "because they saw them leaving, rather than heading toward the Americans, where they could be ambushed." Corcoran pointed out that the drone could have spotted them and, if the A.N.A. men had waited, the Americans could have set an ambush. Hamid was silent, and eventually Corcoran gave up.
After Corcoran left, I asked Hamid if the story about Hendrix and the cat was true. He nodded, frowning. He said that, after Hendrix's first attempt to kill the cat, some of the Afghan men had wanted to murder Hendrix, but he had prevented them. He had served in the Afghan Army for five years, he said, and in that time had discovered that Americans fit into two main categories: "There are those who respect our culture, and those who don't."
The Americans refer to the sixty-three miles of road that wind over the mountains between Khost and Gardez, linking the frontier lands along the Pakistani border with the road from Kabul to Kandahar, as the K-G Highway. Its highest point, the nine-thousand-foot K-G Pass, is vitally strategic, and it has become legendary as one of the bloodiest stretches of road in Afghanistan. In 1987, when the Soviet campaign against the mujahideen was in its eighth year, Mikhail Gorbachev ordered his generals to seize the pass. After a protracted standoff, in which hundreds of soldiers died, the Soviets took it. Within a month, they lost it again, to Haqqani's fighters. Three months later, they began withdrawing from Afghanistan.
For the past four years, the United States and its partners have been trying to rebuild the road. In May, 2007, two American construction firms, the Louis Berger Group and Black & Veatch, began a hundred-and-twenty-million-dollar repair project. But last summer, as laborers were subjected to near-daily attacks, the work at the pass had to be abandoned. The attacks were widely believed to have come from a Zadran tribesman named Gul Bad Shah, and, in October, L.B.G.'s subcontractors devised an ingenious, if cynical, solution to the problem: they hired Shah to provide security along the vulnerable section of the road. The attacks at the pass abruptly stopped.
Recently, though, work had faltered again, because of contract disputes with Shah. Lutsky, as the ranking U.S. military officer in the area, had an interest in seeing the road completed, and he made an appointment to meet Shah—another "key leader engagement"—but Shah did not show up. During my visit, Lutsky happened to encounter Shah outside Zadran's headquarters. Shah presented excuses for the missed appointment, but Lutsky made light of it, and asked him to come that evening to F.O.B. Wilderness, a base a few miles up the road.
Shah arrived at the outer gate just after nightfall. A big-faced, slow-eyed man with a salt-and-pepper beard, Shah wore a shalwar kameez and a pakul, the felt porkpie hat favored by the former anti-Soviet mujahideen. Lutsky and a young woman named Melissa Skorka—a social scientist who was studying the Haqqanis for the Department of Defense—met him in the camp's "Shura room," where Afghans were invited in for discussions with the Americans and their interpreters. It was a large, carpeted room with a few cushions on the floor, and it smelled strongly of feet. Though the room was meant to be a neutral space, Shah was at a distinct disadvantage. He was barefoot, having removed his sandals at the door. His cell phone and other belongings had been taken by soldiers outside. (This was a routine procedure at all bases, but I overheard a discreet discussion about Gul Bad Shah's "things," and was given the impression that during the meeting there would be a minute inspection of his phone. Lutsky suspected Shah of conspiring with senior Haqqani lieutenants, and he wanted to keep closer tabs on him.) An American soldier stood in front of him with a flesh-colored plastic device that looked like a Polaroid camera—a biometric scanner, which the Americans used to take the vital statistics of visitors, to be saved in a digital-identity bank.
As the talk with Shah proceeded, the soldier stepped forward with the scanner and held it over the Afghan's eyes, and then each of his fingers, obliging him to stand still, while Lutsky and Skorka asked him questions. After a minute or two at each position, the soldier would remove the apparatus and step back and register its results. Lutsky and Skorka, despite their repeated apologies about the inconvenience of the procedure, seemed quietly pleased with the situation. It allowed them to assess Shah while he was distracted.
"I've wanted to meet you ever since you won the contract," Lutsky told Shah. "The Louis Berger Group has kept me informed of the security situation, and of its changes, along the road." He mentioned that L.B.G. had raised some "discrepancies" in the number of security guards Shah had promised to provide. Shah glared. "They're lying to you," he said. The problem, he insisted, was that L.B.G. had given some Mangal—members of a rival tribe—a security contract along a portion of the road. Shah said that he had signed a contract for eight hundred men and had a hundred and fifty of them ready to go to work. "The Mangal have to be removed so that I can put my own men there," he said. "I told L.B.G. this, but they haven't done it yet."
Shah talked carelessly, as if trying to fill the silence, as the soldier fit his fingers into the machine. He said that Gulbuddin Hekmatyar—a former Afghan mujahideen leader who had allied himself with the Taliban—was trying to "disrupt" the road work, as were the Haqqanis.
Lutsky nodded, and said, "Yes, we're tracking everything. What we need to do is have a meeting—you, me, and the Louis Berger Group—to get this security contract resolved."
Shah replied, "Once it's paved, there will be no more problems, no more I.E.D.s." He added, "If the Louis Berger Group can't do the work, I can. I can bring diggers and excavators and five hundred men, and they will do the work! L.B.G. has spent years on this road, and they haven't paved it!"
Lutsky said, "That's why we're excited you're on it. With the Zadran tribe, we'll get it done."
Shah said, "The next time you come to the K-G Pass, I want to throw a party for you." He described his house, in a village next to a washed-out bridge, and said, "We'll have tea and corn bread." When the soldier finished the last finger, Lutsky stepped forward and thanked Shah. Looking a little uncertain, Shah put on his sandals and left the room.
Not long after my visit, General Asrar was transferred to Kabul; he left Khost, he said, because he wanted to be with his family. Lutsky finished his tour and returned to Kentucky. Before he departed, he oversaw the closing down of Spera. In a carefully orchestrated operation, the American soldiers were evacuated by helicopter, along with their Afghan partners. Before leaving, the Americans burned everything they could not take with them, so that nothing would be left for the insurgents, who would again have full control of the area.
Mike Boettcher, the terrorism expert, was skeptical about the pullback. He said, "Khost is the one place where we're going head to head with the new Al Qaeda"—the insurgents in North Waziristan. The greatest threat, he told me, came from Jalaluddin Haqqani's son and heir apparent, Siraj. In 2009, the U.S. offered a five-million-dollar reward for information leading to Siraj Haqqani's capture or execution, like the one offered for bin Laden in 1998. "Siraj is the poster boy for the new generation of Al Qaeda," Boettcher said. "The old generation—that's Jalaluddin—was basically about the regional war, but Siraj is a believer in the global jihad, which was bin Laden's contribution."
Despite the threat from Pakistan, the American soldiers' presence at Spera was principally symbolic. The outpost's small number of men couldn't do much to stop insurgents from moving across the border. Their attempts at forming allegiances had been frustrated; they had only token coöperation from their Pakistani counterparts on the other side of the mountain, and precious little from the Afghan soldiers they lived alongside.
In any case, it is not ground troops or A.N.A. soldiers who are proving most effective in fighting insurgents. As the killing of bin Laden showed, some of the most successful work in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, and against Al Qaeda is being done covertly, by the C.I.A., the Special Forces, and the Navy SEALs. Pacha Khan and others often told Lutsky that, to win the war, he should forget about everything else and go hit the enemy in Pakistan. Lutsky always answered, "That's way above my pay grade." He said this in a joking way, but he was right: there is a larger concern in Afghanistan that only political leaders can solve.
U.S. counter-insurgency doctrine places great emphasis on what used to be called "winning hearts and minds." But, after nearly ten years, it is unrealistic to expect that the Army can still win people over in Afghanistan. The coalition has huge numbers of troops there, armed and housed at vast expense. Many have acquitted themselves honorably, and in some areas they have succeeded in pushing back the Taliban. But the task of building a nation out of warring interests has for the most part proved overwhelming. It seems, regrettably, that whatever we can accomplish in Afghanistan will be achieved by force, not by making friends. Lutsky told me, "The cultural complexity of the environment is just so huge that it's hard for us to understand it. For Americans, it's black or white—it's either good guys or bad guys. For Afghans, it's not. There are good Taliban and bad Taliban, and some of them are willing to do deals with each other. It's just beyond us." ♦


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The World's Sexiest and Best Couples-Only Resort
Temptation, A Couples Resort In Los Cabos, Mexico
By Sue McGarvie
It's not just that we've had 17 feet of snow this winter in my part of Canada, that has me wishing I could emigrate to Mexico. I have fallen in love with the lifestyle, and culture of our southern neighbors.
The Mexico I experienced was absolute paradise. Los Cabos, Mexico, where I spent a week in March this year, is home to the most charming Latino waiters, almost perfect weather, the world's yummiest coconut ice cream, and now arguably the best couples resort in the world.
Move over Hedonism, the new Temptation Resorts has got serious game.
Guaranteed Sunshine
Los Cabos, Mexico, which bills itself as a place of guaranteed sunshine, (only six days of rain all of last year), is located on the tip of the Baja, where the sea of Cortez meets the Pacific Ocean.
It's a thousand miles of desert along Mexico's west coast. Los Cabos has come into its own due to a spectacular coastline and the advent of desalination, and all the fresh water out of the sea that has turned desolate scrub brush into an oasis.
This is where the wealthy Californians come to vacation. Typical real estate prices for a vacation property is over a million dollars US. And at the Tempations Resort, it is where the sexually adventurous come to explore the romantic and erotic side to their relationship.
Temptation Los Cabos is similar to Desire Cancun in many ways. An exclusive, couples-only, clothing optional, all-inclusive hotel, with a boutique resort feel, with a maximum capacity of 150 rooms.
Temptation comes with complete privacy and serious security. It's the honeymoon of decadence and sensuality that you may have always wanted.
Losing Your Inhibitions
I find that, as with any nude place, the minute you take your clothes off, your inhibitions go as well. That means fellow guests are open, and conversation and friendships start easily all over the resort.
However, unlike with a typical nude or clothing optional resort like the Caliente resorts where PDA's (public displays of affection) can get you kicked out, there are places where you can be overtly sexual with your (or possibly someone else's) partner.
It is more centrally located than in Cancun — in the zone tourista, as opposed to Cancun which is way, way off the beaten path.
This means there is no nudity on the more public beach — too bad, as the Desire Cancun beach beds are one of life's great pleasures.
It also means swimming in the ocean is out (the flags read 'FATAL' due to the undertow), but provided you wore a bathing suit, the beach was a delight to walk.
With no beach activities, it meant that everyone congregated in the rooftop hot tub, and heated, extra-large, central swimming pool.
Making Friends
This central congregation meant it was easier to meet everyone staying in the resort on a first-name basis. This also meant you had less of the "gilded cage" feel, as you could easily walk to shopping, restaurants and leave the resort if you needed a change of scenery.
So if you are social, and a perfect holiday is having everyone know your name and making friends, the West Coast Desire may be a better fit for you than the isolated, and spread out Cancun Desire.
Overall I thought the food was good. I hugged Antonio, my evening grill chef who made something he specially concocted just for me every night, and I loved the live music played outside between dinner and dance club opening outside on the mezzanine.
They've set the layout well so that sexual interaction happens only in the secluded hot tub area, or in the playroom in the dance club.
This means that if you choose not to watch the sex going on, you can completely avoid that section. Although — who's kidding who? — everyone is curious to see if their pool buddies are doing anything more interesting than they do.
So with sex only going on in very specific places, you can otherwise treat it like any other first class resort except that a good 60% of the guests are in various stages of undress.
This is the place where you can be nude (or not), overtly sexual with your partner (or not), and meet other couples for friendship or more. Or you can stay to yourself, and honeymoon in an erotic environment.
Ease and Elegance
As Sylvia the Guest Services manager said: "The experience at Temptation Los Cabos is strictly what you make of it."
So Temptations can be called sensuously discreet. It's there if you want it, but sex is done with ease and elegance.
I would say that only about 25% of the guests (in my humble estimation) were in the "swinging" or lifestyle play. Some people were direct in their approach that they were looking for an exchange, but most were just having their partner-only eroticism.
What surprised me was how many "first-timers" there were, who had never even been to a nude beach before. There was a large group of people who booked off Expedia looking for a vacancy, and although they seemed surprised at how sexually open the place was, very quickly dropped the laundry and joined in on the semi-clothed frolicking.
'When in Rome…' seemed to be the philosophy, and the comfortable atmosphere relaxed even the most prudish.
I watched a Catholic, first-grade teacher go from cover-ups to commando, to sex in public with her husband over a three day period.
Silicone and Botox
Temptation has a minimum age of 25 posted on their website, and the age ranged from mid- to late-20s, with the bulk of the guests between 30 and 50. Certainly, a 60-year-old-plus couple wouldn't be out of place, but most of the bodies were better than average, and a majority had been enhanced.
The crowd was affluent, well preserved, and well groomed, with more than their share of silicone and botox.
The Los Cabos is less crowded than the always-booked Cancun location (114 rooms), but my guess is that it will be as equally difficult to get a room over the next year as word gets out.
During the high point of the regular travel season (March break, where every other resort was fully booked), Desire Los Cabos was at only 35% capacity.
This isn't a place you bring your kids, and around family holidays, the Desire resorts are slower. Times that are typically not "family holiday time", you'll find the parents have pawned off the kids and are engaging in the sensuous adult play that a trip to Desire offers.
As an example, May, a warm month up north, is 100% booked at Temptation Los Cabos, when there are vacancies everywhere else.
Packing Tips
A couple of things you may want to take note of when packing for Temptation: With guaranteed sunshine, and predominate nudity, we went through far fewer clothes than anticipated.
Although daytime clothing needs can be put into a toiletry bag, most women dressed elegantly for cocktails, dinner and after dinner drinks, and for the disco party, every night is theme night. So my suggestion is bring a big suitcase full of erotic costumes to be creatively silly.
It is hot and sexually charged at the disco. Themes included rodeo-cowboy, naughty schoolyard, pink, red, and black and white nights, jungle, along with emergency (fireman, nurse).
Cancun had similar but different themes, and it was an adult dress-up, with a smile.
You should also know that Temptation has a camera-verboten policy, so you won't end up in someone else's pictures naked. However, you may need to plan a day trip if you need pictures to take back to the kids because you can't otherwise take photos.
Gracious and Accommodating
Despite what a good job Temptation is doing running its resort, it wasn't perfect. The highlight was the staff and service. I can honestly say that I've never met a more gracious, more accommodating staff anywhere in the world. They learned your names from the get go and made a point to make everyone feel special.
The food, however, was a bit inconsistent at times. We had the best steak we've ever eaten on holidays, as well as the worst steak, only a day apart.
I thought there could have been a more rounded-out room service menu, and the pool lunch food was repetitive as the only option to eat. They had great bartenders, however.'
I very surprised as a therapist, there were no condoms in the playroom and hot tub areas. You would think they would be provided, if only for strictly liability reasons. I also wished that the disco would open earlier for those of us who turn into a pumpkin after midnight.
A Thirst for Information
Most significantly, I also felt that there was a real thirst for information on what is the erotic lifestyle, and there was a need for clear, non-judgmental facts about what full swing, lifestyle play, group massage, bisexual swap meant to the new attendees.
Having tourist books in each room was helpful, but those weren't the questions it took five margaritas and a week of beating around the bush to ask.
Everyone, it seemed, was looking for information on "How do you spice up your relationship with group play without messing up what you have?" or just "How do you keep it hot after years together?"
Temptation seems to be marketing to the large middle group that one guest described as "empty nesters gone wild," who are curious and open, but very tentative in trying out any kind of extra marital play. Not the serious swingers who are open to anything and everything, but more than the romance marketed by conventional couples resorts.
With a few minor changes — better training of their activity staff, more ice breakers, and delicately written information packages — the Desire resorts will be the premiere location for sensuous couples worldwide.
Book your holiday soon, because as they make the final adjustments, they will continue to be sold out year round.
For more information visit
Temptation Resort and Spa Los Cabos
Sue McGarvie is a clinical sex therapist and syndicated talk show host who writes, "If I hear from another increase-your-desire book that advocates date nights and lighting candles, I'm going to run screaming into the night." She has reviewed couples resorts in South Africa, Cancun, Los Cabos, and St. Marten's and she is working on a book (as yet untitled) about "hitting your 50th wedding anniversary still chasing each other around the house." Visit her website, SexWithSue.com.
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subset: commoncrawl


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Orchestration Flute (doubling piccolo), Oboe, 2 Clarinets in Bb, Bassoon2 Horns in F (alternatively 2 Horns / Saxophones in Eb), 2 Trumpets in Bb, 2 Trombones, Timpani,Percussion (Side drum, Bass drum, Cymbals, Triangle [2 players])Strings (Violin 1,2, Viola or Violin 3, Cello/Bass)The famous Can-Can is well-known even away from Offenbach's operetta "Orpheus in the Underworld". In this arrangement there is a Violin 3 part as an alternative to Viola and an alternative Eb part for horns which can be used for alto saxes. Although two trombones are listed the part is actually "a 2" throughout so you could get away with only one, though you would then lose the unmistakable sound of trombones playing loudly in unison which adds to the subtle flavour of this piece!Duration: 3½ minutesA PACK comprises an A4 sized full score plus a complete set of parts including strings 4/4/3/4/2.
Click the play button below to hear a performance which has been computer-generated from the score.
24 Christmas Carols Set 2 Oboe
by David Good
Takin'Names & Where Shall I Be?
by Bryan Davies
Psalm 23
by Paul Carr


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Antique Hair Mourning Pendant/Earrings.
I am Not Sure what this Original Intend was…Could be Pendant or Earrings ? You decide! They are Very Nice Pieces. Not Tested so I am listing as Pinchbeck.
NOTE: An alloy of copper and zinc (in a ratio of about 83% to 17%) used to imitate gold, although it is much lighter and eventually tarnishes; named for its inventor, English watchmaker Christopher Pinchbeck, ca. 1720, who employed it first for watches and watch chains, then expanded into articles of jewelry, buckles and various objects. While the original alloy quite convincingly copied the bright look of gold, Pinchbeck always distinguished pieces made of it from the real thing with a marking. However, less scrupulous rivals developed their own alloys, which they often tried to pass off as genuine gold. "Pinchbeck" began to acquire a secondary meaning as "cheap jewelry," or even "counterfeit." Still, it remained one of the best materials for costume jewelry until the mid-19th century, when it began to be supplanted by rolled gold, 9K gold and other gilding techniques or gold/metal alloys.
I am Warehouse Cleaning…Things that have been packed for Years…Everything is going to be Listed!
Every WorldRarities Treasure will Exceed Your Expectation and ALWAYS with Superior Customer Service!
WorldRarities Guarantees Everything to be as Described and Photographed.
WorldRarities is a Proud Platinum Member of the Ruby Lane Family Since 2002
The Time to Buy an Antique is When You Find it!
WorldRarities Will Make it Easy ANYTIME with a Two to Twelve LAYAWAY… Email or Call if you have questions…601 938-6633.
SIZE: 1 " Length x 3/8" W
CONDITION: Very Good Antique Condition with Minute Wear/Fraying. The pictures are an important part of the description; any questions please email or call 601 938-6633
PAYMENT is Expected with Each Purchase Order! Want a Layaway? Make a Purchase Order and say LAYAWAY and I will send you a PayPal for 10%. NOTE: PayPal Refund on Combined Shipping after Your Treasures are Wrapped. Questions? 601 938-6633.
Antique Hair Mourning Pendant/Earrings
9 other shoppers are interested in this item
since 2002


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Haneda Airport Tobu Hotel Levant Tokyo(Japanese:東武ホテルレバント東京)
Where to Buy Tickets / Where to Board
|Where to Buy Tickets
|Limousine bus ticket counter
Automatic ticket vending machine
|Where to Board
|Can I make a reservation?
|Bus Stop Name
|Tobu Hotel Levant Tokyo
|Where to Buy Tickets
|1F Front
|Can I make a reservation?
How to Board and Special Notices
All customers can be board from hotels but require seat reservation in advance.
Also, check in must be made 15 minutes prior to the bus departure. After this time, all reservation will be voided automatically. Seat reservation must be made at Limousine Bus Reservation Center before your travel date. Ask direct at hotel for the date of your travel.
Limousine Bus Reservation Center: (+81)-3-3665-7220
Monday to Friday 9:00-19:00(JST)
Saturday and Sunday 9:00-18:00(JST)
Checked in baggage is limited to two pieces per person. Please refer to


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Maes Madog Farmhouse
TRIPADVISOR Certificate of Excellence
Maes Madog Farm Cottages
website link
Welcome to Maes Madog Farm Cottages, the perfect place to be if you are looking for a break in Snowdonia, North Wales.
Maes Madog Cottages are four self catering cottages lovingly converted from 17th century farm buildings into traditional country cottages, with stone walls and oak beams; each cottage is individual and charismatic.
The cottages open onto spacious grounds with flower beds, tables and chairs, and BBQs, as well as ample parking.
Due to the fantastic location of these cottages, which are situated on our 50 acre farm set in miles of beautiful countryside.
You are surrounded by amazing scenery and fantastic views. Just open your door and you will see ancient oak trees with an abundance of wild birds.
Sit outside your cottage at night and look up to see more stars than you ever imagined existed.
Take a walk down to our stream and enjoy the beauty and tranquil setting, just sit and listen to the rippling water and the birds singing, relax and enjoy yourself.
All this and more, provide everything you need for a relaxing enjoyable holiday.
Bookings, arrival and departure days:
We are happy to accept bookings for less than a week.
You can arrive and depart on any day - we are not locked in to any particular day.
With such a big selection of places to visit, we understand that you may be asking "Why choose Maes Madog ?".
We are situated 1½ miles away from the beautiful Betws-y-Coed which has been popular since Victorian times with its three rivers all flowing and joining as one, as well as its amazing scenery and small shops and restaurants and a golf course ( we have golf clubs available for loan )
Set in Snowdonia National Park, you have so many things you could do including hill walking, bird watching, climbing, golf, pony tracking, watersports, fishing, train trips, mountain biking or you could just relax.
Mount Snowdon is only 10 miles away, Anglesey, Caernarfon and Llandudno are all within 20 miles.
There are many places to eat in Betws y Coed.
Surf Snowdonia and the zip wire in Bethesda are all in easy reach.
Ysgubor Cottage
Sleeps 6 adults. (2 doubles, 1 twin)
With slate floors, beams, stone walls and minstrel gallery, Ysgubor retains the traditional feel whilst providing comfortable accommodation for six people. It has one double bedroom and one twin bedroom, plus a separate toilet upstairs.
One double bedroom downstairs also a family bathroom comprising a bath with shower over, toilet and wash basin.
The cottage also has a dining area and homely sitting area with an LCD TV with Freeview as well as a DVD player and radio. The kitchen is fully equipped with a microwave, cooker and fridge. Downstairs is also fitted with wide doors allowing easy access for wheelchairs and pushchairs.
Slate floors Stone Walls Minstrel Gallery Downstairs Bathroom & WC Upstairs WC
Y Stabl Cottage
Sleeps 2 adults. (1 double)
With a double bedroom and shower room upstairs. Downstairs you have a kitchen and dining area plus a sitting area. This traditional cottage is an idyllic escape from the rest of the world. With its lovingly renovated, beamed ceilings, this charming little cottage is an ideal hideaway for couples or small families. Also comes with an LCD TV
Cots, high chairs and baby gates are available.
Cosy Cottage Separate Bathroom
Bonnyn Derw Cottage
Sleeps 2 adults. (1 double)
A twin to the above Y Stabl Cottage, this cosy cottage enjoys all the same features but comes with an en-suite bathroom. This too has been lovingly renovated and shares the beautiful beamed ceilings. As above, this charming cottage is ideal for small families or couples. Also comes with an LCD TV.
Cots, high chairs and baby gates are available.
Cosy Cottage Stone Wall En-suite Bathroom
Tan Dderwen Cottage
2 bedrooms 1 Twin and 1 Double
2 bathrooms
Sleeps 4 adults
Tan Dderwen is designed for 4 guests.
Having one double bedroom en suite shower room and one twin bedroom with a full size bathroom. It has pitched ceilings with beams. All rooms are on ground level, making it ideal for all ages.
Meeting all your needs, the cottage contains a dining kitchen area fully equipped with a full size cooker, fridge and microwave.
It also allows you to relax in the sitting area making use of the LCD television with Freeview, DVD player and radio. This cottage has been decorated in a contemporary style.
The cottage also has its own patio area containing barbecue and garden furniture.
Washing machine and tumble dryer are also on site with a small extra charge. Cot and high chair available.
On One Level High Ceilings
Maes Madog Farmhouse Statistics: 109 click throughs, 2573 views since start of 2019
Self Catering, Betws-y-Coed,
- 6 person cottage £150 per night
- 4 person cottage £130 per night
- 2 person cottage £80 per night
Grading and Awards
Self Catering
Contact Details
Check availability and book online
Maes Madog FarmhouseCapel Garmon Betws-y-Coed Conwy LL26 0RG United Kingdomphone: 01824710247 / 07887868422 fax:Our Website
News & Special Offers
We are very proud to announce that we have been awarded a,
TRIPADVISOR Certificate of Excellence Award.
We accept minimum stays of 2 nights with arrival any day.
Short breaks starting from only £160 per cottage for 2 nights
Treat yourself to a lovely break in beautiful Snowdonia.
We very happy to welcome new owners to Maes Madog. The new owners will be taking over in the Spring, they will then introduce themselves.
They already have plans to make Maes Madog even better, one of their plans is to connect each cottage to WiFi.
We will be very sad to go we have really enjoyed running the cottages and meeting people from all over the world. Thank you to all our repeat guests.
Hope you will continue to visit Maes Madog.
GET OUT and ABOUT.......
in NORTH WALES and SNOWDONIA !!
Nowhere else in Britain will you find
so many places to see and such diverse things
to do on your holiday:
The Snowdonia National Park
Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty
Extensive Mountains, Hills & Valleys
Forests, Woodlands & Moorland
Peat Bogs, Raised Bogs
Waterfalls, Icefalls, Rushing Rivers
Babbling brooks, Upland Lakes.
AND DONT FORGET THE FANTASTIC MOUNTAIN BIKE TRAILS, including THE MARIN TRAIL AND COED Y BRENIN to name just a few.
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The Washington Post consults experts who conclude that the Administration's announced policy toward North Korea of containment through multilateral efforts to exert economic pressure is doomed to failure. This is because 1) other countries, especially China, will not cooperate, and 2) in any event, North Korea is already desperately poor, but Kim Jong's hold on power shows no sign of weakening.
The article is interesting mostly for its account of North Korea's ever-declining economy. As to the futility of the policy of containment, I think the experts are probably right. It is interesting, however, that if you substitute the word "Russia" for "China," virtually the same article could have been written to demonstrate why multilateral efforts at containment, as pursued by the Clinton Administration and advocated by Colin Powell, would not work in Iraq. The experts consulted by the Post on North Korea offer no suggestion as to what would work; here as always, opposing whatever policy is pursued by the Bush Administration is deemed sufficient.
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Friday, April 2, 2010
Treasure Chest Thursday - Palermo Grammar School Graduation
This is the Graduation Program of my grandfather Ross Hannan. He was born and raised in Palermo, Waldo, Maine. The Palermo Grammar School held grades 1-8, and in 1918 my grandfather was finishing eighth grade. You can see him listed as the Valedictorian, giving his speech towards the end of the program. My mother tells me that this was the end of his education because the town had no high school. He could have gone to high school in another town but would have had to have his own transportation and his family could not provide that.
Another interesting note, the ceremony did not being until 8:30 pm. Palermo was a farming town. By waiting til 8:30 pm, most farming chores were done and the families could attend the ceremony.
I am going to list all the names found on this program here in the hopes that anyone looking for my grandfather's classmates might find them.
Mabel Gladys Saban
Gayland Briggs Turner
Verda Elsie Bailey
Sidney Burton Haskell
Earl Andrew Turner
Helen Gertrude Nelson
J. Lyle Trask
Melissa Spratt
Mary Ernestine Moore
Maurice Eugene Tobey
Alice Lena Morang
Ross Newell Hannan
Hazel Gertrude Turner
5 comments:
- AnonymousApril 2, 2010 at 9:25 PM
Wow - it must have been a very small town, with so few children in school! Does the grammar school still exist?ReplyDelete
It was and still is a very small town. However, the list is not all the students, just the ones doing the ceremony.ReplyDelete
That is really great that the program still exists today.ReplyDelete
Kathy, I'm glad your family saved all these goodies, I think my mother threw them away! Thanks for sharing this.ReplyDelete
Kathy as always I love reading your stories.ReplyDelete
I want to tell you I have given you the Ancestor Approved Award. If you drop by my blog Branching out Through the years, you can pick up your badge and the rules.
Thanks again for sharing.
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)


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Filters: Author is Allbritton, Marcel [Clear All Filters]
How do information and communication technologies reshape work? Evidence from the residential real estate industry. Proceedings of International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS). Brisbane, Australia, December 10–13.. (2000). 00RIP21 (111.66 KB)
Information and communication technologies in the real estate industry: Results of a pilot survey [Research in progress]. ( )Proceedings of the European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS) . Bled, Slovenia.. (2001). ecis2001 (24.65 KB)
The social embeddedness of transactions: Evidence from the residential real estate industry. The Information Society, 19(2), 135–154. doi:10.1080/01972240309460. (2003). tis2001final (4.3 MB)


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Ticks are small spiderlike creatures (arachnids) that bite into the
skin and attach themselves to feed on blood. Tick bites occur most often during
early spring to late summer.
Two types of ticks commonly found in the United States and some parts of Canada are deer
ticks and Western black-legged ticks, and both types may carry bacteria that
cause Lyme disease. But most ticks do not carry disease or cause serious
health problems.
Ticks can live in the fur and feathers of many birds and animals.
People are more likely to get a tick bite when they are in places where there are
many wild animals and birds.
It is important to remove a tick as soon as you discover one.
Removing the body of the tick will help people avoid diseases the tick may pass on
during feeding.
Last Revised:
October 14, 2011
Healthwise Staff
Medical Review:
William H. Blahd, Jr., MD, FACEP - Emergency Medicine & H. Michael O'Connor, MD - Emergency Medicine
This information does not replace the advice of a doctor. Healthwise, Incorporated disclaims any warranty or liability for your use of this information. Your use of this information means that you agree to the Terms of Use. How this information was developed to help you make better health decisions.
To learn more visit Healthwise.org
© 1995-2012 Healthwise, Incorporated. Healthwise, Healthwise for every health decision, and the Healthwise logo are trademarks of Healthwise, Incorporated.


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AMHERST, Mass. – The Brandeis University men's basketball team saw its seven-game winning streak come to a halt on Saturday afternoon as the Judges fell behind to 10th-ranked Amherst, 7-0, and never recovered in a 76-64 defeat. After the contest, both teams own a 7-2 record.
Amherst was highlighted by the 1,000th career point for junior Aaron Toomey. Needing just four points to reach 1,000, Toomey wasted no time getting on the board, draining a three-pointer from the right wing on Amherst's first possession. The next time down the floor, he connected on a runner in the lane to reach the career milestone. He added a steal and an assist on a dunk by Willy Workman '13 to stake the home team to a 7-0 lead.
Junior Ben Bartoldus (Hillsborough, N.H./Proctor Acad.) put the visitors on the board with a triple at 18:16, but a Peter Kaasila '13 jumper coupled with another Toomey layup stretched the margin to 11-3. Brandeis answered with a 7-2 spurt, cutting the deficit to three on a Gabriel Moton (St. Petersburg, Fla./St. Petersburg), but a Ben Pollack '16 putback just before the 13:30 mark sparked an 11-4 Jeff run over 3:18 that made it 24-14.
Looking to keep pace, the Judges responded by netting 10 of the game's next 12 points to trim the lead to two with 6:49 to go in the half on a pair of foul shots by senior Wouter van der Eng (Aphen aun der rijn, Netherlands/Kimball Union Acad.), but the Judges couldn't quite get over the hump. Down 39-31 at the intermission, Youri Dascy (Fall River, Mass./St Andrews School, R.I.) opened the second-half scoring with a layup to pare the lead to six, but the Jeffs netted five unanswered capped off by a Toomey trifecta from the top of the key to make it 44-33.
Another Dascy bucket at 18:38 momentarily brought Brandeis back within single-digits, but six-straight Kaasila points upped the margin to 52-38. The Judges would come within six at 70-64 on a Bartoldus triple with 2:12 left inthe contest, but it was too little, too late, as Amherst pulled away for the 12 point win.
Kaasila led all scorers with 21 points on 8-for-12 shooting, finishing just one point shy of matching a career-high. Williamson added 17 points and six rebounds, while Toomey finished with five assists and 12 points, upping his career total to 1,008. Workman had a big game on the defensive end, pulling down eight rebounds, while blocking three shots and nabbing a career-high five steals.
Moton paced Brandeis with 21 points and 10 boards, connecting on 7-of-12 attempts from the floor with three, three-pointers. Bartoldus was the only other Judge in double-figures with 13 points on 5-for-10 shooting.
Holding a 34-28 rebounding edge, Amherst outscored Brandeis 38-20 in the paint and 15-5 on second-chance points. Recording five blocks and 12 steals, the Jeffs also notched 18 points on 15 turnovers.
Brandeis closes the first semester on Tuesday evening at 8 p.m. at Framingham State.


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As of the end of November, less than 2 million mortgages, or 5%, were seriously delinquentdefined as 90 days or more past due, including those loans in foreclosure or REO.
This new low seriously delinquent mark led to only 46,000 foreclosures finalized throughout the country during the month, CoreLogic data revealed, which is down 18,000 from a year earlier.
On a monthly basis, the number of homes actually lost to foreclosure decreased 8.3% from 50,000.
Florida, Michigan, California, Texas and Georgia account for almost half of all completed foreclosures, with 115,000, 54,000, 42,000, 40,000 and 36,000, respectively.
Since the financial crisis began in September 2008, there have been about 4.7 million completed foreclosures nationwide.
The national foreclosure inventory through November is approximately 812,000 homes, compared to 1.2 million a year ago. This inventory through November 2013 comprises 2.1% of all homes with a mortgage.
Consumer confidence is definitely up as the economic rebound gathers more steam, says Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. As the negative equity crisis abates and home prices continue to rise, most people are prioritizing the payment of their mortgage obligations. The result is a double-digit drop in the inventory of seriously delinquent homes in 48 states as of October.


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An hour later, we were.
It was really one of those surreal moments - as all moments are when you first get to the ocean. You forget how massive it is. Each time I get near a beach, I get that oh so small feeling that feels oh so good.
We stopped by a marina-front seafood shop and picked up dinner, picked up a bottle of wine in town and took our blanket (that hosted two picnics in one day...) down to the Duxbury beach. As you might remember, we've been here before during the Fall- I called it a beachfront Home Alone neighborhood.
We lounged. Walked. We chatted.


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The "New" Windstar Cruises - Part 2by Paul Motter | June 27, 2007
Despite new ownership, it's as good as the old -- and getting better. Part Two of our Wind Surf cruise report.
Taking Wind Surf on a Test Run We had a chance to sail on the newly refurbished Wind Surf in early June. We knew that Ambassadors International had just acquired the ship, so we were eager to see if there is any noticeable difference between the Windstar we sailed on in 1999 and the one we see today.
One thing that has not changed is the great crewing concept. Windstar ships have always been crewed by the same people who staff Holland America ships - Indonesians and Filipinos who come from special training facilities and shipping agents in their home countries. The new owners ensured that nothing has changed in the way the crew is hired or trained. In addition, nearly the entire ground operation for the line (reservations, etc.) was included in the acquisition, and there have been no noticeable changes there, either. If you went on Windstar last year, or if you go next year, you are not likely to notice a perceptible difference. Indeed, many crew members on these ships have already been there for years, and they plan on staying many more.
We loved the small passenger loads and the service convenience this provides. On an itinerary that offers a different port every day, you can't beat a fast and filling breakfast, all the port information you need, and getting off of the ship as quickly as possible.
Speaking of breakfast, even though it is a buffet, you still get exemplary table service. After serving ourselves we would order the delicious eggs Benedict and Windstar's signature peanut butter French toast, which was delivered to our table. We never had to wait more than a minute for someone to refill our coffee cup -- even my wife, who only takes half a cup at a time to keep it as hot as possible. Of course, they all knew that about her without being reminded.
The only thing about this trip that surprised us was the seeming lack of diversity in shore excursion options. Though the trips came at a fair price, some were canceled due to lack of interest. To get the most out of Windstar's great itineraries I suggest taking the cruise with friends -- at least one or two additional couples -- and making arrangements with local guides to pick you up at the ship for personalized tours.
click on pictures below for larger images:
|Crew Show Singer
|Left half of Suite
|Right half of Suite
The Best Part of the Ship The thing we loved of the most about this Windstar ship was our stateroom. This suite is simply a pair of mirror-image standard cabins with the wall between them cut out. One side has a king-size bed, while the other has a large sofa bed and two chairs surrounding a table big enough to eat meals. But the best part was what was left intact: twice the closet space, two individual desks, and separate bathrooms. This is something I have never had on any ship, making this the first cruise where I never felt crowded in the stateroom no matter what we were doing.
All in all, it was a very relaxing vacation. I don't think I have ever met so many new people on any single cruise. Between the port-intensive itineraries and the great in-cabin entertainment centers, it was also one of the most entertaining cruises I ever taken. But this does not mean the ship itself is especially entertaining. The casino is very small, and the only entertainment at all is a dance combo playing nightly. There was the inevitable Crew Show (similar to the Holland America Crew Show). If you have ever seen one, you know exactly what I am talking about.
I do recommend a thorough reading of the destinations before you select an itinerary. While this is certainly not the cruise line's fault -- especially when the demand is there for small ships to take people to new and unusual destinations -- I found some of the ports rather boring. I suppose if I say that about St. Tropez and Monte Carlo, both considered to be among the world's most exclusive resort towns, then you can call me jaded. But I would pass up Palamos, Spain or Marseilles for Nice or Portofino any day. And in Corsica we were stuck eating glace during the afternoon when all the French shops shut down from noon to 3 p.m.
click on pictures below for larger images:
|Portoveneres, Italy
|Provense - near St Tropez
|Quiet Colors of Corsica
The Worst Part of the Ship For most people this is not a factor, but it must be noted that for people with limited mobility, Windstar ships are probably not a good choice. The smaller ships have no elevator, and many doorways have tall thresholds that would be impossible for a wheelchair and difficult for person using a walker.
Summing Up the "New" Windstar It's easy to say this with sincerity. The best thing about the new Windstar, now under the management of Ambassadors International Cruise Group, is that it is still the same old Windstar for all intents and purposes. David Giersdorf is at the helm, and he has known everything there is to know about the company for years. The staff and crew philosophy are the same as they have always been, and the "Degrees of Difference" program has already been implemented on one ship and will be complete on the others within a year.
Go to part 1 of this article


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GORHAM, Maine – An RBI fielder's choice by Peter Burgio in the bottom of the seventh would be the deciding factor as the Owls of Keene State College (30-11) slipped by baseball (18-21-1) by the final of 6-5 Wednesday afternoon at USM Baseball Stadium in game two of the 2012 Little East Conference baseball tournament hosted by the University of Southern Maine.
With the loss the fifth seeded Beacons will play in the elimination game tomorrow morning at 9:30 a.m. against the top-seeded Huskies of Southern Maine. Southern Maine was upset in game one of the tournament by Plymouth State University (3-2).
During the regular season UMass defeated Southern Maine by the finals of 6-5 (April 10) and 7-5 (April 17) to sweep the regular season series with the Huskies.
In Wednesday's match-up the two teams saw solid pitching performances from both of their aces. For the Beacons Daniel Heefner (Tracy, Calif.) went seven complete innings and allowed eight hits, with only two of those stretched for extra bases.
Keene State's Jeff Pelkey went 6.1 innings and allowed the five runs on nine hits. Charles LaPaglia (Marshfield, Mass.) went deep against Pelkey in the top half of the seventh, a one run shot, which cut Keene State's lead down to two (6-4). The Beacons would then get their final run in the eighth on an RBI single by Matt Consiglio (Southbury, Conn) which scored Ty Buccetti (Wallingford, Conn.) and moved the tying run to third with only one out on the scoreboard. Keene managed to get out of the inning when they turned a double-play and ultimately securing the victory.
On the day, Buccetti went 2-for-4 with three runs scored, while Jamill Moquette (Boston, Mass.) finished with 2-for-4 with two runs batted in and a double. LaPaglia's homer in the seventh marked the only hit of the day for the freshman outfielder.
Chuck Vogt led the Owls with his 2-for-4 afternoon, which included a double, two runs batted in and a run scored. Burgio's game clinching run in the seventh scored Kyle Morrill, unearned. Erik Bergstrom had the only other extra-base hit for the Owls, a triple in the first which scored one of Keene's two runs to make it 2-1 after one complete.
After the first, the Beacons regained the lead in the third on Moquette's two-run double to left field which scored both Buccetti and Mark McCormack (Shelton, Conn.).
Last season, UMass and Southern Maine faced-off on the first day of the 2011 Little East Tournament, with the Huskies pulling out the victory by the final of 9-4. The Beacons need to win tomorrow to stay alive in the tournament. If they do win they will play on Friday against the loser of game six. For all the up-to-date scores and highlights from the Little East tournament go to http://www.littleeast.com/sports/tourney/2011-2012-tourney-central.


text: Schneider Electric, Sweden - ConstructorGroup Storing of Long Goods Schneider Electric is one of the worlds leading companies within energy effectivness. Turn over world wide is 20 billions euro and the group have120.000 employees. The Nordic central warehouse is located in Örebro, Örebro RDC, from where the Nordic market, including the Baltic states, is served with products and customer pre-assembled solutions. The total surface of the warehouse is for the time being 14.000 m² and is served by a labor force of 80 persons. The warehouse is divided into different zones, where zone 1 is for incoming goods and control. Zone 2 is storing and picking area and zone 3 packing and shipping. The warehouse equipment is pallet racking P90 for palletized goods as well as for heavy and long goods. Shelving system HI280 is available for manual picking as well as 9 m high narrow isle storing. Long side the building is a 9 m high cantilever racking mounted for long goods. The operations give an impression of fast expansion and when the latest demand for increased storage volume was a fact Constructor was contacted. A proposition was worked out resulting in a re-design of present manual picking racking Hi280 to a 9 m high narrow isle installation served by narrow isle lifters. The suggestion resulted in another 3812 shelf meters at the same floor space. A solution giving a remarkable better effectiveness of the existing warehouse volume as well as savings due to non-realized plans for extension of the building – yet. Pallet racking P90: frame height 9 m. Beam loading capacity 2400 kg. 3K and 4K. Total 11.500 pallet locations. Pallet racking safety equipment; Frame protectors. Post guards. Security mesh frames and vertical back stop support. Shelving system HI280; designed as manual picking racks and as a 9 m high narrow isle installation. Total 5615 shelf-meters. Cantilever GT90; 9 m high for long and heavy materials. Section loading capacity: 5 tons.


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Computer Science brings together scientific and engineering principles, theoretical analysis and computing experience to provide students with solid foundation of the discipline. The computer science module develops a high-level understanding of systems as a whole.
This understanding encompasses an appreciation for the structure of computer systems and the processes involved in their construction and analysis. Students recognize many recurring themes such as abstraction, complexity, and evolutionary change and apply them to a broad range of applications maintaining the skills as the field evolves.
Students of computer science are capable to understand and apply essential concepts, principles, and practices in the context of well-defined scenarios, showing judgment in the selection and application of tools and techniques. They also demonstrate the ability to work as an individual under guidance and as a team member in industry, utility sector and government institutions.


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My first experience with Italian ice was during an agonizingly hot day in Philadelphia two years ago.
The fruit-flavored ice appeared to defy science. It's frozen, but semi-liquid at the same time. Mine was served in a waxy Dixie-cup style container with a spoon. You can drink it or scoop it.
I gulped mine for instant relief – not caring about the brain-freeze that would follow.
My strawberry-flavored ice was a welcome treat, and I look forward to more options coming to Orange County this year.
Locally, one of the best-known water ice shops is Joe's Italian Ice in Garden Grove. But soon Joe's will face a bigger and better-known rival with the West Coast expansion of Rita's Italian Ice. The Pennsylvania-based chain is planning to open 40 Orange County shops over the next few years.
The first Rita's, founded 28 years ago by a Philadelphia firefighter, will debut this year at Kaleidoscope in Mission Viejo.
"I've lived all over the world, and I've never had anything like this product," said Rita's chief executive, Jonathan Fornaci.
During a phone interview, Fornaci explained what makes the frozen treat special.
Q. What is Italian ice?
A. It's not shaved ice. It's not a snow cone. It's water, fruit (purées) and sugar and you put it into a special machine that cools it to 22 degrees. It's frozen but it is still semi-liquid. Our product lasts for 24 hours. We make it fresh daily.
Q. How many flavors?
A. 67 flavors. Normally, you have 16 standard flavors in a store.
Q. Tell me about your custard, which is growing in popularity in Southern California.
A. It's made from a supplier in New Jersey and shipped all over the world. We use so much butter fat in it. If you're going to indulge, indulge in the best possible you can get. The level of fanaticism is similar, if not equal, to In-N-Out Burger. It is unbelievable. We have a number of products that mix custard and ice.
Q. What's the price point?
A. $2.89 to $4
Q. Who is your target audience?
A. Our core customer is suburban moms and dads, and soccer families with household income above $75,000. That's our sweet spot.
It's January, so it is time for various cities to host "restaurant week" specials. Typically, this month is the slowest time of year for the industry, which is also still reeling from the Great Recession. Restaurant weeks lure diners with special three-course meals and discounts.
Irvine Restaurant Week kicks off Friday and runs through Jan. 17. About 35 eateries, including some from Costa Mesa, Newport Beach and Tustin, are participating. Meal deals that caught my eye include a $21.95 three-course lunch at The Winery Restaurant & Wine Bar in Tustin and a $25 three-course dinner at Cucina Enoteca.
At The Winery, the entree selections include choice of The Winery Corkscrew Pasta, Pacific Snapper a la Plancha or the "Grand Cru" Kobe-style beef burger. At Enoteca, the three-courser includes a choice of 10 signature pizzas plus a starter and dessert. I also like the $20 lunch meal at Andrei's in Irvine. The three-course menu includes seasonal dishes such as mushroom soup and an artichoke and chorizo flatbread.
For more restaurant menu information, go to destinationirvine.com/restaurantweek
Some Costa Mesa restaurants are also offering monthlong specials for California Restaurant Month. Unfortunately, only seven restaurants (Nello Cucina, Avanti Café, La Cave, Wine Lab, Silver Trumpet, AnQi by Crustacean, Old Vine Café) are participating.
Not surprisingly, the lackluster turnout comes with disappointing menu specials. Last year, Nello offered a hearty three-course lunch for $12. This year, the South Coast Plaza eatery is giving 13 percent off a diner's meal. AnQi and Old Vine Café are giving 12 percent and 10 percent discounts, respectively. What happened to showing off your best dishes with a coursed meal?
At La Cave, "a specific entree will be discounted at least 10 percent" each night. I'm sorry, but no one is going to be lured to this traditional steakhouse based on the chance of getting a mystery dish discounted.
Come on, Costa Mesa – stop being lazy and do a better job of promoting your fine restaurants. Hopefully, the city will step up during next month's Orange County Restaurant Week.
To review other Costa Mesa restaurant deals, go to travelcostamesa.com/california-restaurant-month.
Newport Beach Restaurant Week starts Jan. 18. The 10-day event features some of the county's best restaurants. The Register's writers will comb through the menus and make recommendations in next week's Food section.
Contact the writer: firstname.lastname@example.com. Follow Nancy Luna's restaurant stories at ocregister.com/maven


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