frican politics managed a rare chance to draw the attention of the western world when good-natured white boy Mark Thatcher, son of Der Iron Girdle former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, finally answered accusations he and other exceptionally-Caucasian financiers backed a coup of the African nation of Equatorial Guinea.

Equatorial Guinea, a sub-Saharan country in Africa, established its independence in 1968 from Spain and has lived under a dictatorship ever since. In 2004, a group of mercenaries were arrested and charged with plotting a coup in the country when their plane landed in Zimbabwe, those on board demanding they find a movie other than Kangaroo Jack to play for the rest of the trip. Authorities in Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea, and South Africa charge a complicated web of white sugar daddies have fueled the coup attempt, and that Thatcher was among them.

Moss Chevalier, one of the wealthy foreigners implicated in the charges, denied personal involvement in a conspiracy, but praised the mercenaries and their efforts.

"Equatorial Guinea is a country suffering under the thumb of an oppressive ruler. Its people die in impoverished conditions while he channels the wealth of the country into his personal coffers. I have a great admiration for the generous—dare I say handsome—financiers who are risking their livelihoods to bring democracy to this long-suffering nation."

Coincidentally, Equatorial Guinea discovered off-shore oil in 1996, greatly boosting the country's economic value.

Overthrowing governments for oil are nothing new, even quite the rage in recent years, but the Equatorial Guinea case is a trendsetter for being a coup allegedly paid for entirely by citizens, rather than the traditional route of grassroots movements within the country or foreign governments. With the current U.S. administration trying hard to privatize Social Security and medical insurance coverage, could the privatization of colonialism be far behind?

"Obviously countries rich in natural resources have faced a history of invasion by private companies and corporations," said University of Trenton History Professor Bobby Shockes. "This goes back to the early days of capitalism, as well-backed private merchants brought their own bodyguards and miniature armies so they might claim native lands as their own. Traditionally, though, these eventually call for government intervention to protect them, such as the United Fruit Company incident in Guatemala, when the U.S. interceded on the company's half against the rule of that government in the 1950s. But this changes all the rules. The message here is a positive one for businesses and wealthy individuals: 'Don't wait for the people or our government to make for better business conditions—do it yourself!"

On Friday, Mark Thatcher left a South African court in Cape Town, saying it was "patently clear" he had no involvement in the attempted coup. The trial for the coup itself, ended in November 2004 in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, while Thatcher's friend, Simon Mann, is serving a sentence in Zimbabwe for his role in the coup. Thatcher's involvement centered around the purchase of a helicopter that purportedly would have flown opposition leader Severo Moto from his exile in Spain to the seat of power in Malabo, upon success of the coup. Thatcher now plans on using the helicopter for personal Cape Town weather reports, or perhaps selling it to pay off the 3 million Rand fine he received for violating South Africa's anti-mercenary laws.

The White House chose not to respond to indignant questions from this reporter if they were interested in using the new privatized invasion style for Iran and Syria, or if they would prefer the time-tested CIA shadow-intervention plans.

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I am the last person anyone would call a homophobe, given my highly litigious nature, but I admit I am not comfortable with the thought of two men acting like two women together. Which is exciting. No, the two-man thing isn't my thing. Still, I say live and let live, especially for me, and whatever you do behind my back is fine with me. Or in front of my back. It's hard to say which is less unsettling with this particular subject.

So I am not "cool" with manly love, that's my business. I don't know why people find it so necessary to make everybody know all the details of their little private life. Ick. And if they find out you're uncomfortable with gayiety, trust me, they only want you more. The gayists, that is. At least, that's what I suspect this is all about. Mario still says it was the kiss of death, but I can't be sure.

The "Mario" in question the head of the Lambito family, the person Camembert and I met with last week to seek an end to all this senseless death, which I of course caused. To everyone's great surprise, things went better than expected. Mario and I took an instant non-homosexual liking to each other, finding we had many things in common, like our diminutive stature and making fun of Camembert's paralysis. Not only did we largely end the mob war, we became the best of friends.

I was so glad to see the mob war come to an end, if for no other reasons I was tired of getting thank-you cards from the FBI. They claim I took out more gangsters in two weeks than 50 years of RICO statutes, but the FBI is known for their sense of humor, maybe they just thought it funny. Regardless, even without the saving of so many innocent-until-proven-guilty lives, the event seemed a blessing just for making the acquaintance of Mario. Never have I heard so many tales of death and mayhem told with so much laughter. His charm was quite infectious, like the hot tub rash we shared.

True, we did share a hot tub, and went shopping for clothes together, and we saw a few theater plays. I did not take it that we were "dating," but maybe Mario got the wrong impression. I tried to steer things to more manly sorts of things, like working out at the gym or going hunting for endangered animals. It was no good. Like fate was drawing us together, every plan I came up with eventually left us either naked, sweaty, or alone together in a tent on a moonlit night. I'm not afraid of my own feelings, but I worry even a straight man put in that situation might find me irresistible.

It was becoming too much for me, so I had to tell Mario I was only interested in him as a friend, in case he was starting to develop feelings. Plus, I was married. Experimenting sexually with another man when you're single or merely engaged or have recently gotten rid of your wife is one thing, but you can't betray your marriage vows. It was a complicated scene, to say the least, made all the more complicated by the fact some of my gangmembers chose that night to whack Mario's brother, the next in line to head the family. Apparently that was why they borrowed the key to Mario's log cabin from me, but when I pieced it together out loud it only made things worse.

And that was when Mario laid the kiss on me, which freaked me out to new levels, and as you know, good people, I'm no stranger to freaking out. I tried to reaffirm how ungay I am, but Mario insisted at that point it was the kiss of death. I suspect he was just covering, though I didn't want to hurt his feelings.

So the war is back on, with gusto. Still, a few hundred dead mafioso or one sweet man's broken heart—what's the greater casualty here?

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Sweet, sweet Nancy: Another year passes with us, and we enjoy the grandest of all dates on the calendar—Valentine's Day! Oh, blessed Valentine, saint of all things love-oriented. No single day stands more important to me than his day, which should explain why I always forget out anniversary. I save my mental energy for love day. Valentine's.

Centuries ago, when the Roman gods and their saints still walked the earth, St. Valentine bowed down to the people, who were as big to him as chihuahuas are to us, and said, "Let one day stand as a testament to the greatest gift of all that I've given you—love." I may be paraphrasing. I read it all in a book. But that's the kind of love we have—exact quotations aren't necessary.

So we celebrate the day of Valentine's, this giant of a saint, in our favorite traditional way: dinner for two at T.G.I. Friday's. Appetizers of potato skins and mozzarella sticks set the tone for the evening. As I give you the last mozzarella stick out of the basket, you know it's not because I dislike the taste—if anything I'm the one who loves mozzarella more, between the two of us. But that's not the point. I would sacrifice the mozzarella stick if cheese were the very thing I breathe, in some sort of parallel universe of cheese-breathers, and the mozzarella stick were some kind of tiny scuba tube for breathing. It's probably not enough cheese to really breathe for much longer, but you understand my meaning. Also, you don't breathe cheese. Does that grab you by the throat? I would sacrifice my life just so you could enjoy the taste of cheese. I'm serious about it.

The truth is, I do not even like T.G.I. Friday's all that much. I would rather eat at Tango's Barbecue, or perhaps at Domino's, and get take-out to celebrate our love at home, in our bedroom and living room, and perhaps later in the kitchen. But fate cannot be roped around the snout and directed around by us mortals. We met at T.G.I. Friday's that fateful New Year's Day, when they refused to serve me any more alcohol. You came to my rescue that day, as you have come to my rescue ever since, inebriating my heart with your love so I do not need quite so much alcohol as I used to. And that's why T.G.I. Friday's is so sacred to me, and why it still turns me on when you wear the uniform in the bedroom.

Would that I had the power—that I were a man with all the powers of the universe, or at least handy at carpentry and masonry. I would build us a temple to represent all the things our love is to us. Pillars, twenty-feet high! A throne for you and you alone, rising fifteen feet high, so high you could not even sit in it, and quite pointless indeed. But you could stare on that temple from whatever higher point you are at, and realize that I, Chals, have built you that temple just to look on. A temple so big the building code people would likely condemn it for being too big, and possibly a fire hazard, depending on what I built it from. I'm thinking stone, but I wouldn't be adverse to wood, if it were cheaper.

Nancy, isn't this love bigger than the both of us? Would you have me spend next year's Valentine's Day at T.G.I. Friday's alone? The "threesome" suggestion was only a joke. I never would have asked that waitress if I knew you would take it so seriously. Please, come back. Your mother keeps hanging up the phone on me.

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