Rochelle Riley

My friend, LC, and I were at it again this morning, lamenting the state of American television, which has been sharked to death by so-called reality shows.

What was making us happy? The fact that some networks are re-making some of our favorite TV shows (Dallas, Hawaii 5-0).  This means two things:

First, we’ll have even more great shows to add to our must-see TV list that already has: “The Good Wife,” “The Closer,” “Burn Notice,” “Suits,” White Collar” and “Rizzoli and Isles.”

Second, it might hasten the demise of fake reality TV. The difference? “The Amazing Race,” a travel game show, is good reality TV.

Any “Housewives” show? Baloney.

Reality? Really?

Seriously, if cameras followed us around all day, they’d see carpet cleaners come and go with the dog barking the entire time, us sitting with piles of papers paying bills, us putting away groceries, which these women never seem to buy. They’d see real desperate housewives trying to fit 30 hours worth of into a 24-hour day.

“We are CEOS of our homes, and our children have ballet recitals, dance recitals, swim lessons,” LC said. “And that’s what we’re doing.”

Moreover, she and I are both working moms, so we’re among the women who run the house and run companies or work at full-time jobs.

We don’t know any housewives who walk around in designer clothes on soccer day or drink champagne every weekend – even though some could if they wanted to. But they don’t because they’re too busy dealing with real life. And real life is not loud, unless it’s the children, or boisterous unless a football game is on or the children are moving. We don’t do battle in heels.

“At what event have we ever attended have we seen two women go at each other in a fistfight?” LC asked.

Not one. Not ever.

Critics have panned reality shows for years, pointing out that they’re scripted, not spur-of-the-moment, that we don’t see the real stuff, just the horribly embarrassing stuff that makes the audience laugh at these women who think they’re stars.

But no amount of criticism is enough because these shows are taking up space for shows about real life, or shows that help us escape when real life is not funny or entertaining.

So here’s a tip for TV producers: give us drama and comedy and variety shows and reality game shows. But the fake drama? You can keep it!

I hope Weiner holds out.

No, I’m not a fan of freakazoid or juvenile behavior. And yes, Rep. Anthony Weiner, the New York Democrat, showed poor judgment and no respect for his family by sending out photos of his uh, weiner, to women who weren’t his pregnant wife.

But you know what?

Weiner should hold out – at least for just a little longer.

The longer Weiner refuses to resign, the more people will question the behavior of all of those serve and the more the question will rise: Who else?  There is a reason that Democrats are rushing him to resign and Republicans are mostly watching from the sidelines. How many more reps have something to hide?

Weiner isn’t the first to send inappropriate photos of himself over the Internet.

Five months ago, then-Rep. Christopher Lee, R-N.Y., resigned after news reports of him sending e-mails, including the infamous one showing his bare chest, to a woman he met on Craigslist. The married father of one (who told the woman he was a divorced lobbyist) later said, “I regret the harm that my actions have caused my family, my staff and my constituents. I deeply and sincerely apologize to them all. I have made profound mistakes and I promise to work as hard as I can to seek their forgiveness.”

Lee has done all that work in private.

Weiner, on the other hand, is taking a public leave of absence, to seek treatment for juvenile behavior. I don’t know where you go to find that. But how many more should go with him?

Should we take this moment, this opportunity, while Congress has wandered up to a new and profound moral standard, to call on all congressional representatives to do the right thing?

Every other congressional rep else who has sent inappropriate or sexually suggestive photos to anyone other than their spouses should resign immediately. If you are liberal, conservative bloggers hunting you. If you are a conservative, liberals bloggers are digging through your urls.

Every other congressional rep who is cheating nor or cheated ever on a spouse should resign immediately. There has never been a better time for spouses to come clean about what was once a private sadness.

Every other congressional rep that has driven drunk, been guilty of public intoxication,  sexually harassed an employee or lied to get something done, should resign immediately.

Eventually, in this day of instant information, someone will find out and expose them. And most unethical behavior can’t be cured at treatment facility.

There is no treatment center for stupidity.

So let Weiner hang out a bit, keep the conversation going, root out all the trash from Congress. And then they can all leave together.

DAKAR, Senegal _ If you are a black man or woman in America, chances are that you’ve imagined that first moment and what feels like the second you touch African soil.

I’ve had people to tell me that they knelt and kissed the ground. I’ve had others tell me that they wept. My experience was different, though I’m sure shared by others.

As I set foot in Africa for the first time, I thought immediately of my grandfather and his grandfather, whose father was a slave named Bailum. I haven’t discovered and may never known from which country Bailum was shipped to North Carolina to eventually wind up in the bend of the Tar River. But I do know this: Senegal is the closest African country to America. It holds one of three major departure sites for thousands of slaves who were forced onto ships and taken to America to become farm animals and construction equipment.

Now gone for 10 years, my grandfather would have found great wonder and felt great pride in my return to Africa. You see, whether we pay attention or not, whether we honor it or not, whether we ache for it or not, we are part of The Lost. We are the descendants of those who were stolen.

And this week, they welcomed some of us home.

Moreover, in a series of seminars and discussions, some leaders hope to make clear that, now more than ever, Africans must forge better ties with each other and with their American cousins as officials mount campaigns to do everything from develop a greater, more structured role for the Diaspora in African politics and geo-economics – to create the United States of Africa.

I am here in Dakar as part of a delegation traveling under the sponsorship of the United Nations, the National Association of Black Journalists and the Conference of Black Mayors. We are learning about the African Renaissance, learning about our relationships to those whose ancestors watched ours go. We are finding ways to help ensure that the African story is not lost even so many in America try to diminish the African-American story.

We are here to continue to forge connections once lost, but increasingly becoming bonds.

I am here, where it all began. And as the days pass and I soon visit Goree Island, which wasn’t the largest but is the most famous center memorializing the horrors of the Atlantic slave trade, I know what I will feel.

As I set foot on that island that is only 3,000 feet long and 1,100 feet wide, as I enter the House of Slaves., the Maison des Esclaves, and stand at the Door of No Return, I will remember those in my family who came before, those whose stories were stolen even as they were stolen.

I did not kiss the dirt at Leoopold Airport. I did not kiss strangers who might look like me. But when I visit Goree in a few days, I will stand before the answer to questions I’ve asked all my life. It is then that I expect to look skyward and thank my grandfather and his grandfather and his grandfather – for surviving, for making a way for me.

Visiting where it began is something every African descendant should take – if only to remember and to make sure no one else ever forgets.

As we count down the days until the October 1 premiere of David Fincher’s unflinching look at the founding of Facebook, “The Social Network,” did Mark Zuckerberg take down the site and shut out about 500 million users to make a point?

If he did, it will go down in history as the gutsiest and most powerful action in the history of the World Wide Web. It also will show just how much power he now holds over people addicted to the posting, game-playing, know-no-boundaries spilling about your life network.

The company issued a statement, which I read online on the New York Times site, that said: “We’re currently experiencing some site issues causing Facebook to be slow or unavailable for some users. We are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible.”

Are they technical issues, or a test of just how many people will side with Zuckerberg rather than lose their Farmville farms, Mafia territory and Lexulous games?

Stay tuned.