How to Fix Basketball

Anyone who compares basketball to chess is an idiot , but especially if they're talking about the last few minutes -- on the clock -- of a close game, when everything slows down and becomes excruciatingly boring, completely unlike chess. 

We can all agree that it's getting worse: the first 46 of the game clock's 48 minutes might be over in an hour and a half, but those last 2 minutes could take another half hour. 

And if we don't stand up and cry, "Enough!" it could soon be an hour, or longer.

And unlike those prima-dona egocentric head coaches who think they're like chess players, and are making this last part of the game longer and longer -- unlike them, most of us actually have stuff to do after the game. Other than those coaches and a few particularly silly fans, nobody finds these long, slow exchanges of time outs and fouls left to give, and wasting as much time as possible at every turn, exciting! Time outs are allowed to go on for much longer than they're supposed to. and when was the last time you saw a so-called "thirty second timeout' which was over in 30 seconds? 

But it's not just that: every time the clock stops, late in a close game, these bonehead coaches who have never cared about anything or anyone other than themselves, abuse the opportunity and stretch it into a non-timeout timeout: when there's a possession change. Between free throws. During a substitution. Any and every time they can, they abuse the situation to inflict a little bit more of their time-wasting supposed wisdom on their long-suffering players and fans and the officials. 

I say, during the last part of any basketball game -- maybe the last 2 minutes on the clock, maybe the last 5 minutes -- there should be no more time-outs. and no more non-timeout timeouts. Let the game clock roll after a basket is scored, just like early in the game. Also, don't stop the clock during substitutions. If a player takes too long to get on or off of the court during a substution, that's a technical.

And, the final brilliant nail in the coffin of this "game of chess" which is boring us all to death: every foul is a 2-shot technical foul, and the fouled team gets or retains possession of the ball. The only time the clock would stop would be for a foul. The coaches could still have their short non-timeout timeouts during these technical fouls, but not too long: put a 5-second limit on each shot. Exceed that limit and you forfeit all remaining free throws and the other team gets 2.

If a coach is ejected from the game, give him 5 seconds to get his precious prima-donna ass off of the court. Not 5 seconds to start moving off the court, but 5 seconds to get out of our sight, or it's an additional 2-shot technical. 10 seconds and we can still see or hear him? 2 2-shot technicals, 3 fouls for a 15-second delay, etc, etc. One more technical for coaching after being ejected. One delicious aspect of this rule would be that some of them still wouldn't be able to stop themselves from staying on the court and ranting and screaming like the spoiled little tittybabies they are.

An extra 2 shots for flagrant fouls. Etc, etc.

Why, the players would actually have to decide close games by actually playing basketball, with a strong incentive to play it clean and foul-free. 

You know what's already exciting because there already are no timeouts? CHESS!!

Dress Codes

 I admit, I'm an artsy type, so I know much of this only second-hand, but my impression is:

In the 1990's, many offices started the practice of Casual Friday, when things such as chinos and polo shirts were accepted in the office on Fridays, in places where everyone had previously had to wear suits. 

Different places had different policies concerning socks. Massive honkin' triceps were optional.

Whether it was acceptable not to tuck the polo shirt into the chinos before casual wear was okay any day of the week, or the other way around, I don't know, but I do know that things have become more and more casual in many offices, to the point where in many cases there are no longer any dress codes, and it would seem strange to waste any time enforcing dress codes or objecting to what someone chose to wear to work.

In many offices, none of the above-described changes have happened yet. Some workplaces have progressed only to the point of Casual Friday with the Lacoste tucked in and the belt matching the shoes and by God you better wear socks, and some have no Casual Fridays.

And, of course, this is all a white-collar phenomenon. It doesn't apply to blue-collar work. 

A completely different essay describing the time when white-collar workers actually wore white collars and blue-collar workers actually wore blue collars, could be very interesting.

Is the line between white-collar and blue-collar actually beginning to blur? Are there now jobs which are neither 100% the one or the other? I don't know.  If there are such jobs, that would sound like progress to me. It would sound as if some parts of the world were finally beginning to be allowed to see what some other parts were up to.

I was about to write that many places do not have official dress codes, but that conformity is fairly rigidly enforced by peer pressure alone, and I was about to mention the US Congress as an example. But I googled it first. Turns out they do have a dress code, and that Senator John Fetterman, wearing a hoodie and shorts these days, votes from a cloakroom adjacent to the Senate floor, not from the floor of the Senate. Also, you remember all that nonsensical outrage about Michelle Obama going sleeveless? The Congressional dress code calls for sleeves.

What is Congress actually able to do if someone violates the dress code? Is the more important question not what they can do about, but what they are likely to do about it? I mean, Fox News and the New York Post are certainly doing their upmost to stir up outrage about Senator Fetterman's hoodie and shorts, but I'd be surprised if the Senate actually took even symbolic official action against him. The guy's just out of the hospital fachrissakes.

At this point, at the very latest, some extremely progressive, but simultaneously traditionally-minded fashion-focused readers are going into tirades about the beauties of traditional business attire.

And they're right. They're right exactly as far as they own wardrobes, and no further. See, the thing is, about Casual Friday, and about abandoning dress codes altogether and officially giving your blessing to anyone dressing however they Damn well please, is, that you can still wear immaculately fabulous business suits every day, even on Fridays, because that is the whole point: you don't tell anyone that they're not dressed correctly, and they return that courtesy. You can try to keep those beautiful habits of dress alive, but you're going to have to do it on the strength of the actual beauty of the clothes. You can persuade with beauty, when dress codes are no longer there. You can no longer coerce. 

I don't hang out much in places on social media -- or for that matter, in the meat world -- where people love suits, and suits are the main topic of discussion. But they still come up every now and then. For example, when people debate whether or not it is "correct" to wear a G-Shock in the office. I myself am so far from being table to take that question seriously, that I can't even write it without quote around the word "correct."

But there are people, they still do exist, who take such things very seriously. People who are actually horrified when some wears a G-Shock with a suit. In my opinion, anyone who is horrified by that is INCAPABLE of serious thought. Well. People disagree about such things. Hopefully we can still discuss them, with respect and goodwill for all

In my opinion, there are only bad reasons for insisting that everyone in the office wear a suit (or for example, insisting that every student in the school wear a uniform). If you can get them all to dress alike, more than a century before Thorstein Veblen first pointed out how conformity of dress helps to enforce conformity in other things, it will be much easier to keep them from objecting if the firm lies, or steals, or dumps poison into the air or water, or promotes a culture of predation or hatred against its female employees or its employees of color, etc.