DURHAM, N.C.–It’s almost college-basketball season.

That means it’s almost time for an annual ritual at a university in this formerly sleepy tobacco town that has become one of the points in North Carolina’s Research Triangle.

Duke–which you, faithful reader of the column, will recall rhymes with rebuke, not Luke–has what has come to be known as Krzyzewskiville, named for the men’s basketball team’s retired coach.

Starting at the beginning of the spring semester, Duke students will start camping near Cameron Indoor Stadium, the building with the team’s home court.

Why?

So they can be among the first in the door for the Blue Devils’ home game against the University of North Carolina Tar Heels.

Do students stay there all the time?

No, they leave to go to class, go to a library, eat, or return to their dorms briefly. Yet there is a nightly bed check to make sure that such die-hard fans aren’t just putting up a tent and not really sleeping there.

That’s not all. One high-ranking alumnus said Duke has all sorts of rules, not to mention tests that campers must take to prove their knowledge of Duke basketball, and basketball in general.

As if that were what Duke students should be doing.

It’s amusing to wonder what those paying such campers’ tuition, room, and board bills think of this.

Then again, maybe they don’t really know–or know at all–what’s going on.

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Time was that all students did was form a line on the day of–yes, the day of–the Carolina game.

One can suppose that students were free to stand in line for as long as they wanted. Those who left the line for whatever reason were, of course, free to return to the line. But when they returned, they went to the end of line.

In other words, there were no bathroom breaks or, for that matter, any other breaks. So the length of time that one was able to stand in line was directly proportional to, among other things, the capacity of one’s bladder.

Thus, students didn’t arrive early in the morning–or even late in the morning–for an evening game. There was no way. It just wasn’t possible.

Fun though Krzyzewskiville may be, shutting it down would be easy, if Duke were of a mind to do so: Just end the bathroom breaks.

Then the line outside of Cameron Indoor Stadium for the Duke-Carolina game would again be measured in hours, not weeks.

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Similarly ending bathroom breaks would serve the United States Senate well.

Once upon a time, a Senate filibuster was a talkathon subject to 60 senators’ voting to end debate. Ending debate permitted voting on a bill to proceed.

Until at least 60 senators were willing to stop the talkathon, it continued, and no vote could ensue.

During that time, however, a senator–or a series of senators–had to speak continuously from the Senate floor. Sometimes those engaging in the filibuster talked about the bill under consideration. Sometimes they read the phone book. Whatever they did, they had to keep talking.

And there were no bathroom breaks. Or meal breaks, or sleep breaks, or press-conference breaks, or any other kind of breaks.

So the length of time that one was able to filibuster was directly proportional to, among other things, the capacity of one’s bladder.

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Nowadays, there is no filibuster, because there is no talkathon. No one wanting to hold up the Senate has to hold the Senate floor by, say, reading the phone book.

Instead, all it takes to hold up the Senate is fewer than 60 senators’ being willing to let a vote ensue.

Meanwhile, senators can do whatever they want. All of them can take meal breaks, sleep breaks, press-conference breaks, or any other breaks, because there is no filibuster in the true sense of the word.

That facilitated the 2025 federal-government shutdown that became the longest such shutdown in American history.

If the Senate wants to make such shutdowns less likely, or make them less likely to last as long as the 2025 shutdown, the Senate should at least restore the rule that in effect requires talkathons, at least for such shutdowns.

Let each senator and each necessary staff member bring to the Capitol Hill office a toothbrush, toothpaste, a pillow, a blanket, a change of clothes, and so on.

Then let’s see how long a true filibuster, and thereby such a shutdown, lasts. Let’s just see.

In all likelihood, you can bet on this: It won’t go on for weeks and weeks, because senators and necessary staff will quickly tire of a real filibuster.

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On the evening of a home game against Carolina, Randy Elf–while having dinner with a friend who would become the high-ranking alumnus–realized that maybe good seats were available, because few students had wanted to stand in line. So the two of them walked into Cameron at 7:25 p.m. and had good seats for the 7:30 p.m. game.

COPYRIGHT © 2025 BY RANDY ELF