Today's Morning File is dedicated to all those who love wearing ascots.

(Uh-oh -- looks like we might have lost a few readers there. Let's try this again.)

Today's Morning File is written for people who don't understand the benefit society derives from having men wear ties.

(Better?)

A Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge told a lawyer last week that his appearance in court wearing an ascot "borders on contemptuous." Prosecutor Warren Zier was advised he could wear only a necktie or bowtie, to conform with a dress code for members of the bar.

Mr. Zier has been in the practice of rotating among those more conventional ties and the loopy ascot, which is like a scarf fashioned formally around the neck.

"This is an issue which I believe deals with the integrity of the court," Judge William Sosnay insisted, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (which noted that he is a "pompadoured judge long known as a fastidious dresser").

Warned that he would face a contempt citation if he failed to straighten out, Mr. Zier refused to get all tied up in knots. "I guess we'll deal with that if it gets to that point," the prosecutor said. Presumably, he was on his way to the law library to search for Latin verbiage that could be used in a U.S. Supreme Court appeal, based on some uniformity clause of the Constitution.

So far, Mr. Zier has not needed to seek reinforcements. The Journal Sentinel reports he came to court on Thursday wearing a tan-with-burgundy-diamonds ascot, raising no objection from the judge.

But if we were ever before Judge Sosnay, we would say unto him, "Judge us not on our attire, he who cloaks himself in a big robe so that no one really knows what's under there."

And then we would point out the results of the August 2007 annual Gallup Work and Education Poll, surveying Americans about their work clothing. Only 6 percent of men said they wear a necktie every day (sorry -- no ascot question), compared with 10 percent five years earlier. And just 3 percent tie one on most days, half the number as in 2002. A full two of every three men "never" constrict themselves in the workplace.

This is a trend that's been going on a long time, and having Barack Obama gallivanting around the country looking so stylishly open-necked can only accelerate things.

J.R. Moehringer, a tie nostalgist, writing last April for the Los Angeles Times magazine: "Doctors, students, lawyers, reporters, actors, agents, hobos, freaks, we all look pretty much the same now. We all look underemployed and underwhelmed. We look disheveled, unkempt, uncombed, as if we don't care, which is the point, I think, the insidious message of this new dress code. It's uncool to look as if you care."

Yeah, that about sums things up, J.R. Don't take it so hard. Times change.

The power tie peak came in the Gordon Gekko "Wall Street" days, and what kind of role model was he? A lot more people started working in front of the computer at home, where PJs make a great uniform.

In the real workplace, "Casual Fridays" became popular, which begat "Almost-As-Casual Thursdays" and so forth. Dot-com millionaires, who would no more likely put on a tie than work in a steel mill, sprouted everywhere.

The New York Times, where presumably a lot more men wear ties than at your favorite local newspaper, stuck its neck out in October in support of the tie industry.

Yes, it acknowledged, annual U.S. tie sales haven't really rebounded after a dramatic fall from 110 million in the early 1990s to 60 million by 2001. But the newspaper cited figures that sales among men ages 18 to 34 were up 13 percent for the most recent year.

"There has been a dramatic increase among younger guys ... expressing themselves by dressing up," said Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst for NPD Group, which tracks clothing trends. "He's not hesitating, given the option, to grab a tie, and a fancy tie at that."

This is surprising, given The Morning File's impression that most young men spend their time either killing one another or playing Ultimate Frisbee -- or perhaps some combination thereof. They may win a little favoritism from Judge Sosnay if they show up before him in a tie, but other than that, their resurrection of the accessory simply confirms that most people under 35 aren't to be trusted.