A friend of mine owns a 73-inch Mitsubishi projection TV system. That’s why he’s a friend of mine---especially on Seahawks Sundays.

His system has almost everything you can imagine, including High Definition. When I was a kid, High Definition meant looking up a word from a dictionary on the top shelf.
But with HDTV you can see every crag and crevice on the moon. Or a person’s face.

Privately, aging TV news anchors hate HDTV.

But what my friend’s TV system does not have is something that has never quite caught on: Smell-o-vision. Which is a dumb name, because the nose has little to do with the eyeballs.
The idea’s been experimented with from time to time. In the 50’s, an application called Aroma-rama piped odors into movie theaters through the ventilation system. My research shows it was used for the final time in a short film called “Corned Beef and Cabbage: The Morning After.”

The smell issue wafted up recently in Burien, where last month an ordinance banning stinky people from parks and certain public buildings was passed.

It reminded me of a story I read a few years ago out of Bend, Oregon. A radio newscaster reported, “Proposed new city rules in Bend will ban spitting, smoking, skateboarding, defecating---and stinking on city buses.”

It’s hard to disagree with some of that stuff---spitting for example. That should never be allowed on a bus unless a fire has broken out---or if someone has started smoking.
And if you’ve got a skateboard, why would you ride the bus in the first place? The skateboard’s much quicker.

As for the defecating regulation, why bring that one up in the first place? That’s just giving people ideas.

But a law against “stinking”---or, as olfactory experts calls it---“funkiness?” It’s hard to see how anyone is going to enforce that law.

For one thing, it seems unconstitutional. A check of the Bill of Rights and other amendments offers several possible legal protections:

Amendment 1: “Guarantees freedom of speech or expression.” Wouldn’t that also cover those who express themselves through their pores? And can’t smelly people ‘assemble’ scented or not?
Amendment 8: This is the one about “cruel and unusual punishment.” Regular bathingmight indeed be cruel and unusual for people with soap allergies.

It could also be argued that NOT bathing is actually an extremely ‘green’ thing to do. Dark green, mostly.

Amendment 18: It outlawed “intoxicating liquors”---technically prohibiting people from getting ‘skunked’, ‘polluted’ and ‘stinko.’ But then Amendment 21 came along and repealed that one---so forget it.
Specifically, the bans apply to anyone “emanating a grossly repulsive odor.” Who exactly is going to be the expert judge of THAT? Wouldn’t that require special training? And where would one get it? A stockyard? A landfill? A college fraternity?

If enforced, people would have to walk through odor detectors before boarding a bus---or entering a public building. It’d be sort of like the metal detectors at airports. If the alarm goes off, the smelly person would be wanded to see if they might be carrying a wedge of old salmon in their pants.

After all, odors are relative and contextual.

For example, to some, an onion frying at the state fair is a mouth-watering smell. But emanating from an armpit, the same fragrance is not so yummy.

Certain cheeses smell fine---unless they’re coming from a P.E. locker.

Hard-boiled eggs smell OK too ---unless they’re coming from the direction of the family dog.

I know an guy from Bend named “Stinky” Jenkins. It’s more than a nickname. “Stinky” Jenkins really IS stinky---not “Perfumy.” He can afford hygienic products---but he wants no part of them. When someone gifts him with soap on a rope, he ditches the soap and keeps the rope.

But “Stinky” never seems to mind his nickname. He never seems to have a girlfriend either.

Ironically, while living in Bend, he was a bus driver.

He recently moved to Burien---where he hopes to get a job at city hall.

Unlike other people, he’s not holding his breath.