In Charleyworld, we always stick up for the downtrodden, the needy, the poor, the awkward, the semi-depressed and the easily confused. So it should come as no surprise that we are now championing the rights of the pilau.

Pilau is Hawaiian for "stench" but it has become part of the Island patois or nomenclature to mean dirty, stinky, smelly, messy, offensive or just plain nasty. (Usage example: "Hey, man, anyone can have body odor but you're so pilau you could knock a cockroach off an 'opala truck.")

In this case, the problem facing pilau people is not with rubbish trucks but with city buses. The Honolulu City Council is considering banning pilau individuals — those of an offensively odiferous nature — from riding city buses. This ban clearly infringes on the rights of the smelly, who under the U.S. Constitution should be able to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, even if that happiness includes not taking baths for weeks.

I have often ridden the bus and thought that it was a law that at least one smelly fellow be situated in every five rows of seats. (And, judging from the way one particular ancient matron surreptitiously pulled a lace hanky out of her sleeve and held it over her nose as I passed, apparently that pilau person sometimes is me.) With all due respect to the councilmen who are sponsoring the bill, Rod Tam and Nestor Garcia, the pilau constitute a large portion of the bus-riding population. To ban them from buses would be to stick a knife in the economic heart of mass transit in Hawai'i. I suspect that Messrs. Tam and Garcia are not regular riders of TheBus. Perhaps they have only recently taken a bus ride and were expecting something like the smell of gardenia blossoms and fresh baked bread wafting through the cabin. Perhaps they don't understand that many bus riders ride the bus because, unlike highly paid public servants with lucrative side jobs, they can't afford private transportation.

The biggest problem with banning the pilau from buses is the question of who will decide who's stinky and who's not? Obviously, you can't force this job on the bus driver; he's got enough to do, what with operating the bus, making sure everyone pays and text messaging his girlfriends in transit. With the government laying off or furloughing workers, we can't expect the city to suddenly hire hundreds of official smellers to be stationed at the bus doorways. I'm not sure anyone would want a job that entails sniffing at everyone climbing onto a bus.

And you couldn't leave the smell test up to other riders because everyone's pilau threshold is different. I happen to have a pretty high pilau threshold. I sat next to a guy on the bus once who not only smelled rank but also picked his teeth with his comb and flicked the excavated matter into the air by fanning the comb's teeth with his thumb.

Other riders might consider a lawyer who had to run a half-block to catch the bus too smelly. Or lawyers in general.

So, with all due respect to the councilmen, give the pilau a break. Sure, they don't bathe as much as you do, but they don't carpool with you either.

Read Charles Memminger's blog at http://charleyworld.honadvblogs.com.