My 5-year-old granddaughter, who is into all things animal, has been captivated the last few days by a book called “Baby Animal Butts” by Myrsini Stephanides.

While she giggles at cute pictures of the fannies of many creatures, I’m more interested in the clever quotes that accompany the photos. Some of my favorite bits of wisdom from the bottom:

• “My arse contemplates those who talk behind my back.” — Frances Picabia

• “If you could kick the person responsible for most of your troubles in the backside, you wouldn’t be able to sit down for weeks.” — Anonymous

• “A leader who keeps his ear to the ground allows his rear end to become a target.” — Angie Papadakis

• “The greatest monarch upon the proudest throne is obliged to sit upon his own arse.” — Benjamin Franklin

• “He that makes himself an ass must not take it ill if men ride him.” — Thomas Fuller

• “Your brain can only absorb what your ass can endure.” P. Dan Wiwchar

• “The sun don’t shine on the same dog’s ass all the time.” — Catfish Hunter

• “Hell, by the time a man scratches his ass, clears his throat and tells me how smart he is, we’ve already wasted fifteen minutes.” — Lyndon Johnson

• “Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.” — Ernest Hemingway

• “Knowledge without wisdom is like a load of books on the back of an ass.” — Japanese proverb

And my own contribution: “The next person who calls me a Volcanic Ass will be the 7,942nd to have had that original thought.”

You got any?

A month ago, the question of whether or not to call Hawai’i’s first Constitutional Convention in 30 years seemed the hottest local issue likely to be on the November ballot, with Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann and other incumbent office-holders seemingly cruising to re-election with little opposition.

Now, the mayor’s races in Honolulu, Kaua’i and the Big Island are all hotly competitive, there are interesting council races around the state and it seems increasingly likely that a rail transit question will be on the O’ahu ballot.

ConCon has slipped into the background and the discussion has gone nearly silent, raising the question of whether its prospects are improved or diminished in an election that is suddenly generating excitement elsewhere.

A hot-button rail initiative, especially, would draw away attention and resources that otherwise would have gone into advocacy for or against a ConCon.

My guess is that while the new developments may mean a quieter ConCon debate, they may well increase the chances that enough voter support will materialize to call a Constitutional Convention.

According to the Advertiser’s Hawai’i Poll, partisans on both sides of the rail dispute agree by a good majority that voters should get a say on the matter, a strong showing of support for direct participatory democracy that could transfer to the ConCon question.

The embarrassing fumbling by elections officials on qualifying candidates at the filing deadline seems to be increasing the sense that something is wrong with our political system that needs to be fixed.

Whether or not a ConCon is the sexiest issue on the ballot, it remains one of the most important things we’ll decide this year.

Groups like HawaiiConCon.org will have to find ways to keep a vibrant discussion going — not only on whether to call a ConCon, but how it should be set up to assure a true citizens’ convention and not a gathering of the status quo.

I was about to throw out another junk mail from a real estate broker offering to sell my house when I noticed something odd about it — it was addressed not to me, but jointly to my daughter and son.

Basically, the broker who described herself as a probate specialist was offering her services to help my kids as the presumptive heirs prepare the house for sale when my wife and I take our eternal rest so they can get their cash quickly.

“You want your money … when???” she pitched. “Unfortunately, probate is a process. It can take months before your property is ready to put on the market. While you are waiting, we can help you.”

Their property? Never mind that my wife and I are still breathing and hope to continue to do so for awhile, unless the broker knows something we don’t.

My wife and I have never filed public papers naming anybody as our heirs, although we probably should.

This solicitation struck me as slimier than ambulance-chasing. It’s beyond even hearse-chasing; hopefully the hearses won’t be rolling for a bit. Perhaps most insulting is her assumption that my kids are as sleazy and greedy as she is.

I’m curious as to whether this is a common practice and if others have received similar entreaties.

We’re going to need a heavy supply of deodorant to get through the Manoa-Makiki City Council race to replace Ann Kobayashi and the Manoa state House race to replace Kirk Caldwell after the highly questionable actions of elections officials to accommodate Democratic candidates at the filing deadline.

Kobayashi set off a flurry of activity when she announced hours before the filing deadline that she was leaving her council seat to run against Mayor Mufi Hannemann.

Former councilman and mayoral candidate Duke Bainum filed to run for Kobayashi’s council seat, and Caldwell, the House majority leader, scrambled to get in nomination papers to oppose Bainum — with the encouragement of Hannemann.

Caldwell had already filed papers to run for re-election to his House seat and didn’t have to withdraw before he filed for the council.

In another scramble, Hannemann aide Chrystn Eads rushed to get in papers to run for Caldwell’s House seat against Republican Jerilyn Jeffryes.

Elections officials accepted the nomination papers for both Eads and Caldwell — partly as a result of badgering by Democratic chairman Brian Schatz — despite serious questions about whether they had obtained enough legal signatures by the 4:30 p.m. deadline.

In Caldwell’s case, an employee of the city clerk signed for him when he was apparently one signature short, a troubling breach of impartiality by elections administrators.

The state elections office ruled Eads’ filing invalid the next day, but allowed Democrats to appoint a replacement candidate — Isaac Choy, who has served as campaign treasurer for prominent Democratic legislators Caldwell, Calvin Say and Brian Taniguchi.

If Eads’ late nomination papers had been properly rejected on filing day and if Caldwell had been required to withdraw as a House candidate before filing for the council, there would have been no duly filed candidate for the Democrats to replace and they would have been out of luck.

Caldwell says he’ll seek a ruling from the city clerk on whether his filing for the council seat was legal, and Bainum may also challenge it.

But let’s be real: What are the chances that Democratic patronage workers are going to tell the House Democratic majority leader who is supported by the Democratic mayor of Honolulu that he can’t run.

Democrats control 44 of the 51 House seats and nearly all of the supposedly nonpartisan Honolulu council seats, and there’s no chance that they’ll lose their dominance in this election, whatever happens in Manoa.

Tainting the process with seedy manipulations to get their way on a couple of seats only feeds public doubts about the fairness of our elections.

Whew, with presidential fluffs and local candidates filing madly, it’s all politics as we “flASHback” on the week’s news that amused and confused:

• Barack Obama’s coming home for a Honolulu fundraiser that will cost $2,300 to attend — $10,000 if you want to go to a private reception. Ah, the politics of change. You shake his hand, he shakes you down.

• John McCain is getting grief about his age after gaffes that included confusing Russia’s Vladimir Putin with the German president. Give the guy a break. He can’t help it if he doesn’t remember what he forgot.

• Councilwoman Ann Kobayashi stirred city politics with her late decision to run against Mayor Mufi Hannemann. After three years of snarling between these two, it seems more like a fight for alpha dog than chief executive.

• Duke Bainum, who lost to Hannemann in 2004, will run for Kobayashi’s council seat after spending much of the last four years out of state tending to “family business.” I didn’t know sulking was his family’s business.

• When Rep. Kirk Caldwell came up a signature short on his nomination papers filed with the city clerk to run against Bainum, a worker in the clerk’s office signed for him. Isn’t it comforting that our election overseers are so scrupulous about not showing favoritism?

• Election officials let Democratic House candidate Chrystn Eads take her nomination papers out of the office to get signatures, then re-enter after closing time to file. If the LPGA operated that way, Michelle Wie would be hoisting a trophy instead of explaining a disqualification.

• GOP chairman Willes Lee said the party fielded candidates in only 29 of the 51 House districts because he’s more interested in quality than quantity. You can never be too careful about the quality of your losers.

• Gov. Linda Lingle skipped the filing frenzy for an energy conservation meeting in the Bahamas. Typical. She’s never wasted energy on anybody’s political fortunes but her own.

• Leaders of the anti-rail initiative say they’ll accept the will of the voters if they get on the ballot and lose. I’m sure that’ll be gracious, like Dick Tuck after he lost a California election: “The people have spoken — the bastards.”

And the quote of the week …

… from Democratic chairman Brian Schatz on the filing disputes:

“Hawai’i Republicans have already dragged these elections into the mud.”

They’ll find plenty of Democrats waiting.