Kudos to the League of Women Voters of Hawai’i for trying to get a discussion going on a Constitutional Convention with a workshop and excellent resources on its Web site.

The question of whether to call Hawai’i’s first ConCon in 30 years will be on the general election ballot, as required by the state Constitution, but there’s been eerily little public discussion amid all the clamor about rail transit.

This is a once-in-a-decade opportunity for a close look at the structure of the state government, and we owe ourselves a good talk on the matter whether we’re for a ConCon or against.

The League of Women Voters, which opposed a ConCon last time around but is neutral this year, is holding its workshop Sept. 6 from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the state Capitol auditorium.

Co-sponsors are the Hawaii Institute for Public Affairs and the Richardson School of Law, and speakers include constitutional experts Robert F. Williams, Anne Feder Lee and Jon Van Dyke.

You can get details at the league’s Web site. The league also has an excellent report from its study committee on the pros and cons of holding a ConCon and a hypertext copy of the Constitution.

Kevin Cronin, the state’s chief elections officer who is under fire for a number of missteps since he was hired from Wisconsin last year, had better pray that spoiled ballots because of overvoting in next month’s primary election are down from 2006.

Cronin is taking heat from both the Democratic and Republican parties for ignoring state law and failing to show them the primary ballots before they were printed.

Now that they’ve seen the ballots, both parties are concerned about a new requirement that voters check off the political party they choose before voting instead of just filling out the ballot for the party whose primary they wish to vote in.

The parties are worried that having to designate a party preference will confuse voters who consider themselves independents. They fret that these voters will check the independent box and then have their ballots disqualified if they vote in the Democratic or Republican primaries instead of for the two independent candidates on the ballot.

Cronin said voters who do that can have their mistake corrected at the polling place, but admits the third of voters who cast their ballots absentee could be out of luck.

He says multiparty voting was already a major problem under the old system, with nearly 2 percent of the ballots disqualified for that reason in 2006. He insists the new process is less confusing and will significantly reduce spoiled ballots.

The proof will be in the numbers. There were 5,231 invalidated ballots in 2006, and if the number does go down significantly, perhaps Cronin can start turning around the mounting criticism he’s facing.

But if the number of spoiled ballots jumps, he could be on his way back to Wisconsin.

I look more closely at the blunders that have bedeviled state and county election overseers in my column in the Opinion section of today’s Advertiser, “Election officials earn poor marks.”

I love comedies, so I took in Ben Stiller’s new filmed-on-Kaua’i movie, “Tropic Thunder.”

Intending no offense to my touchy friends on the Garden Isle, I have to say that this was one of the lamest films I’ve ever seen.

The protesting Special Olympics folks were right that there was nothing funny in Robert Downey Jr.’s repeated use of the R-word in “Tropic Thunder” to make fun of people with mental disabilities.

But there wasn’t much that was funny in any of this snoozer about an all-star cast of actors who become embroiled in a real war while filming war scenes for their movie.

If it wasn’t so offensive and badly in need of retirement, the R-word would be an apt way to describe “Tropic Thunder,” which is several intellectual notches below “Borat” and without the occasional hilarious scene.

The producers should have seen the omen when Owen Wilson bailed out of the cast after an apparent suicide attempt.

If I had to see “Tropic Thunder,” I would have liked to have seen it with respected local First Amendment attorney Jeff Portnoy, whose name the film gave to Jack Black’s drugged-out character who trades comedically on excessive flatulence.

As Hawai’i’s most prominent free-speech advocate, there wouldn’t be much poor Portnoy could do but laugh it off, which would be more of a chuckle than this stinker got out of me.

I spent last week in Waikiki enjoying the company of my three siblings from California and New York for the first time since our mother died in November.

A vacation for me is a vacation from the news, and I didn’t spend a lot of time following the week’s events. Barack Obama’s visit, the Olympics and  the legal victory for rail transit opponents all went right past me.

The one bit of news that did catch my attention was the Kingdom of Hawai’i Nation’s Statehood Day takeover of ‘Iolani Palace that resulted in 23 arrests, and that was only because it occurred after my wife and sister-in-law toured the palace.

If not for the danger to palace employees and priceless artifacts, it would have been laughable to have two fringe sovereignty groups with competing self-proclaimed monarchs attempting to occupy the palace. The “king” of last week’s occupation, Akahi Nui, couldn’t find the throne he planned to chain himself to.

It’s been surprising that credible Hawaiian rights leaders have been so muted in criticizing this idiocy that tarnishes all of their efforts.

No laughing matter were reports that Honolulu police officers refused to help the palace employees under siege, claiming it wasn’t their jurisdiction. The last time I checked, their jurisdiction was the island of O’ahu.

It would be reprehensible for any citizen — much less a police officer — to do nothing while watching a woman being assaulted.

Police Chief Boisse Correa has ordered an internal review of the department’s initial response, and let’s hope it will include anything the chief may have done to lead his officers to believe they should stand down in the event of trouble at the palace.

We remember Correa going to the palace in street clothes in May to give kid-gloves treatment to the other would-be monarch, Mahealani Kahau, whose Hawaiian Kingdom Government was the first group to attempt an occupation.

Volcanic Ash will be dark this week while I chase around with with my visiting brother and sisters. See you next week.