Henry Cabot Lodge the Younger tends to be remembered for losing his Senate seat to JFK in '52, but he deserves to be recalled as well for giving up his seat during the Second World War, when he became the first United States senator since the Civil War to resign for active military service, as a tank commander in North Africa.

Before entering politics, he was a reporter for the Boston Evening Transcript and a drinking buddy of H. L. Mencken, alongside whom he covered the 1932 Democratic Convention and took in the Chicago speakeasy scene:

"At the end of the room was a piano and a species of male singer, in vogue at the time, known as a crooner. Mencken and I ordered drinks and, as we stood drinking, the crooner's voice became more and more objectionable. Finally, Mencken said to the young lady behind the bar, 'I'd like to shoot that son of a bitch.' The young lady did not bat an eye or change her supercilious expression. She reached under the counter, pulled out a Thompson submachine gun, laid it on the counter, and with a condescending fluttering of her eyelids said, indifferently, 'Go ahead.' "

Named for his grandfather who famously killed US involvement in the League of Nations, Lodge was an internationalist who would serve as ambassador to the UN.

Campaigning for the vice-presidency on the GOP ticket in 1960, Lodge is said to have chagrined his staff by donning pajamas for a daily nap. Four years later he won the New Hampshire primary without even showing up, on a write-in candidacy while he was on the other side of world as ambassador to Saigon.

Here he is on the covers of Time and Life.

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So what's the latest at today's Mass. GOP website, the one topped by the slogan "All Politics Begins at Home," as the rival Democrats converge on Boston this week to nominate Massachusetts' junior senator for president? Well, there's that Reagan tribute, from June. But the News & Events section hasn't been updated since the end of October. If this isn't the cyber-equivalent of an elephant's graveyard, it's close.

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The New Republic is running a convention blog that is quite handy for those of us interested in the politics but unable to tolerate the actual speechifying. Also useful for ducking the Globe's Dem-o-Rama coverage: NRO * Weekly Standard * Technorati Politics

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Turns out Michele at A Small Victory beat me to it on the Woody Allen connotations of John Kerry's photo update of Dukakis in a Tank.

Offering a Willy Wonka interpretation are Ramblings' Journal and Otto-da-Fe.

While on the topic of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, it should be noted Roald Dahl's original book is far better than the movie. Would the roomful of tapping squirrels who toss bad nuts down the hole be busy on Causeway Street this week?