The historian and political scientist Tony Judt, author of Postwar and Ill Fares the Land, has died at 62 of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, of which it has been said, "The body dies, but there is no direct effect upon the mind. You’re in there, but trapped." Judt himself described it as "progressive imprisonment without parole." It's one of Nature's worst tricks on suffering humanity. Judt, an old-fashioned man of the left--the social democratic left, not the loony fringe--displayed courage and dignity throughout the two years of his calvary, and never let it silence him. Only death managed to do that.