Rafael Halperin, Israeli businessman and professional wrestler, died he was 87.

Rafael Halperin and Family

Rafael Halperin was a prominent Israeli businessman and the author of several religious books and an encyclopedia. In the 1950s, he worked in the United States as a professional wrestler in Vince McMahon Sr.'s Capitol Wrestling in the 1950s. He later became a Baal teshuva, embracing Orthodox Judaism.^[1]

(1924 – 20 August 2011) 

Early life

Born in Austria, Halperin moved to Palestine with his family in 1933. The Halperin family moved to Bnei Brak the following year, and Rafael studied in Haifa and Jerusalem as a teenager. He also excelled in several athletic pursuits, including weightlifting and karate.^[2] He entered competitions and became the national champion in karate, boxing, and bodybuilding.^[2][3] He is also said to have been a skilled diamond cutter.^[2]

Professional wrestling

Halperin decided that he wanted to open a chain of athletic facilities, so he began wrestling professionally to earn the necessary money. His career took him to the United States, where he was reported to have won 159 consecutive matches. He earned the displeasure of some promoters and fellow wrestlers because he treated his matches as legitimate athletic contests rather than a scripted performance. He refused to yield, however, as he felt that he was upholding the dignity of his country. He also wrestled as a face (fan favorite), refusing to break any rules, for the same reason.^[2]
Halperin continued to wrestle in the United States and Canada into the 1960s. During this time, he faced such opponents as Antonino Rocca while competing for Capitol Wrestling.^[2] He later returned to Israel, where he is credited with popularizing professional wrestling.^[4]

Business

After retiring from wrestling, Halperin held several jobs in his home country. He fulfilled his dream of opening a chain of athletic centers. He also became an author, writing several books including an encyclopedia and a weight-loss guide. During the Yom Kippur War, he served in the Israel Defense Forces.^[2] Halperin also founded a chain of optical centers in Israel.^[2][3] In 2008, he and his wife Bertie decided to divide the optical business among their five children.^[5]
Halperin had also been ordained a rabbi.^[5] Because of his orthodox Jewish beliefs, he was opposed to businesses operating on Shabbat. To combat this "desecration" of the holy day, Halperin led an initiative to create a credit card containing a chip that renders it inoperable on Saturday. It is also designed not to function in any store known to operate on Shabbat.^[3][6]


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Patricia Hardy, American actress, died from colon cancer she was 79.

Patricia Hardy was an American television and film actress whose career was most active during the 1950s died from colon cancer she was 79.. She was the wife of actor Richard Egan.

(December 23, 1931 – August 20, 2011) 


Hardy, who was originally from Brooklyn, New York, was of Irish descent.^[1] She won several beauty pageants during her early years, including Miss Brooklyn, Miss Coney Island and Miss New York Press Photographer.^[1] She also appeared on the cover of Look Magazine.^[1] She began her entertainment career in New York City, performing at the Copacabana [nightclub] with several well-known actors, including Danny Thomas and Jimmy Durante.^[1]
She met her future husband, actor Richard Egan, in 1956.^[1] The couple married in June 1958 and remained together until Egan's death in July 1987.^[1] The couple had four daughters - Patricia, Kathleen, Colleen, and Maureen Egan, a writer and music video director^[1], as well as a son, Richard Egan, Jr., who founded Vagrant Records,
Hardy moved from New York to Los Angeles to pursue a film and television career. She was cast in several 1950s television episodes including the series State Trooper, Perry Mason, The Loretta Young Show, Lassie and Schlitz Playhouse, in which she co-starred in an episode with James Dean.^[1] Her film credits included Girls in the Night in 1953 and Don't Knock the Rock in 1957. ^[1]


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Lou Zaeske, American founder of English-only movement, advocate for Czech ethnic causes, died he was 69.

Louis W. "Lou" Zaeske, Jr. was a mechanical engineer and a political activist in Bryan, Texas died he was 69.. In 1988, he founded the interest group, the American Ethnic Coalition, which lobbied for English as the official language of the United States.

(December 17, 1941 – August 30, 2011)

Early years

Zaeske was born at Randolph Air Force Base, then Randolph Field, in San Antonio, the son of Louis Zaeske, Sr. (1906–1991) and Agnes V. Zaeske (née Prihoda; 1910–1999).^[1] Louis and Agnes Zaeske are interred at New Bremen Cemetery near Coy City in Karnes County, Texas.^[2]
The senior Zaeske made his career in the United States Air Force, and the family lived in various parts of the United States. Zaeske graduated in 1964 from Texas A&M University in College Station Station with a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering. He was a member of the TAMU Corps of Cadets and a squadron commanding officer. He subsequently studied at the graduate level at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. For more than thirty-five years, he operated Zaeske Engineering Company in Bryan.^[3]

Czech heritage

Himself of German and Czech descent, Zaeske was heavily involved in the promotion of Czech heritage groups. He frequently made public presentations on the migration of the Czech peoples from Eastern Europe. For many years, Zaeske was the president of the Brazos Valley Czech Heritage Society in Bryan.^[4] Zaeske was a member of the Czech Educational Foundation of Texas, which has established chairs for Czech studies at TAMU, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of North Texas at Denton.^[5]
He was also affiliated with the Burleson County's Czech Heritage Museum, and the Kolache Festival in Caldwell, as well as the Texas Czech Heritage and Cultural Center^[6] in La Grange.^[3] Zaeske helped found the Texas Polka Music Museum in Schulenburg.^[7]

Political activities

In 1990, Zaeske ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for the Texas State Senate because the Democratic incumbent in Senate District 5, Kent Caperton, refused to support Official English. Caperton, however, did not seek reelection in 1990,^[8] and the Democrat James W. "Jim" Turner, subsequently elected in 1996 as a U.S. representative, defeated Zaske for the seat.^[9]
The American Ethnic Coalition claimed that twenty-three members of the Texas State Legislature and four U.S. representatives from Texas, all of whom were elected with coalition backing and took office in 1989, were committed to Officlal English. Zaeske's organization called for abolition of the printing of literature in Spanish by the Texas Workforce Commission and allowing public school districts to reject bilingual education programs. Zaeske urged that Texas Comptroller Bob Bullock be required to report to the legislature on taxpayer costs of bilingual programs and that Attorney General Jim Mattox rule on the constitutionality of such measures. Zaeske's coalition proposed that foreign instructors in Texas public colleges. many of whom teach basic courses at universities, be required to pass an English proficiency test. Zaeske also spoke against a Texas law that permits lower tuition for students from Mexico who attend Texas public colleges: "We really can't understand why the citizens of this state should be required to underwrite foreigners going to school here when many of the children of citizens of this state are unable to go to college here because of not being able to pay the tuition."^[10]
In 1992, Zaeske supported Patrick J. Buchanan's unsuccessful insurgent challenge to the renomination of U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush.^[11] In 1993, Zaeske ran as an Independent in a special election for the United States Senate seat vacated by incoming United States Secretary of the Treasury Lloyd M. Bentsen. He polled barely 2,000 votes, which was handily won in a runoff by the Republican state treasurer Kay Bailey Hutchison.^[12]
In 2008, Zaeske and his wife, Jo Ann (née Macha), supported former Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas for the Republican presidential nomination, ultimately won by U.S. Senator John S. McCain of Arizona. Jo Ann Zaeske told an interviewer that their support for Huckabee was based on the candidate's embrace of "family values." Lou Zaeske said that could not support McCain in part because of McCain's divorce. He even indicated that he would vote for Barack H. Obama in a contest against McCain because he thought that Obama could work across party lines, an argument also used at the time by the McCain supporters.^[13]

Death

Zaeske died at the age of sixty-nine at St. Joseph Regional Health Center in Bryan, Texas. In addition to his wife of forty-seven years, Zaeske was survived by two daughters and five grandchildren.^[3]


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John Bancroft, British architect, died he was 82.

John Bancroft was a British architect noted for his Brutalist designs for the Greater London Council died he was 82.
He joined the Architects’ Department of the GLC in 1957 and led the project to build Pimlico School from 1964 to 1970. The building was demolished in 2010 by Westminster City Council.
Bancroft explained the design of the school in a 2008 interview: "I wanted pupils to feel they were part of a community... So I divided the place up into a form of glass screen so you would get views down from the place that you would get views down from the level you were at down into the other parts of the school. And also I wanted to make sure that you could from time to time glimpse the outside so that you would know where you were in the great surrounding community that Pimlico is, and the buildings surrounding it"^[2]
His other school designs include the Elfrida Rathbone Girls' School in Camden and the Philippa Fawcett Teacher Training College in Streatham.
Bancroft was a staunch defender of the GLC's unpopular Brutalist landmarks. Though he did not design it,^[3] he argued that the County Hall Island Block, vacant for 20 years, should have been listed as an early example of open-plan office architecture^[4] and expressed himself "quite horrified"^[5] by the demolition of Pimlico School. Bancroft devoted much of his career to building conservation and was an active member of the Twentieth Century Society, the Victorian Society and an avid supporter of the charity Docomomo.



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David "Honeyboy" Edwards, American blues guitarist and singer, died from heart failure he was 96.

David"Honeyboy" Edwards  was a Delta blues guitarist and singer from the American South died from heart failure he was  96.. Edwards was the last of the original Delta bluesmen before his 2011 death.
(June 28, 1915 – August 29, 2011)

Life and career

Edwards was born in Shaw, Mississippi.^[1] Edwards was 14 years old when he left home to travel with blues man Big Joe Williams, beginning life as an itinerant musician which he led throughout the 1930s and 1940s. He performed with famed blues musician Robert Johnson with whom he developed a close friendship. Honeyboy was present on the night Johnson drank poisoned whiskey which killed him,^[2] and his story has become the definitive version of Johnson's demise. After Johnson's passing, Edwards knew and played with many of the leading bluesmen in the Mississippi Delta, which included Charley Patton, Tommy Johnson, and Johnny Shines.
He described the itinerant bluesman's life:

“

On Saturday, somebody like me or Robert Johnson would go into one of these little towns, play for nickels and dimes. And sometimes, you know, you could be playin' and have such a big crowd that it would block the whole street. Then the police would come around, and then I'd go to another town and where I could play at. But most of the time, they would let you play. Then sometimes the man who owned a country store would give us something like a couple of dollars to play on a Saturday afternoon. We could hitchhike, transfer from truck to truck, or if we couldn't catch one of them, we'd go to the train yard, 'cause the railroad was all through that part of the country then...we might hop a freight, go to St. Louis or Chicago. Or we might hear about where a job was paying off - a highway crew, a railroad job, a levee camp there along the river, or some place in the country where a lot of people were workin' on a farm. You could go there and play and everybody would hand you some money. I didn't have a special place then. Anywhere was home. Where I do good, I stay. When it gets bad and dull, I'm gone.[3]

”

Folklorist Alan Lomax recorded Edwards in Clarksdale, Mississippi in 1942 for the Library of Congress.^[1] Edwards recorded 15 album sides of music.^[1] The songs included "Wind Howlin' Blues" and "The Army Blues".^[4] He did not record again commercially until 1951, when he recorded "Who May Be Your Regular Be" for Arc under the name of Mr Honey.^[1] Edwards claims to have written several well-known blues songs including "Long Tall Woman Blues" and "Just Like Jesse James".^[1] His discography for the 1950s and 1960s amounts to nine songs from seven sessions.^[4] From 1974 to 1977, he recorded material for a full length LP, I've Been Around, released in 1978 on the independent Trix Records label by producer/ethnomusicologist Peter B. Lowry.

Edwards performing in a shirt publicizing his autobiography.

His autobiography is entitled The World Don't Owe Me Nothing: The Life and Times of Delta Bluesman Honeyboy Edwards. The book was published in 1997 by Chicago Review Press. The work recounts his life from childhood, his journeys through the South and his arrival in Chicago in the early 1950s. A companion CD by the same title was released by Earwig Music shortly afterwards. His long association with Earwig Music and Michael Frank spawned many late career albums on a variety of independent labels from the 1980s on. He has also recorded at a church-turned-studio in Salina, Kansas and released albums on the APO record label. Edwards continued the rambling life he describes in his autobiography as he still toured the world well into his 90s.
On July 17, 2011 his manager Michael Frank announced that Edwards would be retiring due to ongoing health issues.^[5]
On August 29, 2011 Edwards died at his home, of congestive heart failure, at approx. 3 a.m.^[6] According to events listings on the Metromix Chicago website, Edwards had been scheduled to perform at noon that day, at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago's Millennium Park.^[7]

Discography

• Who May Be Your Regular Be (Arc, 1951)
• Build A Cave (Artist, 1951)
• Drop Down Mama (Chess, 1953)
• Old Friends (Earwig, 1979)
• White Windows (Blue Suit, 1988)
• Delta Bluesman (Earwig/Indigo, 1992)
• I've Been Around (Savoy Jazz, 1995)
• Crawling Kingsnake (Testament, 1997)
• World Don't Owe Me Nothing [live] (Earwig, 1997)
• Don't Mistreat a Fool (Genes, 1999)
• Shake 'Em on Down (APO, 2000)
• Mississippi Delta Bluesman (Smithsonian Folkways, 2001)
• Back to the Roots (Wolf, 2001)
• Roamin' and Ramblin (Earwig, 2008)

Film

In the 1991 documentary The Search for Robert Johnson, Edwards recounts stories about Johnson, including his murder.^{[citation needed]}
The story of Edwards' own life is told in the 2010 award-winning film Honeyboy and the History of the Blues from Free Range Studios, directed by Scott Taradash. The film features stories of Edwards' life from picking cotton as a sharecropper to traveling the world performing his music. Artists who appear in the film include Keith Richards, Robert Cray, Joe Perry, Lucinda Williams, B.B. King, Big Joe Williams, and Ace Atkins.^{[citation needed]}
Edwards appeared in the 2007 film, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.

Awards and achievement

• 1996: Inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame^[1]
• 1998: Keeping the Blues Alive Award in literature for The World Don't Owe Me Nothing
• 2002: National Endowment for the Arts, National Heritage Fellowship Award
• 2005: Acoustic Blues-Artist of the Year (26th W.C. Handy Blues Awards)
• 2007: Acoustic Artist of the Year (The Blues Music Awards)
• 2008: Grammy Award; Best Traditional Blues Album for Last of the Great Mississippi Delta Bluesmen: Live In Dallas
• 2010: Lifetime Achievement Award, Grammy; Mississippi Governor's Awards For Excellence in the Arts
• 2010: Lifetime Achievement Award, National Guitar Museum

His albums White Windows, The World Don't Owe Me Nothin', Mississippi Delta Blues Man, and a recent album in which he appears with Robert Lockwood, Jr., Henry Townsend and Pinetop Perkins, Last Of The Great Mississippi Delta Bluesmen: Live In Dallas,^[8] were all nominated for the W. C. Handy Award. The latter album also won a Grammy Award in 2008.



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Khamis Gaddafi, Libyan seventh son of Muammar Gaddafi, commander of the Khamis Brigade, died from airstrike he wast 28.

Khamis Gaddafi was the seventh and youngest son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and the military commander in charge of the Khamis Brigade of the Libyan Army. He was part of his father's inner circle.^[4]
During the Libyan civil war, Gaddafi was a major target for opposition forces trying to overthrow his father. He was frequently rumored to have been killed during the war, and now it is widely believed that he died on 29 August 2011 when the car he was traveling in, was destroyed by a NATO helicopter or by a technical. On 15 October, the pro-Gaddafi TV station Arrai TV posted a message mourning his death on 29 August.^[1]
(27 May 1983 – 29 August 2011)

 Education and career

At the age of three, Khamis Gaddafi was injured in the 15 April 1986 United States bombing of Libya, suffering head injuries when the Bab al-Azizia military compound was attacked in retaliation for the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing.^[5] He graduated from the military academy in Tripoli, receiving a bachelor’s degree in military arts and science, further graduating from the Frunze Military Academy in Moscow and the Academy of the General Staff Academy of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. In 2008, Gaddafi visited Algeria, where he was received by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.^[3]
In April 2010, he began a masters degree at the IE Business School (formerly known as Instituto de Empresa), in Madrid.^[3] However, he was expelled by the institution in March 2011 for "his links to the attacks against the Libyan population".^[6]
In early 2011, Gaddafi worked as an intern at AECOM Technology Corporation. According to Paul Gennaro, AECOM's Senior Vice President for Global Communications, Gaddafi was touring the United States in February 2011 as part of his internship, including visiting military sites and landmarks. This trip was cut short on 17 February after the Libyan civil war began, and Gaddafi returned to Libya. U.S. government officials later denied any role in planning, advising or paying for the trip.^[7]

Role in the Libyan civil war

After hurrying back to Libya to aid his father in the civil war, Khamis Gaddafi commanded the assault on Zawiya, leading the Khamis Brigade, a special forces brigade of the Libyan Armed Forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi.^[8][9][10] The battle resulted in pro-Gaddafi forces retaking the city. He also assisted in suppressing anti-regime demonstrations in and around the capital Tripoli in late February-early March. His forces also took part in the Battle of Misrata. In June 2011, he was reported to be commanding pro-Gaddafi forces in Zliten by a soldier captured from his brigade who also reported that Khamis Gaddafi had told his troops to "take Misrata or I will kill you myself. If you don’t take Misrata, we are finished."^[11]

Rumors of death

13 March 2011

On 20 March 2011, it was reported by the anti-Gaddafi Al Manara Media that Khamis Gaddafi had died from injuries sustained when pilot Muhammad Mokhtar Osman allegedly crashed his plane into Bab al-Azizia a week earlier. This was not confirmed by any independent news source. The crashing of the plane itself had also not been previously reported or confirmed by any other independent media except Al Manara and the Algerian Shuruk newspaper, which is closely connected to Al Manara, and with it there is a possibility of the reports being part of the propaganda operations by the opposition.^[12][13]
The pro-Gaddafi Libyan government subsequently denied that he was killed on 21 March.^[14] U.S. Secretary Hillary Clinton stated that she was aware of reports that one of Gaddafi's sons had been killed in non-coalition air strikes, after hearing them from "many different sources", but that the "evidence is not sufficient" for her to confirm this.^[15][16] On 25 March 2011, Al Arabiya television reported that a source had confirmed the death of Khamis Gaddafi,^[17] though others including Al Jazeera continued to call it a rumour.^[18]
On 29 March 2011, the Libyan government showed footage of what it said was live footage of Khamis Gaddafi greeting supporters in Tripoli, in an attempt to refute the claims,^[19] though it had used false live images before and these images were not verified.^[20] On 9 June 2011, a captured pro-Gaddafi soldier in Misrata told the rebels that Khamis Gaddafi was alive in Zliten, and was leading the soldiers there.^[11]

5 August 2011

On 5 August 2011, citing spies operating among the ranks of forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi, Mohammed Zawawi, a spokesman for the United Revolutionary Forces, told the Agence France Press news agency that Khamis Gaddafi had been killed overnight, stating that "there was a aircraft attack by NATO on the Gaddafi operations room in Zliten and there are around 32 Gaddafi troops killed. One of them is Khamis."^[21]
This report was officially denied by Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim. "It's false news. They invented the news about Mr. Khamis Gaddafi in Zliten to cover up their killing," Ibrahim told Reuters in Tripoli. "This is a dirty trick to cover up their crime in Zliten and the killing of the al-Marabit family."^[22] NATO was also unable to confirm the reports of Khamis's death.^[23] On 9 August, a man who appeared to be Khamis Gaddafi was on Libyan state television speaking to a woman who had allegedly been severely injured by a NATO airstrike.^[24]

22 August 2011

On 22 August, Al Jazeera reported that the bodies of both Khamis Gaddafi and his father's intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi may have been discovered.^[25] However, a rebel commander later stated that he believed Khamis Gaddafi was in Bab al-Azizia.^[26]

29 August 2011

On 29 August, it was reported that anti-Gaddafi fighters 60 km south of Tripoli claimed that a NATO Apache helicopter had fired on Khamis Gaddafi's Toyota Land Cruiser, destroying the vehicle. A man who claimed to be Khamis Gaddafi's bodyguard said he had been killed. No visual confirmation was immediately available.^[27] Two days later The Guardian interviewed a former guard being held captive in Tarhuna. His personal guard, Abdul Salam Taher Fagri, a 17 year old from Sabha, recruited in Tripoli, later confirmed that Khamis Gaddafi was indeed killed in this attack.^[2] He told the newspaper "I was in the truck behind him...when his car was hit. He was burned." Three other guards being held in separate cells apparently gave similar accounts, leading their captors to believe the accounts of all four to be credible.^[28] Some accounts of the attack that reportedly killed Gaddafi suggested fire from a technical, rather than a helicopter, destroyed his vehicle.^[2]
On 30 August, the pro-Gaddafi Libyan state television denied that he was dead. The National Transitional Council claimed on 4 September that it was now certain Khamis Gaddafi was dead and had been buried near Bani Walid.^[29] Mid-September, a report stated that Gaddafi was in Bani Walid, but had left the city and his men to their fate.^[30] However, the International Business Times reported on 15 September that Khamis Gaddafi was still presumed dead.^[31] On 15 October, the pro-Gaddafi TV station Arrai TV posted a message mourning his death on 29 August.

Survival rumours

At least one report published after the capture of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi asserted that the older Gaddafi told interrogators that Khamis Gaddafi was still alive and may be hiding in Tarhuna, but this has not been confirmed by other accounts.^[1][32] On 25 February 2012, Stratfor reported the capture of Khamis Gaddafi by fighters from Zintan.^[33] This was denied by the NTC.^[34] In April 2012, New York Times journalist Robert Worth met with former Tripoli Yarmouk prison captor Marwan Gdoura, who confessed that after execution of around 100 prisoners he fled from the city with remaining 200 loyalist under command of Khamis Gaddafi, which he saw killed in gunbattle. Afterwards, he witnessed his older brother Saif al-Islam Gaddafi receiving condolences in Bani Walid.^[35]



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Mark John Ovendale English football goalkeeper, died he was 38

Mark John Ovendale was an English football goalkeeper  died he was 38.

(22 November 1973 – 29 August 2011) 

Playing career

Ovendale was born in Leicester and began his career with local village team Leverington before joining Wisbech Town. He moved to Northampton Town, playing six league games in the 1994-95 season. He joined Welsh champions Barry Town in August 1997 and after a successful first season, joined Bournemouth for a fee of £30,000 in July 1998.
He quickly became the first choice in the Bournemouth goal, making his Cherries' debut on the opening day of the 1998-99 season, a 2-0 win at home to Lincoln City. He remained a regular over the next two seasons before a £425,000 move took him to Luton Town in August 2000.
Luton manager Ricky Hill installed Ovendale as his first choice goalkeeper, but he struggled to make an impact and spent the season in and out of the side, with former first choice Nathan Abbey replacing him on a number of occasions. With Abbey released and Luton relegated at the end of the season, Ovendale found himself as second choice goalkeeper, following the signing of Carl Emberson.
He appeared only sporadically over the next two seasons and was released in 2003. In late July that year he resigned for Barry Town, but just two weeks later joined York City. York were relegated to the Conference at the end of the season and Ovendale was one of a number of players released.
He signed for non-league Tiverton Town in the summer of 2004, where he remained until May 2006 when he joined Welsh side Carmarthen Town. He played for Carmarthen in the Inter-Toto Cup against Finnish side Tampere United, but left in July 2006 to join Newport County, signing as a replacement for the injured Tony Pennock. He was forced to retire from playing in June 2007 due to a hip injury.

Coaching career

Mark joined Wimborne Town in a coaching role in August 2008 but made a few appearances in goal for the club during the 2008-09 season.




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