The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (WMF) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best known as the hosting platform for Wikipedia, a crowdsourced online encyclopedia, it also hosts other related projects and MediaWiki, a wiki software.

The Wikimedia Foundation was established in 2003 in St. Petersburg, Florida, by Jimmy Wales as a nonprofit way to fund Wikipedia, Wiktionary, and other crowdsourced wiki projects that had until then been hosted by Bomis, Wales's for-profit company. The Foundation finances itself mainly through millions of small donations from Wikipedia readers, collected through email campaigns and annual fundraising banners placed on Wikipedia and its sister projects. These are complemented by grants from philanthropic organizations and tech companies, and starting in 2022, by services income from Wikimedia Enterprise.

The Foundation has grown rapidly throughout its existence. By 2022, it employed around 700 staff and contractors, with annual revenues of $155 million, annual expenses of $146 million, net assets of $240 million and a growing endowment, which surpassed $100 million in June 2021.

Mission
The Wikimedia Foundation's mission is "to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally."

To serve this mission, the Foundation provides the technical and organizational infrastructure to enable members of the public to develop wiki content in multiple languages. The Foundation does not write or curate any of the content on the wikis itself. This is done by volunteers, such as the Wikipedians who create and maintain Wikipedia. It does collaborate with a network of individual volunteers and affiliated organizations such as Wikimedia chapters, thematic organizations, user groups and other partners in different countries all over the world, and promises in its mission statement to make useful information from its projects available on the internet free of charge in perpetuity. It also engages in political advocacy. The Foundation's strategic direction, formulated in 2017, envisages that it "will become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge" by 2030.

History

Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger founded Wikipedia in 2001 as a feeder project to supplement Nupedia. The project was originally funded by Bomis, Wales's for-profit business, and edited by a rapidly growing community of volunteer editors. The early community discussed a variety of ways to support the ongoing costs of upkeep, and was broadly opposed to running ads on the site, so the idea of setting up a charitable foundation gained prominence. That also addressed an open question of what entity should hold onto trademarks for the project.

The name "Wikimedia", a compound of wiki and media, was coined by American author Sheldon Rampton in a post to the English Wikipedia mailing list in March 2003, three months after Wiktionary became the second wiki-based project hosted on the original server. The Wikimedia Foundation was incorporated in Florida on June 20, 2003. A small fundraising campaign to keep the servers running was run in October 2003. The Foundation was granted section 501(c)(3) status by the U.S. Internal Revenue Code as a public charity in 2005, making donations to the Foundation tax-deductible for U.S. federal income tax purposes. Its National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) code is B60 (Adult, Continuing education).

The Foundation applied to trademark the name Wikipedia in the US on September 14, 2004. The mark was granted registration status on January 10, 2006. Trademark protection was accorded by Japan on December 16, 2004, and by the European Union on January 20, 2005. Subsets of Wikipedia were already being distributed in book and DVD form, and there were discussions about licensing the logo and wordmark.

On December 11, 2006, the Foundation's board noted that it could not become a membership organization, as initially planned but not implemented, due to an inability to meet the registration requirements of Florida statutory law. The bylaws were accordingly amended to remove all references to membership rights and activities.

In 2007, the Foundation decided to move its headquarters from Florida to the San Francisco Bay Area. Considerations cited for choosing San Francisco were proximity to like-minded organizations and potential partners, a better talent pool, as well as cheaper and more convenient international travel. The move was completed by January 31, 2008, into a headquarters on Stillman Street in San Francisco. It later moved to New Montgomery Street, and then to One Montgomery Tower.

On October 25, 2021, the Foundation launched Wikimedia Enterprise, a commercial Wikimedia content delivery service aimed at groups that want to use high-volume APIs, starting with Big Tech enterprises. In June 2022, Google and the Internet Archive were announced as the service's first customers, though only Google will pay for the service. The same announcement noted a shifting focus towards smaller companies with similar data needs, supporting the service through "a lot paying a little".

Projects and initiatives

Wikimedia projects

Content on most Wikimedia project websites is licensed for redistribution under v4.0 of the Attribution and Share-alike Creative Commons licenses. The Foundation owns and operates 11 wikis that are written, curated, designed, and governed by their communities of volunteer editors. Any member of the public is welcome to contribute; registering a named user account is optional. These wikis follow a free content model, with the stated goal of disseminating knowledge to the world. They include, by launch date:

 Wikipedia – online encyclopedia
 Wiktionary – online dictionary and thesaurus
 Wikibooks – a collection of books, mostly textbooks
 Wikiquote – a collection of quotations
 Wikivoyage – travel guide
 Wikisource – digital library
 Wikimedia Commons – repository of images, sounds, videos, and general media
 Wikispecies – taxonomic catalog of species
 Wikinews – online newspaper
 Wikiversity – a collection of tutorials and courses, also a hosting point to coordinate research
 Wikidata – knowledge base
 Wikifunctions – a catalog of computer functions

Certain additional projects provide infrastructure or coordination of the free knowledge projects. These include:

 Meta-Wiki – central site for coordinating all projects and the Wikimedia community
 Wikimedia Incubator – a single wiki for drafting the core pages of new language editions in development
 MediaWiki – site for coordinating work on MediaWiki software
 Wikitech – including Wikimedia Cloud Services, Data Services, Toolforge, and other technical projects and infrastructure
 Phabricator – not a wiki, but a global ticketing system for tracking issues and feature requests

Affiliates

Wikimedia affiliates are independent and formally recognized groups of people working together to support and contribute to the Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia Foundation officially recognizes three types of affiliates: chapters, thematic organizations, and user groups. Affiliates organize and engage in activities to support and contribute to the Wikimedia movement, such as regional conferences, outreach, edit-a-thons, hackathons, public relations, public policy advocacy, GLAM engagement, and Wikimania. While many of these things are also done by individual contributors or less formal groups, they are not referred to as affiliates.

Wikimedia chapters and thematic organizations are incorporated non-profit organizations. They are recognized by the Foundation as affiliates officially when its board does so. The board's decisions are based on recommendations of an Affiliations Committee (AffCom), composed of Wikimedia community members, which reports regularly to the board. The Affiliations Committee directly approves the recognition of unincorporated user groups. Affiliates are formally recognized by the Wikimedia Foundation, but are independent of it, with no legal control of or responsibility for Wikimedia projects and their content.

The Foundation began recognizing chapters in 2004. In 2012, the Foundation approved, finalized and adopted the thematic organization and user group recognition models. An additional model for movement partners, was also approved, but  has not yet been finalized or adopted.

Wikimania

Wikimania is an annual global conference for Wikimedians and Wikipedians, started in 2005. The first Wikimania was held in Frankfurt, Germany, in 2005. Wikimania is organized by a committee supported usually by the local national chapter, with support from local institutions (such as a library or university) and usually from the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikimania has been held in cities such as Buenos Aires, Cambridge, Haifa, Hong Kong, Taipei, London, Mexico City, Esino Lario, Italy, Montreal, Cape Town, and Stockholm. The 2020 conference scheduled to take place in Bangkok was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, along with those of 2021 and 2022, which were held online as a series of virtual, interactive presentations. The in-person conference returned in 2023 when it was held in Singapore, at which UNESCO joined as a partner organization.

Technology

The Wikimedia Foundation maintains the hardware that runs its projects in its own servers.  It also maintains the MediaWiki platform and many other software libraries that run its projects.

Hardware

Wikipedia employed a single server until 2004 when the server setup was expanded into a distributed multitier architecture. Server downtime in 2003 led to the first fundraising drive.

By December 2009, Wikimedia ran on co-located servers, with 300 servers in Florida and 44 in Amsterdam. In 2008, it also switched from multiple different Linux operating system vendors to Ubuntu Linux. In 2019, it switched to Debian.

By January 2013, Wikimedia transitioned to newer infrastructure in an Equinix facility in Ashburn, Virginia, citing reasons of "more reliable connectivity" and "fewer hurricanes". In years prior, the hurricane seasons had been a cause of distress.

In October 2013, Wikimedia Foundation started looking for a second facility that would be used side by side with the main facility in Ashburn, citing reasons of redundancy (e.g. emergency fallback) and to prepare for simultaneous multi-datacenter service. This followed a year in which a fiber cut caused the Wikimedia projects to be unavailable for one hour in August 2012.

Apart from the second facility for redundancy coming online in 2014, the number of servers needed to run the infrastructure in a single facility has been mostly stable since 2009. As of November 2015, the main facility in Ashburn hosts 520 servers in total which includes servers for newer services besides Wikimedia project wikis, such as cloud services (Toolforge) and various services for metrics, monitoring, and other system administration.

In 2017, Wikimedia Foundation deployed a caching cluster in an Equinix facility in Singapore, the first of its kind in Asia.

Software
The operation of Wikimedia depends on MediaWiki, a custom-made, free and open-source wiki software platform written in PHP and built upon the MariaDB database since 2013; previously the MySQL database was used. The software incorporates programming features such as a macro language, variables, a transclusion system for templates, and URL redirection. MediaWiki is licensed under the GNU General Public License and it is used by all Wikimedia projects.

Originally, Wikipedia ran on UseModWiki written in Perl by Clifford Adams (Phase I), which initially required CamelCase for article hyperlinks; the double bracket style was incorporated later. Starting in January 2002 (Phase II), Wikipedia began running on a PHP wiki engine with a MySQL database; this software was custom-made for Wikipedia by Magnus Manske. The Phase II software was repeatedly modified to accommodate the exponentially increasing demand. In July 2002 (Phase III), Wikipedia shifted to the third-generation software, MediaWiki, originally written by Lee Daniel Crocker.

Some MediaWiki extensions are installed to extend the functionality of MediaWiki software. In April 2005, an Apache Lucene extension was added to MediaWiki's built-in search and Wikipedia switched from MySQL to Lucene and later switched to CirrusSearch which is based on Elasticsearch for searching. The Wikimedia Foundation also uses CiviCRM and WordPress.

The Foundation published official Wikipedia mobile apps for Android and iOS devices and in March 2015, the apps were updated to include mobile user-friendly features.

Finances

The Wikimedia Foundation mainly finances itself through donations from the public, collected through email campaigns and annual fundraising banners placed on Wikipedia, as well as grants from various tech companies and philanthropic organizations. Campaigns for the Wikimedia Endowment have included emails asking donors to leave Wikimedia money in their will.

As a 501c3 charity, the Foundation is exempt from federal and state income tax. It is not a private foundation, and contributions to it qualify as tax-deductible charitable contributions. In 2007, 2008 and 2009, Charity Navigator gave Wikimedia an overall rating of four out of four possible stars, increased from three to four stars in 2010. , the rating was still four stars (overall score 98.14 out of 100), based on data from FY2018.

The Foundation also increases its revenue through federal grants, sponsorship, services and brand merchandising. The Wikimedia OAI-PMH update feed service, targeted primarily at search engines and similar bulk analysis and republishing, was a source of revenue for a number of years. DBpedia was given access to this feed free of charge. An expanded version of data feeds and content services was launched in 2021 as Wikimedia Enterprise, an LLC subsidiary of the Foundation.

In July 2014, the Foundation announced it would accept Bitcoin donations. In 2021, cryptocurrencies accounted for just 0.08% of all donations and on May 1, 2022, the Foundation stopped accepting cryptocurrency donations, following a Wikimedia community vote.

The Foundation's net assets grew from an initial $57,000 at the end of its first fiscal year, ending June 30, 2004, to $53.5 million in mid-2014 and $231 million (plus a $100 million endowment) by the end of June 2021; that year, the Foundation also announced plans to launch Wikimedia Enterprise, to let large people pay by volume for high-volume access to otherwise rate-limited APIs.

In 2020, the Foundation donated $4.5 million to Tides Advocacy to create a "Knowledge Equity Fund", to provide grants to organizations whose work would not otherwise be covered by Wikimedia grants but addresses racial inequities in accessing and contributing to free knowledge resources.

Wikimedia Endowment
In January 2016, the Foundation announced the creation of an endowment to safeguard its future. The Wikimedia Endowment was established as a donor-advised fund at the Tides Foundation, with a stated goal to raise $100 million in the next 10 years. Craig Newmark was one of the initial donors, giving $1 million. Peter Baldwin and his wife, Lisbet Rausing, donated $5 million to it in 2017.

In 2018, major donations to the endowment were received from Amazon and Facebook ($1 million each) and George Soros ($2 million).  In 2019, donations included $2 million from Google, $3.5 million more from Baldwin and Rausing, $2.5 million more from Newmark, and another $1 million from Amazon in October 2019 and again in September 2020.

As of 2022, the advisory board consists of Jimmy Wales, Peter Baldwin, former Wikimedia Foundation Trustees Patricio Lorente and Phoebe Ayers, former Wikimedia Foundation Board Visitor Doron Weber of the Sloan Foundation, investor Annette Campbell-White, businessman Niels Christian Nielsen, and venture capitalist Michael Kim.

The Foundation itself has provided annual grants of $5 million to its Endowment since 2016. These amounts have been recorded as part of the Foundation's "awards and grants" expenses. In September 2021, the Foundation announced that the Wikimedia Endowment had reached its initial $100 million fundraising goal in June 2021, five years ahead of its initial target.

Financial development
The Foundation summarizes its assets in the "Statements of Activities" in its audited reports. These do not include funds in the Wikimedia Endowment, however expenses from the 2015–16 financial year onward include payments to the Wikimedia Endowment.

Expenses
A plurality of Wikimedia Foundation expenses are salaries and wages, followed by community and affiliate grants, contributions to the endowment, and other professional operating expenses and services.

Grants

The Wikimedia Foundation has received a steady stream of grants from other foundations throughout its history.
In 2008, the Foundation received a $40,000 grant from the Open Society Institute to create a printable version of Wikipedia. It also received a $262,000 grant from the Stanton Foundation to purchase hardware, a $500,000 unrestricted grant from Vinod and Neeru Khosla, who later that year joined the Foundation advisory board, and $177,376 from the historians Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin (Arcadia Fund), among others. In March 2008, the Foundation announced what was then its largest donation yet: a three-year, $3 million grant from the Sloan Foundation.

In 2009, the Foundation received four grants. The first was a $890,000 Stanton Foundation grant to help study and simplify the user interface for first-time authors of Wikipedia. The second was a $300,000 Ford Foundation grant in July 2009 for Wikimedia Commons, to improve the interface for uploading multimedia files. In August 2009, the Foundation received a $500,000 grant from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Also in August 2009, the Omidyar Network committed up to $2 million over two years to Wikimedia.

In 2010, Google donated $2 million and the Stanton Foundation granted $1.2 million to fund the Public Policy Initiative, a pilot program for what later became the Wikipedia Education Program (and the spin-off Wiki Education Foundation).

In March 2011, the Sloan Foundation authorized another $3 million grant, to be funded over three years, with the first $1 million to come in July 2011 and the remaining $2 million to be funded in August 2012 and 2013. As a donor, Doron Weber from the Sloan Foundation gained Board Visitor status at the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. In August 2011, the Stanton Foundation pledged to fund a $3.6 million grant of which $1.8 million was funded and the remainder was to come in September 2012. As of 2011, this was the largest grant the Wikimedia Foundation had ever received. In November 2011, the Foundation received a $500,000 donation from the Brin Wojcicki Foundation.

In 2012, the Foundation was awarded a grant of $1.25 million from Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin through the Charities Aid Foundation, scheduled to be funded in five equal installments from 2012 through 2015. In 2014, the Foundation received the largest single gift in its history, a $5 million unrestricted donation from an anonymous donor supporting $1 million worth of expenses annually for the next five years. In March 2012, The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, established by the Intel co-founder and his wife, awarded the Wikimedia Foundation a $449,636 grant to develop Wikidata. This was part of a larger grant, much of which went to Wikimedia Germany, which took on ownership of the development effort.

Between 2014 and 2015, the Foundation received $500,000 from the Monarch Fund, $100,000 from the Arcadia Fund and an undisclosed amount from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation to support the Wikipedia Zero initiative.

In 2015, a grant agreement was reached with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to build a search engine called the "Knowledge Engine", a project that proved controversial. In 2017, the Sloan Foundation awarded another $3 million grant for a three-year period, and Google donated another $1.1 million to the Foundation in 2019.

The following have donated $500,000 or more each (2008–2019, not including gifts to the Wikimedia Endowment; list may be incomplete):

Staff

History

In 2004, the Foundation appointed Tim Starling as developer liaison to help improve the MediaWiki software, Daniel Mayer as chief financial officer (finance, budgeting, and coordination of fund drives), and Erik Möller as content partnership coordinator. In May 2005, the Foundation announced seven more official appointments.

In January 2006, the Foundation created a number of committees, including the Communication Committee, in an attempt to further organize activities somewhat handled by volunteers at that time. Starling resigned that month to spend more time on his PhD program.

, the Foundation had five paid employees: two programmers, an administrative assistant, a coordinator handling fundraising and grants, and an interim executive director, Brad Patrick, previously the Foundation's general counsel. Patrick ceased his activity as interim director in January 2007 and then resigned from his position as legal counsel, effective April 1, 2007. He was replaced by Mike Godwin who served as general counsel and legal coordinator from July 2007 to 2010.

In January 2007, Carolyn Doran was named chief operating officer and Sandy Ordonez joined as head of communications. Doran began working as a part-time bookkeeper in 2006 after being sent by a temporary agency. Doran, found to have had a criminal record, left the Foundation in July 2007 and Sue Gardner was hired as consultant and special advisor; she became the executive director in December 2007. Florence Devouard cited Doran's departure from the organization as one of the reasons the Foundation took about seven months to release its fiscal 2007 financial audit.

Danny Wool, officially the grant coordinator and also involved in fundraising and business development, resigned in March 2007. He accused Wales of misusing the Foundation's funds for recreational purposes and said that Wales had his Wikimedia credit card taken away in part because of his spending habits, a claim Wales denied. In February 2007, the Foundation added a position, chapters coordinator, and hired Delphine Ménard, who had been occupying the position as a volunteer since August 2005. Cary Bass was hired in March 2007 in the position of volunteer coordinator. In January 2008, the Foundation appointed Veronique Kessler as the new chief financial and operating officer, Kul Wadhwa as head of business development and Jay Walsh as head of communications.

In March 2013, Gardner announced she would be leaving her position at the Foundation. Lila Tretikov was appointed executive director in May 2014; she resigned in March 2016. Former chief communications officer Katherine Maher was appointed the interim executive director, a position made permanent in June 2016. Maher served as executive director until April 2021.

Present department structure

 there were around 700 people working at the Foundation. Maryana Iskander was named the incoming CEO in September 2021, and took over that role in January 2022.

As of July 2022, the WMF has the following department structure:
 Advancement: responsible for fundraising, strategic partnerships, and grantmaking programs.
 Communications: responsible for Wikimedia brand development, marketing, social media, public relations, and global awareness efforts.
 Finance and Administration: responsible for ensuring responsible management of Wikimedia Foundation funds and resources.
 Legal: responsible for mounting opposition to government surveillance and censorship, defending volunteer communities, facilitating policy discussions, and advocating for privacy.
 Product: responsible for building collaborative tools for knowledge sharing, user research, experience design and cross-device support including mobile apps and voice technology.
 Talent and Culture: responsible for recruitment and training.
 Technology: responsible for maintaining and developing the technology platform underpinning the Wikimedia projects, in collaboration with thousands of volunteer developers.

Board of trustees

The Foundation's board of trustees supervises the activities of the Foundation. The founding board had three members, to which two community-elected trustees were added.  Starting in 2008 it was composed of ten members:
 three selected by the community encompassed by all the different Wikimedia projects;
 two selected by Wikimedia chapters;
 four appointed by the board itself; and
 one founder's seat, reserved for Jimmy Wales.

Over time, the size of the board and details of the selection processes have evolved.  As of 2020, the board may have up to 16 trustees:
 eight seats sourced from the wider Wikimedia community (affiliates and volunteer community);
 seven appointed by the board itself; and
 one founder's seat reserved for Wales.
, the board comprised six community-and-affiliate-selected trustees (Shani Evenstein Sigalov, Dariusz Jemielniak, Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight, Victoria Doronina, Mike Peel and Lorenzo Losa); five Board-appointed trustees (McKinsey & Company director Raju Narisetti, Bahraini human rights activist and blogger Esra'a Al Shafei, management consulting executive Lisa Lewin, Nataliia Tymkiv, and McAfee executive Tanya Capuano); and Wales. Tymkiv chairs the board, with Al Shafei and Sigalov as vice chairs.

In 2015, James Heilman, a trustee recently elected to the board by the community, was removed from his position by a vote of the rest of the board. This decision generated dispute among members of the Wikipedia community. Heilman later said that he "was given the option of resigning [by the Board] over the last few weeks. As a community elected member I see my mandate as coming from the community which elected me and thus declined to do so. I saw such a move as letting down those who elected me." He subsequently added that while on the Board, he had pushed for greater transparency regarding the Wikimedia Foundation's Knowledge Engine project and its financing, and indicated that his attempts to make public the Knight Foundation grant for the engine had been a factor in his dismissal. Heilman was reelected to the board by the community in 2017.

In January 2016, Arnnon Geshuri joined the board before stepping down amid community controversy about a "no poach" agreement he executed when at Google, which violated United States antitrust law and for which the participating companies paid US$415 million in a class action suit on behalf of affected employees.

Disputes

A number of disputes have resulted in litigation while others have not. Attorney Matt Zimmerman has said, "Without strong liability protection, it would be difficult for Wikipedia to continue to provide a platform for user-created encyclopedia content."

In December 2011, the Foundation hired Washington, D.C., lobbyist Dow Lohnes Government Strategies LLC to lobby Congress. At the time of the hire, the Foundation was concerned about a bill known as the Stop Online Piracy Act. The communities were as well, organizing some of the most visible protest against the bill on the Internet alongside other popular websites.

In October 2013, a German court ruled that the Wikimedia Foundation can be held liable for content added to Wikipedia when there has been a specific complaint; otherwise, the Wikimedia Foundation does not check the content Wikipedia publishes and has no duty to do so.

In June 2014, Bildkonst Upphovsrätt i Sverige filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Wikimedia Sweden.

On June 20, 2014, a defamation lawsuit (Law Division civil case No. L-1400-14) involving Wikipedia editors was filed with the Mercer County Superior Court in New Jersey seeking, inter alia, compensatory and punitive damages.

In a March 10, 2015, op-ed for The New York Times, Wales and Tretikov announced the Foundation was filing a lawsuit against the National Security Agency and five other government agencies and officials, including DOJ, calling into question its practice of mass surveillance, which they argued infringed the constitutional rights of the Foundation's readers, editors and staff. They were joined in the suit by eight additional plaintiffs, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. On October 23, 2015, the United States District Court for the District of Maryland dismissed the suit Wikimedia Foundation v. NSA on grounds of standing. U.S. District Judge T. S. Ellis III ruled that the plaintiffs could not plausibly prove they were subject to upstream surveillance, and that their argument is "riddled with assumptions", "speculations" and "mathematical gymnastics". The plaintiffs filed an appeal with the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on February 17, 2016.

In September 2020, WMF's application to become an observer at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) was blocked after objections from the government of China over the existence of a Wikimedia Foundation affiliate in Taiwan. In October 2021, WMF's second application was blocked by the government of China for the same reason. In May 2022, six Wikimedia movement affiliate chapters were blocked from being accredited to WIPO's Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) by China, claiming that the chapters were spreading disinformation. In July 2022, China blocked an application by seven Wikimedia chapters to be accredited as permanent observers to WIPO; China's position was supported by a number of other countries, including Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Algeria, Zimbabwe and Venezuela.

Excessive spending and fundraising

In 2014, Jimmy Wales was confronted with allegations that WMF had a poor cost/benefit ratio for  "a miserable cost/benefit ratio and for years now has spent millions on software development without producing anything that actually works". He acknowledged that he had "been frustrated as well about the endless controversies about the rollout of inadequate software not developed with sufficient community consultation and without proper incremental rollout to catch show-stopping bugs".

During the 2015 fundraising campaign, some members of the community voiced their concerns about the fundraising banners. They argued that they were obtrusive and could deceive potential donors by giving the impression that Wikipedia had immediate financial problems, which was not true. The Wikimedia Foundation vowed to improve wording on further fundraising campaigns to avoid these issues. Despite this, the Foundation has continued to come under criticism for running campaigns seemingly designed to "make[] its readers feel guilty." Such campaigns have additionally been condemned for, in 2021, being run in countries that had been badly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, such as in Argentina and Brazil, as well as for sparking fears in India that Wikipedia might be "dying". This is despite the Foundation being in ownership of "vast money reserves", in 2021 reaching its 10-year goal of compiling a $100 million endowment fund in only 5 years.

In February 2017, an op-ed published by The Signpost, the English Wikipedia's online newspaper, titled "Wikipedia has Cancer", produced a debate in both the Wikipedian community and the wider public. The author criticized the Wikimedia Foundation for its ever-increasing annual spending, which, he argued, could put the project at financial risk should an unexpected event happen. The author proposed to cap spending, build up the endowment, and restructure the endowment so that WMF cannot dip into the principal when times get bad.

Knowledge Engine project

Knowledge Engine was a search engine project initiated in 2015 by WMF to locate and display verifiable and trustworthy information on the Internet. The KE's goal was to be less reliant on traditional search engines. It was funded with a $250,000 grant from the Knight Foundation. Some perceived the project as a scandal, mainly because it was conceived in secrecy, and the project proposal was even a surprise to some staff, in contrast with a general culture of transparency in the organization and on the projects. Some of the information available to the community was received through leaked documents published by The Signpost in 2016. Following this dispute, Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Lila Tretikov resigned.

Social justice causes
In 2022, in a recent "personal appeal" displayed in an advertising banner on Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, one of the founders, emphasized that "Wikipedia is not for sale." This statement highlights the non-profit nature of the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), a non-profit organization based in California that owns intellectual property assets, such as the Wikipedia name and branding. However, the WMF does not own or control the global communities that maintain the site.

In the 2022, the WMF announced new recipients for its "knowledge equity grants". As of last June, the WMF reported $239 million in net assets. It is expected to raise $174 million in revenue in the 2023. Despite expenses on the foundation staff's salaries, there's a significant surplus left. To manage these funds, the WMF has created an endowment composed of investments and cash. This is managed not by the WMF but by the Tides Foundation, a charitable organization that channels funds to social justice causes and campaigns.

The endowment aims to grow this capital to $130.4 million in the next fiscal year. Some of these funds are allocated to the knowledge equity fund, which provides grants.

However, there has been some controversy over the administration of the funds. While the Tides Foundation has promised to become a more transparent 501(c)(3) organization to reveal how it manages funds, details on expenses and salaries are still lacking seven years later.

Additionally, the WMF's salary costs have risen from $7 million in 2010/11 to $88 million in 2021/22. Yet, only 2% of the raised money goes towards hosting costs, and the remuneration for the hard-working contributors to Wikipedia remains the same: zero.

References

External links

 Official website (wikimediafoundation.org)
 Wikimedia site navigation (wikimedia.org)

Organization
 Wikimedia Foundation 2022–23 Annual Plan (draft)
 Wikimedia Foundation annual reports
 Wikimedia Foundation bylaws
 Wikimedia Foundation social media profiles: Twitter, YouTube

Financials
 Wikimedia Foundation's 2020/2021 audited financial statements
 Wikimedia Foundation Form 990 tax filings

Charity status
 Wikimedia Foundation profile at Charity Navigator, charitynavigator.org

Community
 Wikimedia mailing list archives
 Global community site for the Wikimedia Foundation's projects (meta.wikimedia.org)

2003 establishments in Florida
501(c)(3) organizations
Articles containing video clips
Charities based in California
Educational foundations in the United States
Free software project foundations in the United States
Jimmy Wales
Non-profit organizations based in San Francisco
Online nonprofit organizations
Organizations established in 2003
Wiki communities

Wikimedia Foundation


Nicholas Melady Jr. (1845 – December 7, 1869)  was the last person to be publicly executed in Canada. He was hanged on December 7, 1869, on the outside wall of a jail located in Goderich, Ontario, for the murder of his father, Nicholas Melady Senior and his stepmother Ellen. The murders are believed to have been committed on the evening of June 6, 1868, on a farm in the present day municipality of Huron East, south of the current community of Seaforth, Ontario. Melady's trial was surrounded by controversy at the time, with allegations of perjury, lost and planted evidence, as well as the unusual use of a female police informant, who posed as a criminal and feigned affection for Melady while he was imprisoned, in an attempt to gain a confession from him. The informant, named in records as "Jenny Smith", was the wife of a local police officer. During the course of the investigation into the crime, seven other members of the Melady family, as well as two other male individuals, were initially jailed as suspects and later released. Melady's execution occurred several hours in advance of the officially announced time it was to occur in an attempt to avoid the civil disorder that sometimes accompanied public hangings. It is reported that a crowd of several thousand people were present at the jail at the originally announced time of the execution, many of whom are reported to have shouted their disapproval of the altered schedule of events. On January 1, 1870, three weeks after Melady was hanged, a Canadian federal government Order in Council came into effect that banned all future public executions in Canada.

General references
Melady, John (2005). Double Trap: The Last Public
Hanging In Canada. Dundern Press.

1845 births
1869 deaths
People executed for murder
Executed Canadian people
People executed by Canada by hanging
Canadian people convicted of murder
People convicted of murder by Canada
19th-century executions by Canada
Patricides

Nicholas Melady


A constitutional referendum was held in Chile on 30 July 1989. The proposed changes to the constitution were approved by 91% of voters.

Background
If approved, 54 constitutional reforms were to be implemented, among which the reform of the way that the Constitution itself could be reformed, the restriction of state of emergency dispositions, the affirmation of political pluralism, the strengthening of constitutional rights as well as of the democratic principle and participation to the political life.

The government and almost all politcal parties declared support for the reforms. The only parties to advocate a "No" vote were the right-wing Party of the South and the Chilean Socialist Party (not to be confused with the Socialist Party of Chile).

Results

By region

Aftermath
Following the approval of the constitutional amendments, general elections were held in December. Patricio Aylwin was elected President with 55% of the vote, whilst the Concert of Parties for Democracy won a majority of elected seats in both chambers of the National Congress.

Pinochet left office on 11 March 1990, transferring power to the new democratically elected president.

References

Constitutional referendums in Chile
Chile
Military dictatorship of Chile (1973–1990)
Constitutional
Chile
Referendums in Chile

1989 Chilean constitutional referendum


John Francis Cassidy (born 1959) is a Canadian seismologist and an adjunct professor of the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. He lives in the town of Sidney on southern Vancouver Island and is employed by Natural Resources Canada. Cassidy has participated in mapping the structure of the Earth using seismic waves, earthquake hazard research, working with engineers and emergency response organizations and public outreach activities, including the media, educators and the public. Throughout his work with the Geological Survey of Canada in the past 20 years, Cassidy has published over 100 public and scientific interest articles.

References
Geological Survey of Canada: Directory of Geoscience Expertise

1959 births
Living people
Canadian seismologists
Geological Survey of Canada personnel
Academic staff of the University of Victoria

John Cassidy (seismologist)


Alter Mojze Goldman (17 November 1909 – 1988) was a Polish Jew who was active in the French Résistance during World War II.

He was born in Lublin after the death of his father. He fled to France at the age of fifteen because of anti-Semitism. However, he was disappointed with reality in France and tried Germany] There, he was horrified by what he saw and returned to France, becoming a miner. He joined a military unit in Algeria and thus obtained French citizenship. He was disgusted by the violence he witnessed and returned to France, becoming a tailor and playing basketball in a Jewish sports club. There, he became a communist and a militant, but he was revolted by the assassination of Leon Trotsky and the excesses of Joseph Stalin.

He went to Spain, where he tried to join the French unit in the International Brigades fighting with the Spanish Republicans, but was rejected. In 1939, he was mobilized in the French military and was decorated. When he was demobilized, he went south to the unoccupied part of France (Lyon), where he joined the FTP-MOI Resistant Communist movement, composed of immigrants. His unit was involved in urban sabotage efforts.

In Lyon, he met Janine Sochaczewska, who became the mother of his illegitimate son Pierre Goldman, born 22 June 1944. They separated after the liberation, and she worked in the Polish embassy and returned to Poland in 1947. At that time, Alter took Pierre so that he would not grow up in the country that had seen the elimination of so many Jews.

In June 1949, Alter married Ruth Ambrunn, another Jewish Résistance fighter, born in Munich in 1922. Pierre was legitimized as their son. The couple had three children together: a daughter, Evelyne, and two sons, Jean-Jacques Goldman, the pop singer, and Robert Goldman, a songwriter.

Goldman was elected to the Légion d'Honneur on 19 November 1988 for his role in the Résistance. He died barely a month later at the age of seventy-nine.

References

1909 births
1988 deaths
People from Lublin
20th-century Polish Jews
Members of the Francs-tireurs et partisans
Jews in the French resistance
Polish emigrants to France

Alter Mojze Goldman


Adelina Garcia (December 16, 1923 – 1999) was a Mexican-American or Chicana singer.  She remains one of the most famous American singers of the bolero.

Biography
Adelina Garcia was born in December 1923 in Phoenix, Arizona and moved as a child to Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, where she first expressed interest in becoming a singer. Garcia spent most of her early childhood in that northern Mexican city, where she started to become famous by singing boleros at the XEP radio station. By the time she had reached her teenage years, she was well known across Chihuahua and other northern Mexican states.

In 1937, Garcia returned to Phoenix, but she did not stay there too long, establishing herself in Los Angeles at the age of fifteen. It was during that year that Garcia was signed by Columbia Records, a company that would release some of her albums and take her on a tour across the United States. In essence, she became a teen idol among Hispanic teenagers in the States.

Garcia expanded her celebrity to South America during the 1940s, touring Brazil and some other countries in that continent. In 1944, she had her first concert in Mexico City. In Mexico City, she participated at radio shows on the XEW station, which helped cement her fame in that country's non-northern states. Her participation at those shows also allowed her to become well known in Central America and the Caribbean. Garcia met composer and musician Gonzalo Curiel while in Mexico City. She and Curiel became friends and collaborators, and Curiel visited Brazil with Garcia many times after the pair met. In Brazil, Garcia made a number of albums for the Odeon label.
Among Garcia's best known songs of the 1940s are "Muchachita" ("Young Girl"), "Vereda Tropical" ("Tropical River"),  written, composed and originally sung by Mexican author Gonzalo Curiel, "Desesperadamente" ("Desperately") and "Mi Tormento" ("My Own Torment").

After touring heavily across the American Southwest and in California, Garcia re-settled in Los Angeles during 1955. She met musician Jose Heredia, whom she married and formed a family with. After marriage, Garcia decided to begin retiring. She started slowly, initially reducing her number of performances per year, until she stopped singing altogether.

In 1997, her musical and photo collection was bought by the CEMA, a repository of historic documents from California's ethnic history. The collection consists of fourteen recordings, photos, programs and other miscellaneous items about her life.

She is the mother of LA-based jazz and jazzrock drummer Joey Heredia, Freddy Heredia, and artist Angel Gustavo Garcia.

References

External links
 Guide to Adelina Garcia collection at the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives
 The Official Site of Drummer Joey Heredia
 The official site of artist Angel Gustavo Garcia

1923 births
1999 deaths
American musicians of Mexican descent
Hispanic and Latino American musicians
Musicians from Phoenix, Arizona
American expatriates in Mexico
Hispanic and Latino American women singers

Adelina Garcia


"Pheng Xat Lao" ( , "Song of the Lao People") is the national anthem of the Lao People's Democratic Republic. It was written and composed in 1941 by Thongdy Sounthonevichit. It was adopted as the national anthem of the Kingdom of Laos in 1945. The original lyrics were revised after the Communists triumphed in the Laotian Civil War and established the Lao People's Democratic Republic in 1975, with the new lyrics written by Sisana Sisane.

History
Long a tributary state of Siam, in 1893 Laos became a protectorate of France within its colonial empire. The French claimed their annexation was to protect Laos from "hostile neighbors" such as China and especially Siam, which had been militarily forced to cede Laos to the European colonial power. In reality, France simply ruled Laos as a colony, even bringing in many Vietnamese to work in its governing. The transferring of control from one master to another meant that nationalist sentiment did not develop as it did in formerly independent Vietnam. However, the outbreak of the Second World War soon saw the fall of France to Nazi Germany. The new right-wing government in Siam saw this as a possible opportunity to regain formerly Thai territory lost to France, especially the land located on the Thai side of the Mekong River. To counteract this, the French colonial government began promoting Lao nationalism.

Because of this liberalization, many patriotic songs were now composed, each one emphasizing Lao "uniqueness". "Pheng Xat Lao" was one of them, having been composed by Thongdy Sounthonevichit in 1941 with lyrics written by Maha Phoumi under the name "Lao Hak Xat" (the patriotic Laos). It was chosen as the national anthem in 1945, when the king was forced by the Japanese occupiers to declare Laos independent from French rule. This new freedom was short-lived, since France quickly regained control of French Indochina after Japan's surrender in 1945. In 1947, France granted limited autonomy to Laos within the French Union, and "Pheng Xat Lao" again became the national anthem.

When the Pathet Lao emerged victorious in the Laotian Civil War in 1975, thanks to major North Vietnamese assistance, the new Communist government abolished the monarchy and changed the lyrics to reflect the ideology of the Marxist government.  As a result, the anthem became all-encompassing, mentioning all ethnic groups in Laos, instead of focussing on the Lao race and Buddhism. However, the melody was retained.

Lyrics

Current lyrics

Original lyrics (1947–1975)

Notes

References

External links

 Michael Sauser and Gilbert Greeve - Sauser and Greeve sing the anthem on their CD "Hymnen der Welt:  Asien"
 "Pheng Xat Lao" at empas.com
Dookola Swiata - This travel website has an instrumental version of the Anthem, as an .asx file.

Laotian music
National anthems
National symbols of Laos
1941 songs
Asian anthems
Compositions in F major
Communist songs

Pheng Xat Lao


León Aillaud Barreiro was an Interim Governor of the Mexican State of Veracruz in the period from June 22, 1911, to December 12, 1911.

Early years
Born in the city and port of Veracruz, in the year 1880. Did his primary school in his hometown and then studied keeping, to join various commercial houses.

The Mexican Revolution
In 1910, when he worked in the "Hardware Varela," began his involvement in the Liberal Club "Lerdo de Tejeda" next to veracruzanos young revolutionaries. Followed the timber movement and participated in organizing the welcome that was offered at the port of Veracruz to Francisco I. Madero.

A waiver of the governorship of the State of Emilio Léycegui, given the bloody events that occurred, was appointed by the Legislature and Governor Local Constitutional Intergovernmental on June 22, 1911.

During the following months, there was a great political turmoil and could only weather the storm as it existed before the Legislature an indictment of his predecessor Emilio Léycegui by the events and the need to investigate.

She was entrusted by the President Madero, to convene elections, which were never carried out, such was the anger of Madero made the Legislature removed it Local, which sent the General Angel Garcia Pena hundred federal soldiers and remove protect the official enclosure.

This caused his voluntary exile on December 12, 1911, ending his brief administration. He moved to the port of Veracruz and embarked bound for Havana, then to New Orleans, San Antonio and finally to El Paso, Texas. He returned to this country to fall into the regime of usurpation of Victoriano Huerta

1911 and 1912 Past Grand Master of the 33 Degree in the Unified Mexican Grand Lodge

Son León Aillaud Neveu

References
 everacruz.gob.mx
 glumver.org.mx

People from Veracruz (city)

1880 births
1936 deaths
Governors of Veracruz
Mexican people of French descent
Mexican people of Portuguese descent
Politicians from Veracruz

León Aillaud


In academia, a visiting scholar, visiting scientist, visiting researcher, visiting fellow, visiting lecturer, or visiting professor is a scholar from an institution who visits a host university to teach, lecture, or perform research on a topic for which the visitor is valued.  In many cases the position is not salaried because visitor is salaried by their home institution (or partially salaried, as in some cases of sabbatical leave from US universities).  Some visiting positions are salaried.

Typically, a visiting scholar may stay for a couple of months or even a year, though the stay can be extended.  Typically, a visiting scholar is invited by the host institution, and it is not unusual for them to provide accommodation.  Such an invitation is often regarded as recognizing the scholar's prominence in the field.  Attracting prominent visiting scholars often allows the permanent faculty and graduate students to cooperate with prominent academics from other institutions, especially foreign ones.

In the UK, a visiting scholar or visiting academic usually has to pay a so-called bench fee to the university, which will give access to shared office space and other university facilities and resources (such as the library).  Bench fees vary across UK universities.

The purpose of a visiting scholars programs is generally to bring to the university or educational institution in question an exceptional senior scholar who can contribute to the community's intellectual and research endeavors and international projection.  Hence, in addition to conducting their own research, visitors are often expected to participate in productive institutional activities, such as:

 Deliver a formal lecture to the hosting institution
 Engage in formal or informal discussions with graduate or postgraduate research students
 Undertake collaborative research with faculty or staff
 Present guest lectures or faculty seminars
 Present a paper as part of the university's seminar program

See also
 Professor, for a visiting professor, more specifically also visiting professor in the U.S.
 Research fellow, for a visiting researcher

References

Academic administration
Higher education
Academic ranks

Visiting scholar


Robert "Mwafrika" Kipkoech Cheruiyot (born 26 September 1978 in Kapsabet, Kenya), sometimes known as Omar Ahmed, is a Kenyan marathon runner and is the former record holder and four-time winner of the Boston Marathon.

Early career
Cheruiyot trained running while at school, but was unable to pay school fees and became a high school drop out. He ended up working at a barber shop in Mosoriot, but could hardly buy a meal with his low salary. Later he managed to access Moses Tanui's training camp in Kaptagat. Soon thereafter he made a breakthrough by winning a local 10K race in 2001 and headed for international competitions.

Cheruiyot won the Roma-Ostia Half Marathon in March 2002. His marathon debut, Milan Marathon in December 2002 saw three top finishers - Cheruiyot, Mike Rotich and Daniele Caimmi all posting the same time, 2:08:59 hours, but Cheruiyot emerged the winner. Cheruiyot also won the Saint Silvester Road Race at the end of 2002, the first one of three.

Major marathons

He won the Boston Marathon in 2003, 2006, 2007 and most recently in 2008. His 2006 Boston finishing time of 2:07:14 broke a Boston marathon course record set by Cosmas Ndeti that had lasted 12 years.  His record was broken in the 2010 Boston Marathon by Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot (unrelated) with a finishing time of 2:05:52.

He finished 4th in the 2005 New York Marathon and 2nd in the 2009 New York Marathon. He sought to win another title in Boston in 2005 as well but only finished 5th that year.

During his win at Chicago in 2006, Cheruiyot did not actually break the tape at the finish line. He slipped at the end and crossed the finish line as he slipped forward making him the winner. It was ruled that he did cross the finish line in doing so. He injured his head against the ground in the fall and had to be helped from the course in a wheelchair.  He suffered a brain contusion and was released from the hospital after two days of observation. His time of 2:07:35 was five seconds faster than 2nd-place finisher Daniel Njenga. The win in Chicago left him at the top of the 2006 World Marathon Majors standings and won its grand prize.

In 2007, Cheruiyot defended his title and won his third Boston Marathon with an official time of 2:14:13. Fellow Kenyans were second and third. It was the 15th time in the last 17 years that a Kenyan has won the Boston marathon but it was also the slowest Boston Marathon since 1977 as runners faced cold headwinds gusting up to 50 miles per hour. Cheruiyot also won $100,000 for the victory and gained a significant lead in the World Marathon Majors series.

On 21 April 2008 he won his fourth Boston Marathon title with a time of 2:07:45, making him the first four-time winner in the men's open division since Bill Rodgers (fellow Kenyan Catherine Ndereba recorded her fourth win in 2005).

In April 2009, Cheruiyot started the Boston Marathon but did not finish and was sent to the hospital.

He is not to be confused with Robert Kiprotich Cheruiyot or Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot, who are both also Kenyan marathon runners.

Achievements

See also
List of winners of the Boston Marathon

References

External links

Rosa & Associati profile
marathoninfo

1978 births
Living people
People from Nandi County
Sportspeople from Rift Valley Province
Kenyan male long-distance runners
Kenyan male marathon runners
Chicago Marathon male winners
Boston Marathon male winners

Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot


Canoe Mountain is a stratigraphic ridge in central Pennsylvania, United States, running east of the Allegheny Front and west of Tussey Mountain. It forms a continuous ridge with Brush Mountain to the west. To the south, across the water gap formed by the Frankstown Branch Juniata River, the ridgeline continues as Lock Mountain.

The northern part of Canoe Mountain forms the border between Blair County and Huntingdon County.

Pennsylvania State Game Lands Number 166 lies on Brush Mountain south of Sinking Hollow and on Canoe Mountain and the valley between.

Geology
Canoe Mountain is in the western part of the Ridge and Valley province of the Appalachian Mountains. Tussey Mountain, to the east, is made up of Paleozoic rocks, consisting of Ordovician Bald Eagle Formation (sandstone), Juniata Formation (shale), and Silurian Tuscarora Formation (Quartzite) that were folded during the Appalachian orogeny in the Permian period, then eroded down to their present form.

The Tuscarora Quartzite is more resistant to erosion than the Bald Eagle Sandstone, and both are more resistant than the Juniata formation between them or the other formations stratigraphically above and below them. The two sandstones thus form a double ridge line with the harder Tuscarora at the crest.

Canoe Mountain and the southern spur of Brush Mountain form a syncline.

References

Ridges of Pennsylvania
Ridges of Blair County, Pennsylvania

Canoe Mountain


The Greater St. Louis Metropolitan Area surrounds the city of St. Louis, Missouri. St. Louis is the main city and commercial center for the area. It also includes the St. Louis, MO-IL metropolitan statistical area (MSA) and the St. Louis–St. Charles–Farmington, MO–IL combined statistical area (CSA). The MSA area is the 21st-largest, as of 2020.

In the St. Louis, MO-IL metropolitan statistical area (MSA), it includes the Illinois counties (Bond, Calhoun, Clinton, Jersey, Macoupin, Madison, Monroe, and St. Clair (known collectively as the Metro East)) and the Missouri counties (Crawford (only the City of Sullivan), Franklin, Jefferson, Lincoln, St. Charles, St. Louis (separate from and not inclusive of the city of St. Louis), and Warren).

Greater St. Louis is home to many professional sports teams including the St. Louis Cardinals and St. Louis Blues. Former professional teams include the St. Louis Rams and St. Louis Browns.

St. Louis, Missouri
Metropolitan areas of the United States

Greater St. Louis


WBMM (channel 22) is a television station licensed to Tuskegee, Alabama, United States, serving the Montgomery area as an affiliate of The CW Plus. It is owned by Bahakel Communications alongside Selma-licensed CBS affiliate WAKA (channel 8); Bahakel also provides certain services to ABC affiliate WNCF (channel 32) under a shared services agreement (SSA) with SagamoreHill Broadcasting. The stations share studios on Harrison Road in north Montgomery, while WBMM's transmitter is located in unincorporated southwestern Bullock County along the Pike County line.

In addition to its own digital signal, WBMM is simulcast in standard definition on WNCF's second digital subchannel (32.2) from its transmitter in Gordonville, Alabama.

History
The station signed on the air on September 17, 1999 as a Pax TV affiliate airing an analog signal on UHF channel 22. WBMM became an affiliate of Daystar for a year in 2005 before eventually joining The CW (through The CW Plus) in 2006. The latter network switch was the result of The WB and UPN shutting down and merging to form The CW. Prior to The CW's formation, UPN was seen through Troy's WRJM-TV (now Cozi TV affiliate WIYC), while The WB aired via cable-only "WBMY," operated by NBC affiliate WSFA as part of The WB 100+ Station Group.

It was announced on July 7, 2011, that Bahakel Communications would purchase WBMM from SagamoreHill Broadcasting for $3.5 million. The acquiring company then immediately entered into a shared services agreement with SagamoreHill which resulted in WNCF beginning to be operated by WAKA.

The official transfer of WBMM from SagamoreHill to Bahakel was completed on October 31 after which Bahakel obtained a waiver of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) duopoly regulations that requires a market to be left with eight unique television station owners after a duopoly is formed. SagamoreHill had previously acquired WBMM in 2006 with an FCC "failing station" waiver because the Montgomery/Selma market has only eight commercially licensed full-power stations and the formation of any co-owned duopoly would have left the market with only seven unique station owners. Under the current SSA arrangement with Bahakel, SagamoreHill retains responsibility for WNCF's programming, personnel, and finances while the former company provides that station with sales, administrative, production, and technical services.

Despite being the senior partner in the proposed agreement, WAKA vacated its facilities in South Central Montgomery and consolidated into WNCF's studios at some point in 2012. This was most likely due to the fact (and the irony) that Bahakel has always owned WNCF's facility and had been leasing it to SagamoreHill. Bahakel owned and operated WNCF (as WKAB-TV) until 1985 when it purchased the more desirable WAKA. FCC rules at the time prevented dual television station ownership in a market so the WKAB license was sold but the building and grounds retained. In addition, WNCF's property offered more space for a proposed expansion as compared with the land surrounding WAKA's smaller studios.

WBMM began carrying programming from the American Sports Network package with its first broadcast on August 30, 2014.

News operation
In January 2007, WBMM entered into a news share agreement with WAKA allowing the big three affiliate to produce the market's first prime time newscast on this station. Known as CW News at Nine, the weeknight-only broadcast could be seen for thirty minutes and originated from WAKA's studios featuring most of the CBS affiliate's on-air personnel. WBMM would begin to have competition to its outsourced broadcast on January 7, 2008 after Fox affiliate WCOV-TV entered into a news share arrangement with NBC outlet WSFA. That agreement resulted in Montgomery's second prime time newscast at 9 initially seen only on weeknights for 35 minutes. A weekend half-hour edition began in Summer 2008.

On April 16, 2010, WNCF expanded its partnership with the Independent News Network (INN) and launched a half-hour weeknight newscasts at 9 on WBMM airing in high definition. As a result, this station terminated its outsourcing arrangement with WAKA. Still known by the same title, the show began to be produced at INN's studios on Tremont Avenue in Davenport, Iowa. The news anchor, meteorologist, and sports anchor were provided by the centralized news operation with other personnel filling-in as needed. WBMM maintained two locally based reporters at its studios who contributed Montgomery-specific coverage to the newscast that was taped in advance and then fed to the station through satellite relay.

After WCOV's contract with WSFA expired at the end of 2010, that station entered into another news outsourcing agreement with WAKA to produce a nightly prime time broadcast. On January 1, 2011, WSFA transitioned its prime-time show to its second digital subchannel (then affiliated with the Retro Television Network) resulting in three options for newscasts at 9. A content sharing arrangement would eventually be set up between WBMM and then sister station WLTZ in Columbus, Georgia, to share resources when covering East-Central Alabama since Montgomery and Columbus have coverage areas bordering each other. As a result, additional reporters locally employed by WLTZ were seen during CW News at Nine. After the change in ownership to Bahakel, personnel from the NBC station in Columbus were dropped. At some point in summer 2012, WBMM and WNCF terminated their newscast outsourcing agreement with the Independent News Network in preparation for local news production duties to be assumed by WAKA.

WNCF and WAKA officially debuted their combined local news operation on February 2, 2013. Based out of what was formerly WNCF's studios on Harrison Road, a newly expanded high definition-ready facility features state-of-the-art production capabilities which has allowed WAKA to finally offer local news in high definition. Despite merging with WNCF, WAKA continues to produce a nightly, half-hour prime time newscast at 9 on Fox affiliate WCOV through a pre-existing news share arrangement. As a result, there are no local newscasts currently airing on WBMM. On February 4, this station began airing a reformatted version of WNCF's longtime weekday morning show Good Morning Montgomery (hosted by Alva Lambert, Johnny Green, and Joe Hagler). However, it now airs weekdays from 1 to 2 p.m. on WBMM and is currently known on-air as Good Afternoon Montgomery. The program is similar to a radio talk show with guests interacting with the hosts and opportunities for viewers to call-in. Like all CW Plus outlets in the Central Time Zone, WBMM aired the nationally syndicated morning show The Daily Buzz on weekdays from 6 to 8 a.m.

Technical information

Subchannels
The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Analog-to-digital conversion
WBMM shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 22, for the 2009. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 24 to channel 22.

References

External links

Bahakel Communications
Television channels and stations established in 1999
BMM
The CW affiliates
Start TV affiliates
Twist (TV network) affiliates
Laff (TV network) affiliates
Defy TV affiliates
Scripps News affiliates
1999 establishments in Alabama

WBMM


A chokeslam is a type of body slam in professional wrestling, in which a wrestler grasps an opponent's neck, lifts them up, and slams them to the mat. It is common in televised wrestling because it is simple and relatively safe, yet looks powerful on camera. The chokeslam is typically used as a finisher by large wrestlers, further enhancing its perception as a powerful maneuver. This maneuver can be more damaging if the victim is slammed into an object, such as a table, steel chair, or garbage can.

The most common variety of chokeslam is performed with a single-handed choke. The wrestler places their free hand behind the opponent's back or hooks the trunks to help turn them horizontally for the throw. Although a chokeslam begins with a "choke", it is not usually considered to be an illegal move. The single arm choke that normally precedes a chokeslam is known as a goozle.

The invention of the chokeslam is credited to Paul Heyman for use by the wrestler 911, although it was already in use by AJPW wrestler Akira Taue since 1992 under the name nodowa otoshi ("choke drop/slam"). Furthermore, one of the earliest accounts of the move dates back to a 19th-century recounting that describes Abraham Lincoln (himself a wrestler in his youth) using a technique vaguely similar in description, but without any specific mention of the "slam" component. It is often used by large, powerful wrestlers such as The Undertaker, Kane, Big Show, Abyss, The Great Khali, Vader and Braun Strowman. This is because a larger, taller wrestler will be able to deliver a much higher, more impressive chokeslam than most smaller wrestlers. Their height and/or larger frames can also give them extra time to correct a botch if something goes wrong. However, some smaller wrestlers and even female performers have used the chokeslam, including Lacey Von Erich and The Hurricane, among others.

Variations

Back suplex chokeslam
In this elevated chokeslam, innovated by Akira Taue, the wrestler stands behind the opponent, puts their head under one of the opponent's arms, and lifts them onto their shoulder. The wrestler then pushes the opponent upwards, turns 180°, and grabs hold of the falling enemy's throat, driving them down to the mat back first.

Fireman's carry chokeslam
In this chokeslam variant, a wrestler has their opponent held in a Fireman's Carry position. After this, they then transition into a chokeslam. This move is sometimes used by large superstars, but is occasionally used by some smaller superstars. Shane Haste/Shane Thorne has used this move as a finisher during his time in NOAH and NJPW, calling this move "Bomb Valley Death".

Inverted powerslam chokeslam
Like the vertical suplex chokeslam, but in this variant, the attacking wrestler puts the opponent in a powerbomb position and lifts them up in an inverted powerbomb. The wrestler moves their arm from around the opponent's neck, grabbing hold of their throat. The wrestler then slams the opponent down to the mat back first.

Iron Claw slam
This move is performed in the same style as a chokeslam, but instead the wrestler grabs the opponent with a clawhold. Erick Rowan used this move as a finisher and Lars Sullivan uses it as a signature. NJPW's Great-O-Khan currently uses this as the Eliminator while also applying a wrist-clutch sometimes for extra leverage.

Leg trap chokeslam
Also known as a leg hook chokeslam, or the Sky High Chokeslam, as dubbed by Vader, the attacker starts out by lifting the opponent's left or right leg off the ground and tucks it under or hooks it over their arm while using their free hand to grab the opponent's neck. Then, the attacker lifts the opponent into the air and slams the opponent down to the mat. The move can also be used as a reversal from when the opponent tries some form of kick only to have the attacker catch and hold on to the leg, setting up the move from there. A sitting version and a kneeling version are also possible.

One-handed chokeslam

A very common variation, usually performed by a larger wrestler to a smaller one, this move sees the usual execution of the chokeslam done with just one hand lifted from the throat without the support of the other hand that usually goes on the back. Big Show, Kane, and The Undertaker frequently perform this. Big Show invented the kneeling chokeslam during his time in WCW under the name The Giant from 1995-1999.

Reverse chokeslam
This variation sees the wrestler stand behind the opponent, slightly to their side, then lift them up by their throat before slamming them face-first.

Reverse impact chokeslam
In this variation the attacking wrestler grabs the opponent's throat with one hand and grabs the opponent's abdomen with their free hand, then lifts the opponent over their head and slams the opponent similarly to a vertical suplex chokeslam.

Sitout chokeslam
This variation of a chokeslam is similar to an ordinary chokeslam, however, instead of the wrestler remaining standing, the wrestler falls into a seated position while forcing the opponent back-first into the mat. Damian Priest uses this move as his signature move, calling it South of Heaven.

Two-handed chokeslam
This move sees a wrestler first grasp an opponent's neck with both hands, then lift them up and choke them before throwing the opponent back down to the mat, usually after choking out the opponent. A falling version of this move can see the attacking wrestler fall forward to the mat while keeping their arms extended, but will more often see the wrestler fall into a seated position or a kneeling position. It's mainly used by Tensai and The Great Khali.

Chokebomb
Also known as a sitout two-handed chokeslam and a choke driver. The most common move referred to as a chokebomb sees an attacking wrestler grasps an opponent's neck with both hands and then lift them up into the air. From here the attacking wrestler would throw the opponent back down to the mat while falling to a seated position. This would see the opponent land in a position where their legs are wrapped around the wrestler with their back and shoulders on the mat. This allows the attacking wrestler to lean forward and place both their arms on the opponent for a pinfall attempt. A falling version exists, and usually ends with the attacking wrestler pinning the opponent immediately while still holding the throat after the move has already been executed. It was used by Albert, The Great Khali, The Wifebeater/Matt Martini and Tara.

Vertical suplex chokeslam
In this elevated chokeslam, innovated by Akira Taue, the wrestler applies a front facelock to the opponent and wraps their arm over the opponent's neck or body. The wrestler then lifts the opponent upside down, as in a vertical suplex. The wrestler moves their arm from around the opponent's neck, grabbing hold of their throat. The wrestler then slams the opponent down to the mat back first.

References

External links

Professional wrestling moves

Chokeslam


In IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) terminology, a station (abbreviated as STA) is a device that has the capability to use the 802.11 protocol. For example, a station may be a laptop, a desktop PC, PDA, access point or Wi-Fi phone. An STA may be fixed, mobile or portable. Generally, in wireless networking terminology, a station, a wireless client and a node are often used interchangeably, with no strict distinction existing between these terms. A station may also be referred to as a transmitter or receiver based on its transmission characteristics. IEEE 802.11-2007 formally defines station as: Any device that contains an IEEE 802.11-conformant media access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) interface to the wireless medium (WM).

See also
Basic Service Set
Service set identifier

External links
 Standards document IEEE 802.11-2020

Wi-Fi

Station (networking)


George Lichtenstein (1827 – 13 February 1893) was a Hungarian pianist and music teacher who lived and worked in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Life and career
George Lichtenstein was born in Hungary. As a child, he studied violin and piano with Georg Vierling, and was influenced by the music of Hungarian Gypsies. He continued his studies at school in Pécs and Pressburg and later with Joseph Fischhof in Vienna.

Lichtenstein also studied law and served as secretary to political activist Lajos Kossuth during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. After the Russian intervention, he fled to Königsberg, and after the convention between Austria and Germany, from there to London in 1851. He was accompanied by his brother F.L. Lichtenstein, who later became editor of the Correspondence de Pesth newspaper. In London, George Lichtenstein was befriended by Jenny Lind and others and worked as a piano teacher and concert pianist.

In 1856 Lichtenstein settled in Edinburgh where he became noted as a music teacher and influence on musical culture of the city. He served as music teacher and accompanist to Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh while he studied at Holyrood. He was a founding member and president of the Edinburgh Society of Musicians and served as Director of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution. He was director and head of the music department at Charlotte Square Institution. Noted students include composer Helen Hopekirk. Lichtenstein remained unmarried and died at age seventy in Edinburgh.

He is buried in Morningside Cemetery, Edinburgh. The grave is marked by a stout sandstone obelisk near the centre of the western boundary, facing away from the path.

References

1823 births
1893 deaths
Hungarian classical pianists
Hungarian male musicians
Male classical pianists
Hungarian classical musicians
Hungarian music educators
19th-century Hungarian people
People of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848
Musicians from Edinburgh
Hungarian politicians
Hungarian emigrants to Scotland
19th-century classical pianists
19th-century male musicians

George Lichtenstein (musician)


Honkyoku (本曲, "original pieces") are the pieces of shakuhachi music collected in the 18th century by a Komuso of the Japanese Fuke sect Kinko Kurosawa. It was believed that these pieces were played by the members of the Fuke Sect. The Fuke sect was a Japanese sect of masterless samurai (Ronins) self called komusō  "Lay Monks of the Non-Dual & None-ness". According to Japanologist Torsten Olafsson "Having become masterless samurai in a time of peace and having had to join the growing groups of flute-playing beggars to survive, like the komosō:, those rōnin did no longer enjoyed the privileges and relative security of belonging to any ordinary families, or households, that could be inspected, approved, and registered every year under the new "Danka System", as a result in 1640 they organized themselves as sincere members of some kind of a "new" native Buddhist movement that played the shakuhachi."

It is believed that after the crushing of the revolt of ronins around Shimabara the Tokugawa Bakufu ordered the tracking down and punishment of all remaining Catholic Christian believers left hiding in the country, even taking their life if they did not reject and renounce their alien faith. Komuso needed to have their religious movement linked to Zen Buddhism on an official way to survive the new all sects inspection bureau.  For that reason Komuso faked documents linking them to 9th century Fuke Zenji to be recognized by the all sects inspection bureau as a legitimate Buddhist sect   in order to achieve respectful acceptance, independence and possible secure legal privileges. Komuso were not zen Buddhist monks and there does not exist any documentary evidence of any solid "affiliation" between the socalled "Fuke Sect" and the Edo Period Rinzai Zen Institution,  therefore Honkyoku are not original pieces of Zen Buddhist music composed or performed by Buddhist Zen Monks in a state of enlightenment but rather were pieces composed by ronins (former samurais) self-called komuso who had a sincere fondness for Zen Buddhism.  There is also no evidence that Komusō played honkyoku for enlightenment and alms as early as the 13th century as komuso first appeared in 1640.  Komuso are different from the earlier Fuke Komoso of the early 1600s.  In fact it was very well demonstrated by japanologists Deeg   and Torsten Olafsson that the Kyotaku Denki was a cover story invented by one or more mid-17th century early komusō ideologists and storytellers. . The Fuke sect which originated from this practice ceased to exist in the 19th century, after which several shakuhachi guilds were formed, and the verbal and written lineage of many honkyoku continues today, though the music is now often practised in a concert or performance setting.  Since 1950 Honkyoku is part of the practice of suizen (吹禅, "blowing Zen"). It was in 1950 when for first time the term "suizen" was conceived as "Sui-teki shugyo" by the 32nd Kyōto Myōan-ji 'Kansu', 看首, "supervisor", "director", Rodō Genkyō.  The above knowledge is highly controversial and contested among Japanese scholars such as Kiku Day, who maintain that according to the iconography and art coming out of Japan during the Edo period, it is very likely that the Fuke sect existed during this time.

There are many ryū 流, or schools, of honkyoku, each with their own style, emphasis, and teaching methods.

"Motion in honkyoku is significantly static, precisely because of the dominance of the sacred purpose and function, and to a certain extent, it is also subject to breathing meditation, the principle of the suidan - the phrase of one full breath - thus a form of breathing exercise."

Kinko Ryū

In the 18th century, a komusō named Kinko Kurosawa of the Fuke sect  was commissioned to travel Japan and collect these musical pieces.  Although it is commonly thought that the 36 pieces of the Kinko Ryū Honkyoku repertoire were collected and played by Kinko Kurosawa, these pieces were significantly changed and codified by later generations, including Miura Kindo and others.

 Hifumi—Hachigaeshi no Shirabe 一二三鉢返の調
 Taki-ochi no Kyoku (Taki-otoshi no Kyoku) 瀧落の曲
 Akita Sugagaki 秋田菅垣
 Koro Sugagaki 転菅垣
 Kyūshū Reibo 九州鈴慕
 Shizu no Kyoku 志図の曲
 Kyō Reibo 京鈴慕
 Mukaiji Reibo 霧海箎
 Kokū Reibo  虚空
 a)  Kokū Kaete (Ikkan-ryū) 虚空替手 (一関流) b) Banshikichō 盤渉調
 Shin Kyorei 真虚霊
 Kinsan Kyorei 琴三虚霊
 Yoshiya Reibo 吉野鈴慕
 Yūgure no Kyoku 夕暮の曲
 Sakai Jishi 栄獅子
 Uchikae Kyorei 打替虚霊
 Igusa Reibo 葦草鈴慕
 Izu Reibo 伊豆鈴慕
 Reibo Nagashi 鈴慕流
 Sōkaku Reibo 巣鶴鈴慕
 Sanya Sugagaki 三谷菅垣
 Shimotsuke Kyorei 下野虚霊
 Meguro-jishi 目黒獅子
 Ginryū Kokū 吟龍虚空
 Sayama Sugagaki 佐山菅垣
 Sagari Ha no Kyoku 下り葉の曲
 Namima Reibo 波間鈴慕
 Shika no Tōne 鹿の遠音
 Hōshōsu 鳳将雛
 Akebono no Shirabe 曙の調
 Akebono Sugagaki 曙菅垣
 Ashi no Shirabe 芦の調
 Kotoji no Kyoku 琴柱の曲
 Kinuta Sugomori 砧巣籠
 Tsuki no Kyoku 月の曲
 Kotobuki no Shirabe 寿の調

At least three additional pieces were later added to the Kinko-Ryu repertoire:

 Kumoi Jishi 雲井獅子
 Azuma no Kyoku 吾妻の曲
 Sugagaki  菅垣

Other notable Honkyoku schools:

Notes
 Shakuhachi Meditation Music, a 1997 CD release from Sounds True, features 13 selections from the Kinko Ryū, performed by Stan Richardson.

References

External links
 Kinko Ryū information
 Kinko Ryū repertoire
 Dokyoku repertoire
 The Systemisation of the Musical Language of the Fukezen Shakuhachi Honkyoku
 The "Ascetic Shakuhachi" Historical Evidence Research Web Pages
 KomusØ and "Shakuhachi-Zen" From Historical Legitimation to the Spiritualisation of a Buddhist denomination in the Edo Period

Buddhist music
Zen art and culture
Japanese styles of music
Japanese traditional music

Honkyoku


Ron's Gone Wrong is a 2021 computer-animated science fiction comedy movie. It was directed by Sarah Smith and Jean-Philippe Vine, co-directed by Octavio E. Rodriguez, produced by Karen Disher and Vicky Jenson, and written by Genndy Tartakovsky and Smith. The film features the voice of Jack Dylan Grazer as Barney, a socially awkward middle-schooler who befriends a defective robot he names Ron, voiced by Zach Galifianakis. Barney must find a way to protect Ron, who comes under danger from corporate employees. Additional voices include Ed Helms, Justice Smith, Rob Delaney, Kylie Cantrall, Ricardo Hurtado and Olivia Colman.

Cast
 Jack Dylan Grazer as Barney Pudowski, a socially awkward and lonesome middle-schooler whom Savannah shares a friendship with.
 Zach Galifianakis as RONB1NT5CAT5CO / "Ron", Barney's malfunctioning B-bot.
 Ed Helms as Graham Pudowski, Barney's father and Donka's son.
 Olivia Colman as Donka Pudowski, Barney's grandmother and Graham's mother who was born in Bulgaria.
 Rob Delaney as Andrew Morris, the COO of the Bubble company.
 Justice Smith as Marc Wydell, the creator of the B-bot and the CEO of the Bubble company.
 Kylie Cantrall as Savannah Meades, Barney's classmate who is an aspiring vlogger.
 Ricardo Hurtado as Rich Belcher, Barney's classmate who continually pranks people in hopes of becoming famous.
 Cullen McCarthy as Noah, Barney's classmate who loves video games.
 Ava Morse as Ava, Barney's classmate who loves science.
 Marcus Scribner as Alex, one of Rich's cronies.
 Thomas Barbusca as Jayden, one of Rich's cronies.
 Ruby Wax as Ms. Hartley, Barney's middle school principal.
 Natalie Palamides as Bree, a Bubble store manager.
 Krupa Pattani as Sita, a colleague of Andrew Morris.
 Megan Maczko as Miss Thomas, Barney's middle school teacher.
Additionally, Bentley Kalu voices a cop, John Macmillan voices Shayne the Biker, David Menkin voices Mr. Cleaver, and Iara Nemirovsky voices Ellie. Liam Payne voices a B-bot who gets kicked by Andrew in a cameo appearance, respectively.

Other websites

2021 comedy movies
2021 science fiction movies
2021 computer-animated movies
British science fiction movies
British fantasy movies
British animated movies
American science fiction movies
American fantasy movies
American animated movies

Ron's Gone Wrong


Graham Peter Clarke (; born July 11, 1970) is an American musician, songwriter, arranger, and entertainer. Active since 1995 and performing frequently in the New York metropolitan area, Clarke is regarded as one of New York's most popular and long-lasting children's entertainers and recording artists having played well over 5,000 musical performances on the east coast for both children and adults. His style has been described as funny and "off-center". He has yet to sign to any label and continues to self-publish his music.

Biography

1970 to 1988: early years
Graham Clarke was born in Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, New Jersey on July 11, 1970.  Clarke's parents, Lorain Maria Clarke (née Meola), a homemaker, and Thomas Michael "Moose" Clarke, a stockbroker were married in 1960 and had three children before Graham: Thomas in 1961, Dennis in 1962, and Martin in 1965.  He spent the first seven years of his life in a split-level home in Dumont, New Jersey.  He was frequently in the room when his older brother Tommy would have guitar lessons with musician Bob Berger.  Bob noted one time when a screaming Graham had scarlet fever "That boy's screaming on key!  That's a C note."  Such exposure to music had an obvious influence on him and there is an oft-told family story that claims the first song Graham ever learned to sing was "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard," a popular song Tommy was learning on the guitar at the time.  At the age of seven, his family moved one town over to Oradell, where he attended St. Joseph Grammar School, and later Bergen Catholic High School. Neither school had a music program so Graham taught himself how to play the guitar using his brother's old fake books.

1989 to 1996: Burgeoning musician

Attending Boston College in the fall of 1988, Clarke accepted an invitation into the school's undergraduate Honors Program.  In addition to performing solo at bars, clubs and street performances at subway stations (without a license), he also acted at the Robsham Theater and wrote original sketch comedy for the campus coffeehouse.  He also traveled with conductor Alexander Peloquin and the Boston College Chorale, singing as a bass, baritone, and tenor.  In 1991 Graham met his future wife, Peggy Clarke (née Amlung), who was a graduate student in the BC theology department.

After graduation in 1992, Clarke moved to New Rochelle in the affluent Westchester suburbs of New York City.  In September he took a job working as an English teacher at Evander Childs High School in the Bronx.  In 1994, he left teaching and entered the philosophy PhD program at Fordham University, a move that would dramatically influence his future work.  In an effort to help his sister-in-law, Janine, in 1995 Clarke began caring part-time for Janine's son, Blake.  Noticing how much Blake enjoyed it when he brought over his guitar, Janine, herself a teacher, suggested that he go to the local nursery schools daycare centers to see if they needed a music specialist.  She gave him some Raffi cassettes and other children's music she used in the classroom.  By the end of 1996, Clarke had more work than he could handle.  He was making weekly visits to over 20 schools and daycare centers and was being rapidly invited to play at many events  and parties throughout Westchester and Rockland Counties. From 1999 onward, he was the gold standard for children's party entertainment in Westchester  having worked for such New York families as the Trumps and the Tisches. Soon, the majority of his work was coming from the high-end bedroom communities of Greenwich, Bedford, New Canaan, and Scarsdale.  In 1996, he had surgery on his sinuses to be able to manage his heavy workload (singing four hours a day, five days a week.)

1997 to present: recording artist

Graham & Delores
In 1996 Clarke approached John Reynolds, whom he knew from his brother Marty's late-1980s band The Goatmen, to help him make his first album, Graham & Delores. Recorded at Arrigoni Center, a former Episcopal church, at Iona College on a TASCAM 4-track portastudio (borrowed from noted Thomas Merton scholar Kathleen Deignan), the album featured a very basic, live acoustic sound featuring only Clarke and his guitar with no over-dubbing. It was released in 1997 selling out the original run of over 1000 units strictly at his local shows by 1998.

Graham & Cinnamon
Branching out in 1999, Clarke followed up with a second album Graham & Cinnamon which featured a much more studio produced sound.  Again, he went to John Reynolds for production assistance.  Reynolds brought him to the (now defunct) Nu Bleu Recording Studio in Garfield, NJ run by Andy Halasz.  The instrumentation expanded well beyond Clarke and his guitar.  Reynolds contributed invaluably to this album by providing arrangements and playing every instrument on the album besides Graham's guitar.  Songs like "If I Live to Be 100" and "Grandma Can You Jump?" benefitted greatly from Reynolds instrumentation (including playing the drums, which Reynods had never played before) and the recording experience he brought with him from The Goatmen and Every Damn Day.  Clarke started to receive airplay on local radio stations, premiering on WPLJ's "Scott and Todd: The Big Show".

American Blue
Released in June 2001, American Blue again saw Clarke moving further out of his one-man-one-guitar recordings.  This time he brought on his brother Tommy Clarke to help produce.  They recorded over a weekend at the studio of Jazz-o-lution bassist's Marshall Topo, with whom he had worked for Carla Henderson's "Your Tiny" videos) in Port Chester, NY.  The album's crown jewel, "Fancy Pants", is a paean to one of Clarke's musical heroes, David Bowie.  But many of Clarke's songs are clearly the product by his local work with groups of children in the Lower Hudson Valley region of New York and Clarke has said at his live shows that "Jack, Jack, Jackson and Jason" are four actual boys from one of his music classes.  Always assuming intelligence on the part of the child, Clarke arranged a version of the Christmas carol 'We Three Kings" incorporated elements from Mozart's Requiem Mass, especially the vocal portion of "Lacrimosa dies illa".  American Blue also featured Clarke's first a cappella recording, a reworking of the Georgia Sea Island folksong "Old Lady Come from Brewster" using only his voice for the "instruments".  The album's "Sword and Shield" is noted on the back cover as "for Peg", apparently a dedication to his wife.

Acoustic New York
After the September 11 attacks in 2001, Clarke again called on his brother Tommy to help produce an album devoted entirely to New York.  Recorded at Tommy's home in Cambridge, Acoustic New York was released on the one-year anniversary of the 9-11 attacks.  After seeing Ric Burns' New York: A Documentary Film, Clarke was apparently  inspired and wrote the majority of both "Dig Dig Dig (The Croton Aqueduct Song)" and "Elisha Graves Otis (The Elevator Song)" in the next 24 hours.  Tommy again accompanies him on many of the album's tracks, including Clarke's reworking of "My Country, 'Tis of Thee".  In another nod to his local work, the hyperbolic "Sue Speigel's Driveway" is apparently based on an actual event at an Armonk music class.  Clarke has never performed the dolorous "Angel Parade" in public.

FiVE
In 2004, Clarke released what was to be his most popular and best-selling album to date, FiVE.  (The title refers to it being Clarke's fifth album and is not a reference to The Dave Clark Five.)  Tommy Clarke once again took over producing and mixing duties and the album was recorded in Clarke's library in Somers.  According to the liner notes, domestic activity at the household continued through, sometimes during, the recordings leading to some unintentional musical artifacts like the sounds of a dishwasher being loaded during "My Old Kentucky Home".  "King George the Monkey" was the most popular song on the album and is arguably the most well-crafted song of his career.  The album also includes songs Clarke had written for his aborted television pilot ("Supermarket," "Learn to Read," "Graham Clarke Show," and "The Oui Song").  Alto Amy Healey joined Clarke for duets on both "Come on Up Athena" and "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" (a song Clarke performed at Healy's wedding two years previous).  By 2008, Clarke's complete catalog of songs were picked up by iTunes, Amazon MP3, Rhapsody and other online distributors.

Controversy
FiVE's "King George the Monkey" came under considerable scrutiny by political conservatives and liberals alike as being a thinly veiled reference to then-President George W. Bush's foreign policy, a claim Clarke has not publicly confirmed nor denied.  Bush's approval ratings were riding above 50% when the album was released.

Hogging the Covers
Released in May 2012, Clarke returned with his first album in 7 years.  The album reportedly will feature only Clarke and his guitar and will be a compilation of original cover arrangements of rock, pop, and jazz songs featuring songs by The Beatles, The Police, Nirvana, Iron and Wine, and others (pending the securing of rights).  Principle recording was completed in September 2008.  The title refers not only to the cover arrangements, but also because it is intended to be an album of  lullabies.

Television and video
It was during the production of American Blue that Clarke started to branch into children's video.  He made the "Quills Up!" video for the American Association of Poison Control Centers with producer Jonathan Katz and provided music for the "Your Tiny" series of videos produced by Carla Henderson for Child Smart.  Clarke also looked into landing his own children's television show.  After being approached by a television network executive mother and an inspiring meeting with Sesame Street's Gordon, Clarke began work on a TV pilot with actor-writer Brian Reid
.  But the experience was cut short by sour experiences with personalities in the television industry and by the economic aftermath following the September 11 attacks.

Clarke has been a frequent guest on News 12 and other local TV stations.  He often appears during special holiday segments, often appearing and singing with children.

MADtv parody
In 2001, not long after the release of Acoustic New York, the sketch comedy television show MADtv first aired a comedy skit called "Sundays with Graham Clark" which portrayed a children's entertainer (dressed like and singing like Clarke) singing songs promoting atheism, though Clarke himself has never written children's songs about or publicly advocating atheism.

Charity work
Clarke has done benefits for many charities including the 2004 tsunami victims  and Widows of 9-11.  He enjoyed a 15-month-long weekly performance at Blythedale Children's Hospital.  Clarke also donates performances annually to The Red Cross, Kids in Crisis, multiple Junior Leagues, as well as many local charities, schools, and libraries.

Guitars
Clarke plays Ovation guitars almost exclusively.  He owns four:  "Delores", "Cinnamon", "Bluebell", and "Blondie".  He was given a 1986 Collector's Edition by his brother Tommy.  Although he records with it (reportedly Hogging the Covers was performed entirely with it), Graham rarely plays it in public.

Personal life
Graham has been married to his wife Peggy since May 28, 1994.  Peggy is currently senior minister at Community Church of New York. They live in Somers, New York.  They have a child, Zachary. Clarke was raised Roman Catholic, but left the faith by his time at Boston College.  Though technically not a member, he does frequently attend services and perform at the Unitarian Universalists. He also sees his family frequently and all four brothers make an annual trip to a different city to watch a live professional hockey game.  He is a dog lover and has owned dogs his entire adult life, often including them in his songs ("Come on Up, Athena", "Man in the Moon").

He is a resident of Somers, New York.

Relatives
Clarke is first cousin to Grammy Award-winning, Oscar-nominated film score composer Alan Silvestri.

Discography
Graham & Delores (1997)
Graham & Cinnamon (1999)
American Blue (2001)
Acoustic New York (2003)
Five (2005)
Hoggin' the Covers (2012)

References

External links
Official Graham Clarke web page

American children's musicians
American comedy musicians
American baritones
Living people
1970 births
Boston College alumni
Fordham University alumni
People from Dumont, New Jersey
People from Oradell, New Jersey
Musicians from New Rochelle, New York
People from Somers, New York
Singer-songwriters from New Jersey
Singer-songwriters from New York (state)
Comedians from New York (state)
Guitarists from New Jersey
American male guitarists
21st-century American singer-songwriters
21st-century American comedians
21st-century American guitarists
21st-century American male singers
American male singer-songwriters

Graham Clarke (musician)