United Against Harmful Practices Video – Featuring Survivors of Child Marriage and Forced Marriage
I’m so happy to announce that the video for the June 13th United Against Harmful Practices is now on YouTube. Why am I happy? I’m happy because the awareness can be spread about the human rights abuses discussed during the Zoom meeting. No one should suffer child marriage or forced marriage.
Some individuals tried to stop our meeting by zoom bombing it. They tried to share inappropriate images, and tried to silence us, but we will not be silenced. It’s important to speak up about this and not be intimidated. The zoom recording would have been available a lot earlier had these horrible individuals not interfered. However, our recording is mostly unaffected except in one place where unfortunately one part was shorter than it should have been for one of the speakers. That speaker was amazing! She dealt with the interruption so magnificently, I was amazed.
Please do watch the video, as I believe it is enlightening, empowering and even educational. Where else have so many survivors all been under one roof so to speak (even if it was the Zoom roof) and told their very real and personal stories? We are doing this to spread awareness so that no other child should suffer what we went through. Thanks in advance for watching.
December Nights in San Diego
Time’s already flying by, and it’s February now, but I still haven’t shared December Nights, 2015 with you. Must hurry up, or it will be December again. Just my luck! I don’t want time to go that quickly. There’s no rush…..I will get too old too quickly like this – slow down time!
December Nights at Balboa Park in San Diego is always a fun event. It’s a two day extravaganza, and my family really enjoys it. This year we had to go without Niki, my oldest – since she has started college, and moved away. Still, it’s a fun event for kids of all ages, and adults alike, and I think I might love it even more than my kids do!
This year, we went early. Even though the even starts at 12 noon or so, most people don’t go until 5pm, as they like to be there in the evening when all the lights are on, as well as the Christmas tree at the Organ Pavilion. However, traffic is crazy and hectic, and so is parking. A few times now, we have parked at Petco Park, and then taken a shuttle bus from there to Balboa Park, but this time I wanted to park at the Zoo, and combine December Nights with a trip to the Zoo. So, we got to the Zoo at around 1:45 pm, and were easily able to find a parking spot. We spent about one and a half hours there.
We then took the short walk to Balboa Park – an easy 5 or 10 minute walk.
We first saw the Fountain area, close to one of the museums, and had a little snack, then walked past the Botanical Gardens area where the beautiful flowers, and Reflective Pond is; then we went to the Grinch tree, which is by the Old Globe Theatre, and actually spotted the Grinch!
We then went to see some of the performances at the Organ Pavilion, and since Chandra wanted to eat, we went towards the International Cottages area. When I heard Indian music, that beckoned me, and I was so glad I had allowed myself to be beckoned like that – because that became the highlight of my entire evening. I normally enjoy the Organ Pavilion area, and the Christmas songs so much, and enjoyed them again this year, but this time I allowed myself to actually wander away from the performances at the Organ Pavilion to experience more of what was taking place at the International Cottages area, and these are two competing performance areas – one on the big stage, and the other on a smaller stage, but equally powerful in performance. While one concentrates on performances that are mainly musical, and showcases instruments being played, and singers performing – the smaller stage at the International Cottages focuses on dance. The dance aspect is really entertaining, as you still have the music and the songs, but now have further entertainment too. I absolutely loved it, and my little Chandra got up to dance on the stage for the Grand Finale of the Indian dancing!
Here are two videos that I made – one shows the Grand Finale that Chandra was in,
and the other one shows a variety of performances, and dances that were performed. This includes the performances at the Organ Pavilion, and the Scottish Bagpipe Band, as well as the San Diego Chorus, and of course, the Indian dance performances which took place at the International Cottages.
I love December Nights, there is nothing quite like it!
2015 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 9,300 times in 2015. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 3 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Some Companies Must Stop Violating The Rights of YouTube Uploaders Like Luchanik
*Some companies must stop violating the rights of YouTube uploaders like me – Luchanik. I uploaded a video that I recorded on August 15, 2015 on Indian Independence Day in Los Angeles showing Raveena Tandon and how she was made upset towards the end of the show. I noticed at least four different organizations that uploaded my video who did not give me any credit for the video. That is wrong – plain wrong, in fact it is unethical, and illegal, especially in this country – the USA.
I filed a copyright claim against a certain company who are giants on YouTube and mostly show Bollywood material – of course Raveena Tandon is a Bollywood actress – a mega-star, so of course they might have wanted my material – they have 165,000 or so subscribers, while I only have 137 subscribers or so. Is it fair that they should be able to upload my video without giving me credit? No? Was it the right thing for me to do to notify YouTube? Yes, I think it was the right thing to do.
Obviously, they did not like it as YouTube took the video down. A certain company counter-claimed, and said their upload came under “fair use” because they uploaded less than 20 seconds. I think the video was much more than 20 seconds that they uploaded. I was then given 10 days to go to court to protect my rights, however, why should I have to go to these efforts – YouTube should be able to protect my rights. Obviously, it was evident that I posted the video first – I uploaded it on August 16, 2015 and a certain company uploaded it on August 21st. I responded to YouTube, and said I would not take it to court, and that it is my content, but if they feel they wish to reinstate it – it is up to them. A certain company then filed another counter claim against me, saying that they made the video and not me! This is devastating, and absurd!
Guess what silly thing they did that YouTube let them get away with and no wonder my video got taken down! Their video begins with _g, their full link is (now deleted the reference) and mine begins with =6, my full link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63Quv0W2Scg see screenshots (now taken down the screenshots too) of both videos which are currently down. Well, they claimed their video was my video beginning with =6, how could it be? The link is unique to the uploader, and they can’t now claim to be me – luchanik! No wonder, YouTube took my video down, because they were basically saying it was their video. I think it is a bot or something that deals with these complaints so if someone claims on the Complaint Form that their video is a certain link, the bot is not intelligent enough to say “Hey, you can’t possibly have that link” – this is what should have happened, but didn’t, and they got away with it. So the next thing I knew was on Friday, September 18th, I got an early morning email from YouTube that my video had been taken down and that I had received a copyright strike! If you get three copyright strikes, you can lose your account. This is my first copyright strike, and if I had copied someone’s material, then I can understand that I deserved it, but I didn’t copy anyone’s material – this was mine. Talk about a rude awakening! How can this be? I made the video, I was there in Los Angeles – not a certain company!
As you can see, these people are playing nasty! I don’t like injustice. I like to speak up when someone is unfair. Now, these people “a certain company”, (sorry, but I wanted to delete reference to their website and name again) – are giants on YouTube and I am a small person, so it is the giants against me.
If they are the Rightster, am I the Wrongster, I ask you? It’s like a song….I next want to say – Who Is The Monster? That’s just me rhyming! But really, wouldn’t it make a great song?
Here’s their link that shows their video begins with _g
(removed link)
Here’s my video, which shows my link begins with =6
Here’s a link to a video that I made showing me hold my smartphone with one hand, so that I could record myself in front of the mirror showing you with the other hand my camcorder with the footage of August 15th. It’s just my proof, and I may not have video taped myself in the best way possible in order to achieve my goal of showing the proof, but I did the best I could. I have nothing to fear, I have the footage? Do they have the footage on a camcorder or SD Card? I seriously doubt it. Here’s the proof – or my attempt to show it. I just made a video showing the proof – with me holding the camcorder with the footage playing, here it is:
(video has been removed by me so you can’t see it anyway)
Also, read this link to see just how hard some people have it with Copyright Notices on YouTube. The system needs to improve – a lot. If we upload to YouTube, make it fair for us, not unfair! Some of these people who file copyright claims will repeatedly do it to irritate the complainant, and I sincerely hope this doesn’t happen. I don’t want to spend all my time and energy on this – I have so much else that i can do with my life!
I sent YouTube a different video that is private and just for them to see with the footage from my camcorder on the day when I got the horrible email. I also had to go to Copyright School in order to get some access back to my account, and I had no problem answering all 4 questions because I answered them honestly – the questions were something like “Do you know it’s wrong to steal someone else’s content?” Well, how did the other guys answer the questions? Obviously dishonestly! They must have lied because they obviously copied my content and lied again about the link which caused YouTube to take down my video. I am indignant that I had to go to Copyright School – this whole thing is absurd. Someone, please help me! Or YouTube, please just reinstate my video. If you ever see that it is down again after/if it comes up, remember that these so called “Rightster’s” will probably try to irritate me again. I already am expecting it, and ready to fight them again.
I really hope that YouTube puts my video back up, because this isn’t fair! These big giant companies can’t go around playing unfair games with small people like me, thinking they can get away with it. I also hope that the copyright strike goes away, and what about an apology from YouTube and one from a certain company? I’ve a feeling that’s not going to happen. I guess this is what happens when you make a video that kind of goes viral! You pay the price – not nice!
Update as of September 22nd, 2015 – my video was reinstated! Yeah!!!! So, it should have been, after all it was all mine – 100%. This situation has been resolved amicably, but I wish I didn’t have to write this post and make a video showing proof, which I have subsequently taken down now – there was no point in leaving that up anymore. Is there a point in leaving this post up? For right now, I think it’s educational more than anything else or at least hopefully. In hindsight right after writing this update, I decided to take out all reference of the name of the company that caused me a lot of problems.
* I changed all reference to the company previously named since I don’t want to remain bitter about this any more.
luchanik 