Quarantining Your Body (But Not Your Mind)

The COVID-19 self-quarantining is getting old. Although procedures for social distancing are in place to keep us safe, they also keep us feeling a bit cooped up. We thought it might be nice to celebrate some of the things we learned during these last few months. While no one would have wished this pandemic on anyone, it is important to be mindful and see silver linings. Here at the Legal Beagle we learned several new facts over the last few weeks. Here are a few:

1. According to the CDC website, “the Public Health Service Act of 1944 clearly established the federal government’s quarantine authority for the first time.” 
2. There are YouTube videos from a channel called Slow TV which are very long, relaxing videos of uneventful things. For example, there is a ten-hour video of small waves crashing on the shore and another ten hours of gentle snow falling. 
3. After binging a particular Netflix series, there is a lot to be learned about the ethics of hybridizing animals. Did you know that there are such animals as zonkeys (zebras + donkeys), camas (camel + llama), and pizzlies (polar bears + grizzlies)?
4. The history of Zoom is cute and romantic. The founder of Zoom, Eric S. Yuan, describes its origin, “I first envisioned Zoom when I was a freshman in college in China and regularly took a ten-hour train ride to visit my girlfriend (who is now my wife). I detested those rides and used to imagine other ways I could visit my girlfriend without traveling — those daydreams eventually became the basis for Zoom.”
5. According to the American Library Association, “A growing body of evidence suggests that students’ academic success is linked to library usage, including improved student retention and an enhanced academic experience.”
6. Also on the theme of libraries, did you know that there is a karaoke room in a library in Finland??? “The Tikkurila Library in Vantaa, Finland, has a karaoke room with thousands of songs for guests to perform. (Finland is home to a lot of karaoke-loving citizens.) Fortunately, all that warbling doesn’t rise to the level of a disruption: The room is soundproof.”
7. According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) via pangolins.org, “virtually no information is available on population levels of any species of pangolin. These species are rarely observed due to their secretive, solitary, and nocturnal habits, and there has been little research on their population densities.”