These are ordinary times for America

If Sally Yates is going to use the phrase “we are not living in ordinary times” in her column “Who are we as a country?”, she needs to define what, if anything, is so extraordinary about it.

This country was born from revolution and reaffirmed through a civil war; and less than 100 years elapsed between the two. Think of all the things this country has been through and seen (both good and bad) since that time: slavery, World Wars I and II, the Great Depression, labor strife, Jim Crow, Jap- anese internment, the Cold War, the civil rights movement, the Cuban missile crisis, presidential assassinations, presidential impeachments, anti-Vietnam War protests, 9/11, and the list goes on.

Yates’ column is why I find it so difficult to empathize with those who agonize about the unprecedented crisis this country is facing. We should always strive to do better as a nation, but I find it hard to agree that we are living in anything but “ordinary times.” Frank Salisbury Buckhannon, W.Va.