Readers Write (Feb. 11): Vaccinations, Brian Williams, Obama and religion, science and values, New England snow

I am 83 — I come from an era (as do my children) when there were no vaccines for measles, mumps, whooping cough, tetanus. I attended a one-room country school with eight grades. I contracted the measles when I was in eighth grade. The disease went through the whole school. Anyone who hadn't already had measles came down with it. I was very ill, but recovered. A younger student wasn't so lucky; her brain was affected, and after a few months, she died.

I don't think the parents today who are refusing to vaccinate their children have any idea of how dangerous these diseases are. They have not, until this time, witnessed how serious the consequences of their decisions are.

Ruth Ann Cioci's "Why I'm going to cut Brian Williams a little bit of slack" (Feb. 10) makes some good points, and Ms. Cioci sounds charitable and forgiving.

That said, Brian Williams fabricating something is not the same as two family members with different recollections of an incident. Williams has influence over millions of viewers. If he, as news editor, chooses to not run certain news items or chooses to embellish an item, his audience is affected.

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What a tempest in a teapot. Williams was in the war zone. He was on a military helicopter. He heard radio transmissions of the attack. He flew the same route. He landed at the same airfield. He saw the damaged craft. He interviewed the crew that was hit. For 12 years after that, he has continued to report news stories from or about two of the longest-running wars in U.S. history on virtually a daily basis, watching countless hours of war footage (which U.S. media outlets love to show and report on). It was a feel-good battlefield survival story, the kind that television media (all networks) love to report — and the kind of story that viewers have a visceral and favorable reaction to. The goals of the U.S. military were met by having such a story told by a noted celebrity. It helped give credence to the war effort underway. Mission accomplished.

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"The Rashomon effect is contradictory interpretations of the same event by different people. The phrase derives from the Japanese film 'Rashomon,' where the accounts of the witnesses, suspects, and victims of a rape and murder are all different."

My interest in this topic derives from my acquaintance with a former police officer, who once commented about how, in the courtroom setting, the testimony of witnesses to the same event can be so astonishingly different. I have noted the same in my own experience.

Cioci's conclusion is both wise and kindhearted. Indeed, why should people self-righteously leap to the conclusion that Williams lied? As Puck in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" observed: "Lord, what fools these mortals be!"

Any honest Christian — for example, President Obama — will agree with St. Paul's words "for all have sinned," and will be prepared to humbly acknowledge how he or she falls "short of the glory of God." The Feb. 10 editorial cartoon somehow implies that Obama looks down from his high horse of political correctness, leaving "real Christians" to clean up after his mess. In his prayer breakfast address last week, the president rejected such a "high horse" — he's just another Christian standing with believers who strive to clean up the mess. And I say God bless him.

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Peter J. Teravskis' Feb. 10 commentary stating that science is fundamentally silent about values raises an interesting point about the tension between public safety and personal liberty. As a society, we routinely set limits on personal freedom, particularly when that freedom places others at risk. I may wish to exercise my liberty by driving while intoxicated, but the state has a legitimate claim to restrict my ability to do so. Scientific testing provides determinations of the blood alcohol level that diminishes a driver's judgment and reaction times (one molecule is safe, while a fifth of bourbon is not). The ample scientific evidence thus informs the public policy and enables us to place a boundary between personal freedom and public safety.

Similarly, there is extensive scientific evidence of the benefits of vaccinations, for the individual child and for society as a whole. I agree with Teravskis that science "helps us make decisions by giving us the information required to make policy with our eyes wide open." We are indeed a government of the people, for the people, and there are times when we should heed the expertise of the elite, whether it is a medical doctor or an auto mechanic. Science is a process by which we learn about the world, and it is not just another opinion. To treat it as such rarely yields good public policy.

Now that the Minneapolis school board has, rightfully so, included a student on the board (in a nonvoting role), when will a teacher be added? Yes, it is true that the teachers have a union that goes to bat for them, but many items could potentially be resolved before they need to be negotiated if a teacher representative were invited to be on the board.

I guess if I had to have a choice between my team winning the Super Bowl and getting five feet of snow in a few weeks or my team not winning the Super Bowl and getting five-tenths of an inch of snow in a week, I'd settle for the latter. Enjoy your Super Bowl trophy, New England, if you can find it. I'm sure it's buried somewhere in that snow pile.

Oh, who am I kidding? I'd take the damned snow if it came with a Super Bowl victory for the Vikings.