Comments on: Wilkinson: Yellow Bus Meshugas

By: shiney

shiney — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:57:26 +0000

I suspect that a medium duty truck chassis is much cheaper to buy and repair than a specialized city bus platform. A specialized bus frame and body is a complex and expensive thing to design and build, and not sold in anything close to medium duty truck volumes. While municipalities can and often do pay a premium for quality buses, most school districts lack that kind of money and have other under funded priorities that supersede buses in their budgets.

By: Robert Farago

Robert Farago — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:29:44 +0000

Robert Schwartz :

“Misegos” should be meshugas.

Headline amended.

Tx.

By: mfgreen40

mfgreen40 — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:28:40 +0000

Several weeks ago a bus was hit broad side killing 4 students. The driver was a 23 year old illegal imigrant . She ran the stop sign at a T intersection!! She was driving a van, and suffered just a broken leg.

By: Robert Schwartz

Robert Schwartz — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:22:34 +0000

More importantly, why is the exhaust pipe on these things at ground level?

By: Robert Schwartz

Robert Schwartz — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:21:46 +0000

“Misegos” should be meshugas.

The root word meshuge (meaning crazy, insane; משוגע if you have the correct font, mem shin vav gimel aiyn if you don’t) is originally Hebrew, but was used in Yiddish. Yiddish is a German dialect, originally spoken by the Ashkenazi Jews (Ashkenazi is a Hebrew word that means German), which was written with the Hebrew alphabet. There is no official system for transliterating Yiddish into Latin Alphabet for English speakers.

The most common transliteration of the root word is meshuge, although meshugge is not uncommon. The word is not pronounced mes’huge; the sh is a digraph as in shoe or ship, the g is hard, as in gas or grim.

Meshugas (craziness, insanity; משוגעת, if you have the correct font or mem shin vav gimel aiyn tav if you don’t) is often transliterated mishegas or -goss or -gaas, but the second consonant is always a shin not a sin, so it must be sh. I think the second vowel often morphs into an e because the syllable looses stress when the extra consonant is added at the end, but it should be u. the last vowel is variable, but I would prefer an a to an o.

By: frontline

frontline — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:09:19 +0000

I am so with you Miked. Do school buses need to unload at loading docks? If not , why the extra height? . Could you imagine boncing around un-tethered in a school bus during accident? What am I missing?

By: miked

miked — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 15:52:38 +0000

I’ve always wondered how much it cost a district to buy a school bus. I’m sure they overpay for them. Why are kids riding around in what amounts to basically a Medium Duty truck with bench seats. It probably would be cheaper, cleaner, safer, more comfortable if school districts bought mass-transit style buses, like the new GM Diesel Electric Hybrid that I’ve seen a bunch of lately.

By: Frank Williams

Frank Williams — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 15:43:34 +0000

tdoyle
Here in Tennessee, after living in California, I have to ask myself… Why do they put those blinking white beacons on the top of school buses in the South.

It makes them much easier to see when there’s a heavy morning fog out, or when daylight saving time goes into effect and the kids are standing out in the dark looking for the bus, or when there’s a frog-strangler rain in progress, or any other number of visibility-limiting situations. Plus it makes it easier to know there’s a school bus in the vicinity so there may be kids running around and crossing the road.

By: SherbornSean

SherbornSean — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:45:22 +0000

I’m calling the Yiddish spelling police.

By: quasimondo

quasimondo — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:39:16 +0000

Here in Tennessee, after living in California, I have to ask myself… Why do they put those blinking white beacons on the top of school buses in the South.

Those blinking white beacons are a godsend. Many times in the youth of my high school days I would find my self running like a track star to catch a bus that I would’ve missed had I not seen the flashing beacon over the fences and hedges in my neighborhood.

And if I missed the bus, that would’ve sucked because that meant a 2 1/2 mile walk to school.

By: baabthesaab

baabthesaab — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:10:39 +0000

Wow! In my town of about 8000 people, we run a fleet of 8 yellow busses on a rotating schedule. And there are big signs at the schools requiring NO IDLING (by busses or cars), and it gets enforced,too. Even in winter.

By: tdoyle

tdoyle — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:09:07 +0000

Here in Tennessee, after living in California, I have to ask myself… Why do they put those blinking white beacons on the top of school buses in the South.

I mean, I know it is a safety issue, but how big is a school bus? Like three pickup trucks long!

How tall is a school bus? About 10 feet tall or more.

What color is a school bus? It is frickin yellow. How can you not see a school bus? I dunno, maybe I am alone here…

By: mistercopacetic

mistercopacetic — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 13:18:56 +0000

Is it any better than a hundred SUVs lining up in the kiss-and-ride lane, with one parent behind the wheel, idling for half an hour waiting for the kids to come out?

By: frontline

frontline — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:55:33 +0000

No seat belts for the children??

By: Mirko Reinhardt

Mirko Reinhardt — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:46:45 +0000

So why don’t those buses have DPF systems?

Ah, it’s because the USA just introduced low-suplphur diesel fuel…

By: Justin Berkowitz

Justin Berkowitz — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:26:12 +0000

@quasimondo:
Don’t dis diesel! Not all oil burners are created equally…

By: shaker

shaker — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:14:29 +0000

What’s black and yellow and stinks?

No, it’s a rotten banana, you silly!

By: quasimondo

quasimondo — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:10:54 +0000

But the buses are diesel! And the kids are using mass transit! What’s there not to like about the Twinkie Express?