"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Monday 7 March 2011

The Power of Language

Hairy Fairy has left a new comment on your post "Not So Fast...We're Not Done With The Budget Yet...":

Anon 8:55 -

What does "airy fairy" mean?

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It is a well used term in Scottish vernacular  meaning artsy-fartsy

Back later

5 comments:

Elizabeth Bishenden said...

"Airy fairy" means "without any basis in fact". It's like "artsy fartsy" but it can apply to any sector of our community. The arts and culture are often intertwined with "artsy fartsy" but it is apparent that money can be well-used by any group!

One of our community's leading cultural institutions, the Aurora Public Library, has seen enormous growth in both in-person visits and electronic materials use.

The Library has asked for a significant increase in funding. Several years of ensuring efficiencies have been great, but right now the Library needs some money from its funders in order to ensure that library services are the best they can be for our community. The funders for the library are primarily those who live and pay taxes in the municipality.

So, it comes down to this... if you want the Library to be as good as it can be, look at its budget proposal, see how it impacts the community, and decide if you are prepared to pay for it through the municipal tax base.

My suggestion is that you ask the same of every other tax-funded service in this community: the mandate should be to bring the best service this community wants and shows it uses.

Ask for proof of the community use. Ask for proof of the community support.

Here's just one suggestion:

How many folks use the a particular club run by the Town but which has limited or no public access? How much does the Town pay for it? How do the other folks who live in town feel about funding that project?

The ACTC and the ALBC are a couple of examples of groups you're supporting but maybe you didn't know how much you're spending to provide a club-like atmosphere. (Here's a hint... do you recognize their acronyms?)

Is that a good use of our tax dollars?

Some smaller groups' budget items that have been funded for years and years pass through the budget process without any discussion.

I'm not asking for a line-by-line budget. I'm asking for a value-for-residents budget.

That would make for great budget discussions.

Hairy Fairy said...

Why don't y'all do it proper? Invoke Tennyson, or at least look up the terms you use? Better yet, say (write) what you people mean (which still isn't clear, by the way, though I suspect pejorative senses were intended all around.)

Airy, fairy Lilian,
Flitting, fairy Lilian,
When I ask her if she love me,
Claps her tiny hands above me.

airy-fairy, adj.

1. Having the ethereal qualities associated with a fairy; delicate, light; graceful; immaterial. Also: enchanting, magical.
2. In pejorative sense: insubstantial; superficial; impractical and foolishly idealistic.

artsy-farty = arty-farty = Pretentiously artistic.

Anonymous said...

To Hairy Fairy
I am the writer who used "airy fairy".
I am English and have used the term all my life. I use it as an English colloquialism. I used it appropriately. I guess I should not assume that others know what it means.

christopher watts said...

Elizabeth


I would suggest that the Aurora Festival for the Arts (or their recognizable acronym : A.F.ARTS) qualifies as both airy fairy and artsy fartsy.

Is that a good use of our tax dollars? No, no it's not.

I didn't see you at last night's budget meeting, I made a presentation that saught for a value-for-residents budget, but one item I didn't touch on was the line item for the Aurora Cultural Centre. Another venture that could bridge both of these classifications.

It became an item for discussion last night, and rightly so.

I left with a completely different appreciation than what you put forward when you said
"it is apparent that money can be well-used by any group"

Where I agree that the Library, who was there to present their budget, along with the joint fire services, both spend their money well, perhaps that is because they are required to bring forth a budget.

the Aurora Cultural Center does not present a budget to council.

Did anyone know that?

They simply feel entitled to receive $385,000 from the tax base annually, without any accounting. they don't present anything in exchange.

It was learnt that they made a profit of $85,000 last year but instead of turning that to the town or reducing the $ sought for this year it gets put into a reserve account for them to draw from.

There is a 5 year "contract" that neatly funnels this money to them, yet they operate at arms length. Councilor Thompson was correct in pointing out last night that this is an extremely favorable position for them, but an extremely bad business deal for the town to be caught in.

The Library reported that they say usage by 73% or the town, and the cost per person was $51, or $1.56 per use.

I'd like to know from the Cultural Centre what percentage of the town uses their services, and what it costs to provide them.

I expect they are unwilling, or unable to provide such metrics, and therefore completely earn designations of being airy-fairy and artsy-fartsy.

I would add "double-dipping-gravy-train-riding-asshats" but that's just my take.

Hairy Fairy said...

Anonymous 7:29:

I agree that you "appropriate[d]" the term "airy fairy" from -- you're English! -- your own nineteenth-century Poet Laureate (he's pretty great, by the way.)

My comments seem to be bouncing off a certain suburban resilience, but I'll try again: Be suspicious of anyone that tells you what a word "means."

Also, what's a "Cultural Center?" Talking about a suburb and culture in relation to each other seems a bit antithetical to me.

What does seem appropriate in this context of suburban politics is the term "double-dipping-gravy-train-riding-asshats," which invokes a Rob Ford term. We already have a very Fordian (or perhaps more Don Cherryesque) term "artsy-fartsy" that the Blog Author and Commenters use.

In other words, one of those terms that dismiss, mediocritize, homogenize. Terms that don't really mean anything. Like pinko. Although that one is useful. Damn bike-riding hippy pinkos! Better yet, damn airy-fairy artsy-fartsy bike-riding pinko communist hippies!