Umbrella as Metaphor: Are These Brolly Blog Appropriate?

Since starting this venture down umbrella lane, the big issue has always been what to do with the word "umbrella". As a metaphor ("umbrella organization") and my basic response is to leave it alone. However, today I have come across two graphic extensions and have decided that some metaphorical umbrellas must get their time in the sun, too.

I am not sure whether this will be a repeated theme or not, but in this case, the word "umbrella" is only a feature of headline to Laura Tutor's story in the Anniston Star--"Widening history's umbrella includes women, famous and ordinary"--and of the accompanying graphic. It is intended, I gather to reflect the growth of interest and promotion of women's history. The article, perhaps stimulated by Women's History Month, tells about the National Women's History Project and the "concerted effort to integrate the story of women into the story of the world" over the last 30 years. The closest the story gets to the umbrella metaphor is perhaps one quote from Jennifer Gross, an associate professor of history at Jacksonville State University: "We need to broaden our idea of what history is."

The second image from this weekend is interestingly enough also only the creation of the headline writer. In this case the Jason Zweig column--"Corporate-Cash Umbrellas: Too Big for This Storm?"--in the Wall Street Journal is about the near record $811 billion in cash and marketable securities that nonfinancial firms in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index have on their books. He certainly alludes to this as being safety precaution of sorts, writing at one point: "Cash is not trash, of course; the natural urge to set a little money aside for a rainy day feels urgent in a recession." However, since Zweig argues that these cash supplies are a "flood" and that shareholders deserve an explanation of why they are being kept from the benefit of the funds (in terms of increased dividends or stock repurchases), it is very unclear who is being protected by a cash umbrella.