The Vermont senator was met with applause for three minutes at Democratic convention, but many found his official endorsement of Clinton disappointing

For three minutes, Bernie Sanders stood at the podium and waved to the thousands of Democrats chanting and screaming his name above deafening applause.

A chorus of We want Bernie rang out from Californias raucous Sanders delegation in the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. One woman wore a piece of tape over her mouth with the word silenced scrawled across her lips. Another held a sign that read: Not Hillary. Not Trump.

Standing on the stage to endorse his former rival Hillary Clinton, against whom he mounted an unexpectedly serious challenge, Sanders endured sporadic boos from his most ardent supporters when he asked for their support in putting the former secretary of state in the White House.

Theres a long way to go before November, said Cullen Tiernan, a Sanders delegate from California. Shell have to make some concrete commitments instead of the platitudes and fluff that weve been getting all day long.

Tiernan said he did not hold it against Sanders that the Vermont senator had now pledged his support to Clinton and would always be grateful to Sanders for breathing life into the progressive movement.

I want to run for public office because of Bernie, he said.

Several stadium seats away, Amy Erb and Luci Riley, members of the National Nurses United and California delegates for Sanders, watched the speech with pained expressions. At one point, Riley wiped tears from her eyes as she listened to Sanders applaud Clinton.

It was obviously disappointing, Erb said of Sanders speech, but this movement was beginning and brewing long before Bernie became a candidate, and it will continue after him.

Away from the hall, Sarah Hernandez, a 22-year-old marketing officer from Houston, Texas, live-streamed the speech from a campsite in New Jersey. A Sanders supporter, she had taken part in anti-Clinton demonstrations on Monday, which included an action outside Philadelphias city hall at which she and others chanted lock her up, a Republican chant aimed at Clinton.

Its not what a lot of us wanted to hear, she said of Sanders speech. We wanted to hear him lay down the law, saying: This election was rigged from the start, and how if you compare the polls of him versus Trump compared to Hillary against Trump, he wins.

Hernandez and four others from Texas had huddled around a cellphone to watch Sanders speak. It seemed the leftwing firebrands efforts to transfer his support to Clinton had fallen on deaf ears, with this group at least.

From the quick poll of the people Im with, he convinced none of us, she said.

Were all from a red state so the state is going to go for Trump anyway. So in order to make our voices heard we will be voting for Jill Stein, she said, referring to the Green party candidate.

Hernandez did concede that if she lived in a swing state I would vote for Hillary Clinton. But that would be hard.

I respect the decision to endorse Hillary Clinton, but I am definitely not any more for Hillary than I was before his speech, she said. Hernandez was unhappy with some of the measures Sanders had suggested Clinton would back.

Hillary has not supported a $15 minimum wage, so how can we trust her to implement this policy? she said.

Another example was the TPP [Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal], and Hillary, who once called the TPP the gold standard of deals, did recently come out against it, she said, but she added that opposition to the trade deal had not made it into the Democratic platform.

Niko Klein, 33, had taken part on a march on the DNC on Monday. He has been a firm Sanders supporter but said the Vermont senator was bending reality in favor of what he feels is the most responsible course.

I think he is all about the right end, Klein said. But this is the moment in which he shows that hes willing to compromise his means and I think thats troubling.

Klein said that in endorsing Clinton, Sanders had shown he is essentially willing to accept corruption.

It doesnt mean we wont follow him in his other endeavors, Klein said.

But in this individual calculus around supporting Clinton and not agitating within the Democratic convention further, I think hes lost a lot of momentum.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/26/bernie-or-bust-democratic-convention-hillary-clinton

Image copyright Thinkstock

If you had to make a list of topics not to talk about at work, you’d probably include sex, money, religion and politics. And they might be closely followed by mental health or (dreaded phrase) “women’s problems”.

But would you include children in that list?

As the mother of a “challenging” boy, it’s a pertinent question for me. When my mobile rings at work and it’s After School Club reporting on his latest misdemeanour, how much do I reveal to my colleagues?

So let’s put the question out there: is it OK to talk about your children at work?

“Not if you want to get on,” said a friend whose husband works in one of the country’s top corporations, and who has observed the behaviour of its senior staff over many years.

And workplace psychologist and author Jessica Pryce Jones is in no doubt about the danger of being too free with the details of your home life, especially if your children are creating glitches in its smooth running.

“Being at work, you want to show as little vulnerability as possible, because when you show vulnerability, you’re weak, and when you’re weak, somebody else stronger than you takes position in the pack,” she says.

“I think you have to be a very strong character in a corporate world, I really do.”

Perceived weakness

So here’s the follow-up question for working mothers: do women have to be stronger than men? Are they judged differently?

“Absolutely,” says Jessica Pryce Jones. She believes that if men talk about their children in the office, it reflects positively on them. They’re seen as caring fathers. But, she says, it’s not the same for women.

“I just could not talk about my children in the same way, knowing that it would not be perceived as a strength in me. Just knowing that it would be perceived as a weakness.”

Image copyright Thinkstock

The parenting website Mumsnet backs up the view that there’s a delicate balance women must strike. Its advice to mothers returning to work finishes with: “And remember, the golden rule is: don’t talk about work all the time at home and (probably more important) don’t talk about your kids all the time at work.”

The difference in the way men and women are perceived kicks in as soon as you have a child, let alone whether you talk about it, according to recent research.

When the Fawcett Society, which campaigns for gender equality, ran a poll earlier this year, it found that 46% of those who responded believed that a woman becomes less committed to her job after having a baby. The corresponding figure for men was 11%.

And when the question was turned round, nearly a third of the people polled thought that men actually become more committed to their job after becoming a father.

In the jargon, it’s the “mummy penalty” versus the “daddy bonus”.

‘Gender thing’

Tamara Box is a partner at the international law firm Reed Smith, and she also chairs Cancer Research UK’s Women of Influence initiative. While she agrees that women are subject to bias in a lot of ways, she is adamant that this shouldn’t stop them from being themselves because, in her view, that doesn’t make business sense.

“Telling women you should button up about your kids or pretend you don’t have any, or never mention if you have to leave for childcare reasons, you know that is not the right answer,” she says, “because it’s bad for our business.

“Those women will eventually decide, ‘This isn’t the right place for me,’ and they’ll leave.”

Image copyright Reed Smith

And not everyone agrees that this particular issue should be viewed through the lens of the battle of the sexes.

“I do think it gets stuck as a gender thing,” says Ailie MacAdam, managing director for infrastructure in Europe and Africa at the engineering and construction company Bechtel. “It’s about the way your mind works.”

Within her own team, she explains, some people find a bit of non-work chat useful at the beginning of a meeting, but others see it as an irritating, even stressful, distraction. And in her experience, that preference isn’t dictated by gender.

Like other companies, Bechtel runs unconscious bias-awareness training, and Ms MacAdam says that helps to bring the issue into the open: “It’s important to create an environment where you can say, ‘When I talk about my children, what do you think of me?’ It’s healthy to have that conversation.”

Only connect

Not only healthy to have that sort of openness, argue some, but essential for the smooth running of many businesses. The modern workplace is more informal and tolerant, asserts Tony Franco, a brand consultant who works with the marketing departments of many companies.

He says revealing something about yourself, and the kind of person you are, is an important part of that: “Obviously, the key thing you need to do at work is to create good relationships with all your work colleagues, create a rapport, so you trust each other, so you know each other. That’s really quite fundamental, particularly if you’re working in teams.”

Image copyright Tony Franco

Tamara Box agrees. She believes that far from undermining your professional image, the revelation that you have children can be a useful way of building relationships with clients as well as colleagues. And as the mother of a 10-year old son, it’s one of the tools she deploys in her business life.

“There are a number of ways that one can connect with others and that’s a lot of what the workplace is about,” she says.

“You are most effective when you’re connecting and so for me that may be a point of connection. But it may not be.”

That caveat is important. Not every office is the same, but as Ms Box points out, it’s a bad idea to talk about anything endlessly if it doesn’t interest your audience, whether it’s your weekend game of golf or your amazing offspring.

Proud parents take note.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36491992

We have got to defeat Donald Trump and elect Clinton, Sanders says but protesters boo and express anger in Philadelphia over the leaked DNC emails

Bernie Sanders supporters adopted one of Donald Trumps attack lines against Hillary Clinton at the opening of the Democratic national convention on Monday, chanting lock her up at protests in downtown Philadelphia.

Around 200 people were gathered at Philadelphia City Hall at noon, ahead of a planned march through the city. Most of the crowd were Sanders supporters, who voiced their anger at the leaked Democratic National Committee emails that showed behind-the-scenes support for Clinton during the Democratic primary.

Lock her up, lock her up, protesters chanted repeatedly. Many were carrying anti-Clinton banners, drawing attention to both the recent WikiLeaks disclosures and her own use of a private email server while secretary of state.

Trevor Minter, a 21-year-old bartender from Fort Worth, Texas, was among the dozens demanding the Democratic nominee be jailed.

I feel like Ive been cheated, I feel like my brothers and sisters have been cheated, and I feel like its all her fault, Minter said.

He said he was dissatisfied with all the classified emails shes let out using her own servers and using her own personal email and then you have the WikiLeaks, all the going behind peoples backs.

Lock her up is a favourite chant at Trump rallies, and could be heard throughout the GOP convention in Cleveland last week. The Republican nominee has branded Clinton Crooked Hillary.

The FBI investigated Clintons use of a private email server while in office, but decided against pressing charges at the beginning of July.

Minter said he was not concerned at using an attack line associated with Trump and his supporters.

Its been something that Trumps been saying for a while but I honestly believe she should be indicted.

Some supporters told the Guardian that the chant was not entirely spontaneous.

Well, really its because a big truck with the sign lock her up passed by, said Sarah Hernandez, a 22-year-old chief marketing officer from Houston.

Minter, who had travelled with Hernandez to Philadelphia, pointed out that the truck actually had the message: Hillary for prison.

Yes. It said: Hillary for prison 2016, she said. And someone started chanting: Lock her up, lock her up, and we all joined in.

Hillary for prison 2016 is a common message seen on pins and T-shirts at Republican rallies.

Tim Turner, 53, had travelled to Philadelphia from Indianapolis, Indiana. He had also noted the trucks presence and was among those chanting.

We just know that shes not very honest, he said.

You know, Ive never caught her in a criminal act. But I think shes dirty.

Like Minter, he did not mind using a line associated with Trump.

No, I dont mind it at all. He should be locked up as well. Theres a lot of people he owes money to. I think the same could go for him.

Matt Schmidheiser, an 18-year-old student from Cherry Hill, New Jersey, was similarly emphatic.

I think she does need to be locked up her along with the DNC chairwoman who just stepped down. Because they both just horribly mislead the American public and they spit lie after lie and nobody seems to care.

Schmidheiser was carrying a homemade poster that catalogued Clintons alleged misdeeds. He had been a little late arriving at city hall and missed the chant.

I wasnt there for it but I would love to have been a part of it and I would love to start another, he said.

I think its accurate and I think she needs to be in prison for the rest of her life.

Earlier Sanders himself seemed incapable of controlling some of his more passionate supporters, judging from the mood at a meeting of delegates at the Pennsylvania convention center.

Loud boos could be heard from within the closed-room meeting as the Vermont senator told them: We have got to defeat Donald Trump and we have got to elect Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine This is the world we live in.

Trump is a danger to the future of our country and must be defeated, Sanders insisted. I intend to do everything I can to see that he is defeated.

At least a portion of his audience seemed unconvinced. Instead, a chant of We want Bernie! sparked up from a vocal group who are clearly not fully on board with the official message of Democratic party unity.

Sanders got much bigger cheers when he mentioned the resignation of the DNC chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, which he said opens up the possibly of new leadership at the top of the Democratic party that will stand up for working people and will open up the doors of the party for those people who want real change.

He also agreed with other speakers that the struggle, at least in terms of fighting for more progressive policies, goes on. This campaign has been a fantastic beginning and from today onward we continue the fight, concluded Sanders as delegates prepared to file out far less fired up than they had been when they came in.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/25/lock-her-up-sanders-trump-clinton-chant