Clarence B. Jones

Is the ability to successfully manage a private equity firm the defining criterion for determining whether such an equity fund manager, as president of the United States, will manage and operate our federal government better than someone who has not been a private equity fund manager? This was the theme...

Eric Hoffer said that "disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy -- the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation." The author William Blake offers a corollary: "It is often easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend."

The rise of instant communication and...

In the legendary 1942 movie Casablanca starring Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid and Humphrey Bogart, as Rick, the proprietor of the night club, Rick's Café, in Casablanca, Morocco, Bogart asks Claude Rains, Captain Renault:

Rick: How can you close me up? On what grounds?
Captain...

The reported resignation of JP Morgan's Chief Investment Officer, Ina Drew, following the bank's $2 billion trading loss temporarily overshadowed President Obama's public statement affirming his support for same sex marriage. The continuing ripple of effect of the president's White House interview, disclosing his personal "evolution" on gay rights, however,...

The extensive media coverage and pundit commentary about President Obama's public support for same sex marriage as an "equal right" for all in our nation, irrespective of gender, challenges the wisdom of offering further comment. We nevertheless offer our thoughts on the matter.

Last week, I first heard the news...

I have written, read and listened to others who have said our presidential election of 2012 may be the defining election of our nation in the 21st century. Each day and week that passes we are provided with a glimpse of the potential magnitude of just how "defining" the challenge...

"The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without...

Forty-four years ago today, my beloved friend and America's soul and conscience, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated while standing on a balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. The night before, April 3rd, 1968, during s speech at the Mason Temple, Church of God in Christ, in Memphis, he...

Last year I was privileged to be the commencement speaker at graduation ceremony of the College of Arts Sciences at the University of San Francisco. Among those things I said to the newly minted graduates, quoting Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I reminded them that "'Goodness' rarely rides in on...

George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin after his phone conversation with the Sanford 911 operator, during which Zimmerman was encouraged not to follow Trayvon.

This incident reveals, yet again, how most of white America remains seriously afflicted with amnesia and hypocrisy involving the experience of black men and the police in...

Sometimes an event occurs that speaks so simply, clearly, powerfully and eloquently of what it means to be a human being living in a democratic society. So it is with Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla. There are other instances, like Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia when he set himself on fire...

An article last weekend in The Daily Beast reported that Monday's summit in Washington between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu will "decide whether an attack will be launched -- or at least that's how most Israelis feel," according to Knesset member Isaac Herzog. The article refers to the...

Heightened rhetoric between Israel and Iran and the escalating conflict in Syria are getting increased attention in international and domestic media, competing with the Republican presidential primary contests and the New York Knicks sensation Jeremy Lin.

A significant body of current opinion describes Iran as an "existential "threat to Israel."...

In The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness, Simon Wiesenthal wrote about his experiences as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. He describes a dying Nazi soldier who has asked his forgiveness. Wiesenthal asks the reader of his book, "What would you do?"

Ten years ago, Feb....

When I wrote my last blog, "Demonizing Obama and the Politics of 'Morality,'" I suspected there would probably be some effort by people opposed to the president's programs to obscure and distort the administration's initiatives on health care and unemployment.

We are not trying to carry President Obama's...

In previous blogs I have said that the 2012 presidential election may be the most important one in our country since the elections of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr. in 1932. Entitled "The Moral Challenge of 'Shared Sacrifice' to Income Inequality in the Second...

Freshly minted Facebook millionaires, unemployment reduced to 8.3 percent, and rising stock market values do not reduce the possibility of the occurrence of one or more domestic or foreign policy events that could irrevocably alter the political landscape of the 2012 presidential election.

A decision from the U.S. Supreme Court...

A 10 year-old black boy comes rushing back on his bicycle to the safety of his mother after being chased by a group of white boys at a seashore resort. He is 10 years old. His mother and father are domestic servants in the summer home of their employer. The...

This weekend and next Monday our nation will once again commemorate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He would have been 83 years old had he lived. I am proud that Stanford University once again has placed a large red banner over the main entrance to the campus,...

Several media pundits and bloggers, including previous posts by me, have commented that the presidential election of 2012 may be the most important election since that of Abraham Lincoln and FDR's initial election of 1932. The candidate and party chosen to lead the country could define the future of our...