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Doug, maybe it's just me, but with your previous post about Nido and the flag etc and now with today's post, Lee Greenwood etc. it seems like you are trying to paint Nido as an Uber-Patriot and painting HPU as a hotbead of conservative ideagogues which may not be what the institution really wants. (I dont' know, maybe they do)

Now most assuredly, nobody in High Point wants to see HPU become the Berkeley of the east, but to in any way paint onself into a idealogical corner is ultimately non-productive and limiting in many different ways for an institution of higher learning. Although one realizes an earth-shattering number of people do not necessarily frequent this blog, I would only hope that you are posting in this vein with the asurance that this is what the admin, students and alumni of HPU want.

I'm offering observations.

I doubt the HPU community as a whole wants or doesn't want me to do so.

I also doubt every member of that community thinks alike.

Nido Qubein happens to be a flag waver. He has flags all over campus, and he says he never speaks without an American flag on stage. He made that comment last week at the State of Education meeting hosted by HPU. You are free to make any interpretation of that you like, but it probably would be wrong to conclude from his personal displays of patriotism that HPU is a hotbed of conservative ideologues.

High Point University President Nido Qubein keeps big-name commencement speakers coming.*Doug

*2005: Rudy Giuliani
*2006: Queen Noor
*2007: Bill Cosby (here's my report of the Cos' appearance)
*2008 headliner: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
*He's also lined up Lee Greenwood to perform
* Republican Gov debate last week with John Hood making sure that no democrat questions will be ask

Nido Qubein happens to be a flag waver. He has flags all over campus,* Doug

Wow! With that starting lineup, President Qubein should change the name to High Point neo-con republican University and stop hiding behind the flags in secret.

Do you think that his business school will be offering semiars about corporate greed and trust in the 21 st century with the CEO's from the Blackwater group and Haliburton east in the future?

Doug, Associate Justice Thomas at HPU sounds like the hottest ticket in town.

And if it were Souter, some of us would find ample justification to find another commencement to attend.:)

Joe, he might not match Cosby, but Thomas can deliver important messages.

I wonder if anyone ever invites Souter to speak.

Here's part of a recent interview with Justice Thomas on who he wrote his book for:

"Who'm I writing it for? I'm writing it for the people who get up and want to be hopeful. People who still want to raise their kids, who still want to do the right thing, who still want the country to be a good place, who want their neighborhoods to be good, the people who volunteer, the people who contribute during storms and things like that, the people who drive our trucks, put out our fires, the people who build our houses and work in our factories. Those are the people I'm writing it for.
Everybody's got problems. So what you're trying to say to them is that the struggle is worth it, that getting up every day and putting one foot in front of the other is worth it. There is hope . . . I say this in the preface: Maybe I'm the wrong guy, maybe I'm stupid in constantly being hopeful. But I just have this enduring faith that there's a reason -- that people will benefit from it. If I'm wrong, then I just suffer one more blow; that's my problem. You see? But the effort is to put something there for people who still want to hope and who still want to believe and who still want to try to do the right thing."

http://www.humanevents.com/rightangle/index.php?id=25073&title=a_conversation_with_clarence_thomas

Thanks, Jaycee. That would be a great message to bring to HPU.