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Jim f-j.y, 197576 ASUN president, has ssii he was a
member cf an organization cs":d MECA, which he said
he now believes is politically subversive.
Say told the Dz!!y Ncbrcsksi last week in a telephone
interview from Michigan he realized only after his term of
office that MECA began to have "subversive tendencies.'
Say, now a law student at the University of Michigan at
Ann Arbor, he attended MECA meetings at a down
town Lincoln bar and assumed MECA was only a social
drinking club.
Admitted ir.srr.beri t:id MECA stands for Monday
Evening Gub Amended, becau:a members were going
to meet as a drinking group on Monday refits. They
currently meet Wednesday rights.
"The original intent of MECA was to subvert and block
the programs cf Ann Henry (1972 ASUN president),"
Say said. "But I didnl start going until the year after
(during 1974-75 ASUN president Ron Gingsnpecl's
term)."
Say said MECA members "told a few off-color jokes
and talked politics," adding that he thought it was his
tea
n ' n
mondsy, epril 1 1,1977 vol. 100 no. 102 lincoln, nsbraska
Hlemphill'wif hdmws from race
Kfck llemphl, former
candidate.
ASUN cztsLIsstLl
Kirk Hemphill said Friday he is withdrawing from the
ASUN presidential race for financial reasons.'
"It's a matter of simple economics," he explained
"I am not a rich man's son. I work."
Hemphill said he also has withdrawn from this
semester's classes and is working for the railroad. He
added that he technically still is a UNL student since he
is finishing incompletes and independent study courses.
According to Hemphill, lack of money would prevent
him from waging an active campaign for this election. If
the election had not been postponed, he said, he would
have stayed in the race because he already had
campaigned for that time.
Hemphill said his decision also was prompted by the
Student Court's recent decision to disqualify 10
candidates from his party, the High People's Coalition,
because they had Invalid signatures on their tiling
petitions.
"I am slightly disillusioned that I have no one to run
with," he said.
Although he said he had no complaints with the
remaining candidates, Hemphill said he will not throw his
support to any of them.
He said he thinks people would accuse him of playing
poliiics if he made, aaendarssment. -;
"It is more important that a good Senate get elected,'"
he added. He said none of the candidates "could mess up
things too badly with a good Senate to work with."
Hemphill stressed what he called the importance of
electing a wide diversity of people to the Senate.
"No one group possesses enough manpower to run
ASUN," he said. "That's become evident in this year's
Senate." Ses rektsd stories p. 5 and p. 9.
social duty to attend.
Tsoffsbvtrtion
However, Say said through correspondence with
graduate student Carolyn Grice, ha "began to hear talk
of subversion again."
lb said ha thought MECA began to be a communica
tion link with people that were not able to participate in
' the regular channels of student government.
"Only now have I begun to realize it's (MECA's)
potential for abuse," Say said.
"It was really hard to believe," hs said, when he got
a recent letter from Grice informing him the Dzly Nib
rcsksn was investigating MECA.
"It sounded -like everybody was scared," Say said.
He said only a few MECA members knew MECA was
"poHticaEy subversive".
Students angered
Grice, who said die has been twice elected MECA
president, concurred with Say that MECA was formed by
students angered about ASUN elections during Henry 'a
term.
The students who were defeated felt like they had
been slapped in the face," Grice said. "We angered stu
dents just met to voice our dissatisfaction with the elec
tions. If Jim (Say) said he thought MECA began to turn
politically subversive, then I'm sorry he felt like that.
What can I say?"
She said membership in MECA depends upon atten
dance three times in a row.
"If a person basically looks like a nice person, then we
will initiate them," Grice said.
She said MECA has more than 50 initiated members
although more than 100 different people have attended
MECA meetings.
Law student Dennis Martin, who said he was a MECA
member, said most members were actively involved in
student politics.
Facets cf polities
"All I know is that we have talked about all facets of
politics," Martin said. "Some of the comments get very
personal and sometimes quite colorful."
Responding to Say's comment that MECA is politi
cally subversive, Martin said "at times it (MECA) will do
that, adding that the attitude of MECA members fluc
tuates. He said MECA members have never persuaded anyone
to join MECA by promising them an appointment to a
UNL organization. However, he said MECA has endorsed
"some senators who were running for political office."
Don Wesely, a UNL Student Court justice who said he
had attended three MECA meetings, said that "with no
exceptkarpecpis ia KEGJt to- not lik tfc jsS (ASUN
President) Bill Mueller has been doing." :
He said he did not think MECA was politically sub
versive, but that a petition filed by two alleged MECA
members against ASUN might have been interpreted as
being subversive.
Wesely was referring to a petition filed by Britt Miller
and Randall Murphy against ASUN, charging that ASUN
had operated invaiidry for more than three months.
or i uu uiisjuriiur
Dy JimWiUisms
You've got $2,100, let's say, to spend on sheer self
indulgence, and what can you buy?
Sixteen thousand, eight hundred games of pinbaH or
3,818 packs of cigarettes. Eight hundred and forty movie
tickets or 302 record albums. A good dirt bike or a used
sports car.
Or a computer.
The microprocessor, a packet of thousands of elec
tronic parts about as big as a stamp, has shrunk the com
puter's size and price. That $2,100 really will buy a com
plete, junior-size data processing system and two stores in
Lincoln will happily take you up the price scale as far as
you want.
MITS, at 61 1 N. 27th St was Lincoln's first micro
computer boutique. Another, Microtech, opened this
week at 129 S. 27th St.
Microtech still is getting settled in its office on the
north side of the 27th and N streets parking lot. But Jerry
Jensen and Stan Walter, who said he works for IBM and
was just helping out, have catalogs of what is available for
the man who has every thing-and needs a computer to
keep track of it all.
Walter displayed an $85 basic training kit, a sort of
mentally retarded computer that helps beginners learn
how to build and use the equipment.
The real fun starts with the Polymorphics microcom
puter. You can get by for less, but the complete, $1,350
kit includes about all you need -a television monitor,
typewriter-style keyboard and base, a cassette recorder to
store information and a kit to build the shesbox-sizs
computer itself. . .(,
Microtech hopes to provide work space for people with
those wanting to move up to' more elaborate equipment,
they said.
"A reasonable quality home cassette recorder will dir
ectly record digital data," Walter said, but you have to
hunt for the part you want with the fast-forward and re
wind buttons. A $699 disc-drive unit lets the computer
do its own hunting in less than a second. It stores the
equivalent of more than 70 typed pages on each $450
disc.
What can this $2,100 computer do? Jensen said pre
recorded taped programs for playing computer games are
available, or users can write their own.
With eternal add-ons, the computer can start you car
in the morning, make coffee, draw pictures, balance
checkbooks and figure tax returns, tell you when to pay
your bills, make music and keep you entertained.
And 16,800 games of pinball would make your fingers
fall off anyway.
sr-buniln room and tn exchange service for
lfti-nniart.-.'iw--.'' i
.. DC
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tlzy.il Half -of Lincoln's downtown businesses will be
lonesome this sumr-rr p. 1 1
Eztatszzzt: The Great Ilaias Study is getting folksy
tliis uixk . p. 6 and 7
fsrts: UNL stuf:r.ts mounted a weekend cf rodzo
activity p. 10
Jock Fkrce cf !::.tc1cc!i ttzzks a tcrhd. The corrtcr todf, at VI
:'s rfit, h tbcut tie size cf a atsreo
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