Ladies and Gentlemen, Students and Faculty,

My name is Eric Karian and I am currently running for Mayor of Boston. Why am I running, even though I'm 20 years old, not finished with school, and not even from Boston? It's a question of rights.

The rights of students in this town have been overlooked for far too long. The "official" residents of Boston have taken an interest in disenfranchising students, so that "transients" such as ourselves cannot participate in local politics. The result is complete lack of respect for what it means to be a college student in the 90s.

It seems that those who fought for revolution back in the 60s have taken over and forgotten all that they had worked for. Instead of empowering the individual with freedom and independence, they have continued the Bostonian tradition of Puritanism and intervention. It is seen in the fact that alcohol is still not sold past 11 pm most nights, and not at all on Sunday; in the fact that the T, our main form of mass transport, closes at 12:30 am, making it difficult to keep hours common to college students that run into the night; and to a larger extent in the federal restrictions on the drinking age.

I don't mean to come across as a Kennedy with all this talk of booze. I just think that it's indicative of a larger problem of the government intervening where it shouldn't, and it's time we did something about it.

I urge you to consider me for mayor of Boston, as my campaign unfolds over the next year. Eric Karian Really Kares. Thank you.