Just imagine if someone said they planned to reform state nutrition standards by taking food off your plate and giving it to someone much wealthier.

The rich get fatter, while the poor get hungrier.

That’s effectively what Senate Republicans seem to have in mind with their so-called “tax overhaul proposal,” which they rolled out for the media on Tuesday.

It’s not so much an overhaul (which the Depression era system sorely needs) as it is a tax rate cut for the wealthy and an expansion of the sales tax that would put more of the burden on poor and middle-class people, as well as the elderly.

My home country of Syria is being destroyed.

Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad are killing hundreds of people every day. Western nations, meanwhile, have been reluctant to support the rebels more than two years after the dawn of the Arab Spring.

Dare I ask what world leaders see as an alternative? How about the complete destruction of Syria’s infrastructure, instability in surrounding regions due to the rise in the number of refugees in neighboring countries, or maybe a new safe haven for al-Qaeda and other extremist groups?

Enough with this "enough" business.

Latest to the question of whether a person is sufficiently identifiable as belonging to a particular demographic is Ted Cruz -- the conservative Texas senator who happens to be of Hispanic descent.

But is he Hispanic enough? For what, his family taco recipe? Before you send in the sensitivity police, permit me to finish, por favor.

For all the armchair generals advocating U.S. military intervention in Syria, I have a few questions:

Is human suffering the reason for the United States to act? That is the noblest and most altruistic of motives, and the estimated 70,000 lives that have been lost in Syria constitute a tragedy. But is there a numerical benchmark that constitutes a trigger for intervention?

What is one thing we can do for Charlotte now that that former Mayor Pat McCrory has been elected governor of North Carolina and his successor, Anthony Foxx, has been nominated for U.S Secretary of Transportation?

We can stop referring to the Charlotte mayor’s job as a dead end or curse for politicians aspiring to statewide or national office.

It might take some getting used to.

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For years, we’ve watched the old brick structure decaying along Main Street near Trinity Park.

We’re so close to finally seeing a development deal with Concord Hospitality Enterprises that doesn’t offend neighbors and seems to satisfy preservationists, because the company plans to preserve some of the original structure in their new Residence Inn extended-stay hotel.

City officials have offered about $1.2 million in local incentives to make the project possible, The Herald-Sun’s Ray Gronberg reported. Now that just leaves $755,000 for Durham County to ante up.

If the Tsarnaev brothers - the duo behind the Boston Marathon bombing - set off two of their pressure cooker bombs every day, in a year's time they'd amass 1,095 victims (providing they killed the same number of people each day). The total would jump to 1,098 if it happened to be a leap year.

There are an average of 10,000 gun homicides every year in the U.S. If you add gun accidents and suicides it's over 30,000 deaths each year according to the World Health Organization.

Jason Collins is gay. So what?

Don’t get me wrong. As a fanatical gay sports fan who spent years on the frontlines of the gay rights movement, I think it’s a big deal that Collins decided to come out as the first active male gay athlete in one of America’s major team sports.

However, the “so what?” nature of the hundreds of tweets and brief statements by current and former NBA players and other athletes in response to the announcement is the real story.

President Obama said once again last week that Syria's "use of chemical weapons would be a game-changer."

The president had played this game many times before. "I have made clear that the use of chemical weapons is a game-changer," he said in March, in one of his administration's many repetitions of the term.

But what game does Obama propose to change? "By game-changer," ABC News' Jonathan Karl asked him on Tuesday, "do you mean U.S. military action?"

The coach was not about to share his playbook. "By game-changer, I mean that we would have to rethink the range of options," he volleyed.

If the state of Texas executes Duane Buck, it’ll be because he is black.

Well, mainly it will be because in 1995, he shot his ex-girlfriend, Debra Gardner, and her friend, Kenneth Butler, to death at Gardner’s Houston home, and also wounded his own stepsister, Phyllis Taylor. But it will also be because he’s black.

In Texas, they have this rule: a jury contemplating the death penalty must evaluate the likelihood a defendant poses a future danger to the community. Jurors in Buck’s trial were told he poses said danger because he is a black man.

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Certainly, it's tempting.

Just like Gov. Pat McCrory, we can look at North Dakota's booming economy, towns with 1 percent unemployment, and think: That could be us. No, that SHOULD be us.

To get North Carolina moving forward again, our administration is concentrating on reforms in three fundamental areas: the economy, education and efficiency. We’re making great progress on some complex long-term problems, but on two critical issues – health care and energy – we’re going to need the federal government’s cooperation.

On Monday, I will participate in a panel of Outer-Continental Shelf governors on the need to expand offshore energy exploration. In February, during a White House visit, I asked President Obama directly to expand offshore leasing off the coasts of North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina. He told me the issue is being reviewed. 

The time for further delay is over. It’s time to get off the sidelines and allow the states to exert the leadership that will create thousands of jobs, reduce America’s dependence on Middle Eastern oil and protect the environment. The federal government must form a more cooperative partnership with the states so that more Americans – especially North Carolinians - can get back on the payroll.

They lost me at the word "women."

As so often happens with contemporary debate, arguments being proffered in support of allowing teenagers as young as 15 (and possibly younger) to buy the "morning-after pill" without adult supervision are false on their premise.