Nancy Doyle Palmer

Reno Road NW -- aka 34th Street.

It's just under three miles -- a mere ribbon of a road connecting Chevy Chase to Massachusetts Avenue that embraces Tenleytown along the way -- no office buildings, just homes and an unmarked embassy or two, but for me it registers almost every...

Elizabeth Reaser, an American actress whose standout roles on TV's The Good Wife, Grey's Anatomy and films that include The Family Stone, Young Adult and yes, Twilight, place her firmly above the 'up and coming' status in the viewing culture -- currently stars on Broadway in a role that both...

What's it like to come back to the United States when you're not only a soldier but a wife and mother? Return, a film written and directed by Lisa Johnson, stars Linda Cardellini as just such a woman who faces the daunting challenge of coming home.

It's an old story that's not often told or told well in Hollywood, but this year's Sundance Film Festival premiered two films --Smashed and Predisposed -- that showcase addiction and all its glorious collateral damage with effective grace and a deft touch, thanks to some outstanding writing and performances. Without...

Every now and then a piece of writing appears in a magazine that is so compelling, so readable and so out there that you steal the magazine from the waiting room or salon, or stay on the exercise bike long after your usual time, or email the link to everyone...

There is something so wrong it's right about The Descendants.

Consider this:

"I'm going to hit you"???

How often do you go to the movies and have either the narrator or the character tell you exactly what is about to happen? Yet this occurs...

Stick Fly opened last week on Broadway -- produced by Alicia Keys, written by Lydia Diamond and directed by Kenny Leon -- to positively mixed reviews -- including one perfectly titled "Guess Who's Coming to Martha's Vineyard?"

That's because this play, billed as an explosive comedy of manners, centers...

This Wednesday we will say goodbye to New York City firefighter Tommy Gavin and the guys of 62 Truck with the season and show finale of Rescue Me -- a timely farewell that coincides with the 10 year anniversary of 9/11, an event that served as both impetus and main...

Maybe it's the title of this movie that's part of its problem. Like many others who thought they liked The Help only to be vaguely (or not so vaguely) troubled soon after, I've been worrying about this film in my mind ever since I saw it a few weeks ago.

Something I've always wondered -- is a book good because of the story it tells or how it's told? Is a writer talented because of WHAT she says or how she says it? Then I remember the best books are a perfect combination of both -- which is the case...

Despite the latest rumors of replacement on the 2012 ticket, Joe Biden is having the time of his life (check out new Twitter account @VP) -- and he's had a lot of times.

From working his Capitol Hill connections for multiple pieces of legislation to shepherding the stimulus...

For any pregnant woman who hesitates before asking her doctor that really weird question but asks it anyway, here is the book for you -- and it probably has your question in it.

The Pregnancy Test: 150 Important, Embarrassing, and Slightly Neurotic Questions is billed as part trivia, part prescription...

Every now and then you meet a mother and daughter who look, act, and talk so much alike it seems one begins where the other ends. There's an expression for this in the South -- "Why, it's like she just spit her out!" And while we usually attribute this connection...

Journalists are used to following the news no matter what but Japan's ever-widening nuclear crisis is creating a pause in business as usual for a profession used to running towards, not away from, the story.

Conflicting and confusing reports about the status of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi power plant near...

As anyone with any experience with an addict will tell you -- it's time to stop listening to Charlie Sheen. As each network eagerly hawks their exclusive with this terribly ill man, it's time to turn off the cameras and let people who care about him to try to help...

Every journalism class in America should include the story of Leon Dash, an African-American reporter for the Washington Post who more than a quarter of a century ago rented an apartment in one of Washington D.C.'s poorest neighborhoods and spent a year living there trying to find out why so...

The guilty verdict and 60 year sentence to Chandra Levy's true killer Ingmar Guandique in Washington DC earlier this month brought a measure of closure and justice not only to the former Capitol Hill intern's family as well as that of falsely persecuted former California Representative Gary Condit but also...

In a show of solidarity ABC's Ann Compton along with NBC's Savannah Guthrie gathered messages from fellow women reporters at the major networks for their colleague Lara Logan and sent them to CBS to be delivered to her home as she continues to recuperate from an attack last...

I love Michelle Obama and I love clothes.

No "but" here, just a little yet. Something about this new book "Everyday Icon: Michelle Obama and the Power of Style"and all the attention on how she dresses makes little post-feminist alarm bells go off in my head.

After looking at...

So I was walking the dogs with my friend Kerry, and truly out of the blue, because she doesn't even follow the celebrity stuff like I do, she says, "How come Lindsay Lohan and Britney are drunken bimbos but with Charlie Sheen it's boys will be boys?"

With Lindsay out...