Two New Short Articles During college, and for a couple of years afterwards, I hesitated between two career paths: academia and journalism. I spent a year as a “reporter-researcher” (translation: glorified intern) at the old New Republic magazine in Washington, where between hours spent xeroxing, running physical proofs to the printer (yes, it was that long ago), and answering the phone, I had the chance to report and write stories of my own. One of my colleagues in the position that year, incidentally, also ended up in a different line of work. His name is Antony Blinken.