Philip Seymour Hoffman's death has been on our collective minds. His tragic passing has drawn both compassion and ire from all sides; it has also inspired a spate of personal essays that focus on the difficulty of addiction and relapse as well as unfounded speculation about Hoffman's mental state and reasons for why…

One year ago, in October 2011, I wrote a post titled "Is The Long Island Medium For Real?" I wondered whether or not Theresa Caputo, star of the TLC show, was using the technique known as cold reading. We all know that reality TV is not really real — conversations are edited out, producers arrange set-ups, the very…