Why I’m Boycotting the NFL. This year New America Foundation managing editor Fuzz Hogan is taking a breaking from watching football—at least pro football. The concussions, drugs, and corruption were a spur at first. Now, after surviving his first two NFL-free weekends, he’s also found some satisfaction in reclaiming his Sundays.

Lessons From a Brief Stint In Porn. For a short time, writer Heather Smith’s job was to watch porn and tag each actor by attributes (hair color, breast size) and sex act. Sometimes it was easy, but other times she was Nancy Drew in The Case of the Indeterminate Orgy. While her career as porn tagger didn’t last long, she did learn several about how tricky it is to regulate the industry: “A lot of the laws that get proposed to make porn safer have unexpected side effects—some of which are just as bad as the original problem.”

The Intelligence Tests That Explained My Fs. When former Zócalo intern Kelsey Hess was 15 years old, she received a 39-page report on her cognition that offered an explanation for her failed classes and the anxiety she felt in school. Hess writes, “Some people fear that cognitive and psychological tests are limiting, that they are biased or unfair, or that they prevent people from aspiring to greater things. For me, they offered peace of mind.”

Where Did L.A.’s Political Ladies Go? After years of initial gains for women in Los Angeles politics, today only one elected woman sits in L.A.’s City Council. Why are there so few women in L.A. politics? Several prominent Southern Californians, including L.A.’s only female council member, Nury Martinez, and former L.A. councilwoman and mayoral candidate Jan Perry, provide some possible explanations.

The Outdoors Don’t Kill People. We’ve been hearing a lot of stories of outdoors death and destruction, ranging from shark attacks to hiking accidents. But Sierra Club’s Mission Outdoors program director Stacy Bare says there’s no real uptick in tragedy. You’re still more likely to be killed while driving to the gym than while going for a hike in a park. It’s not the outdoors that kills people; it’s lack of preparation that kills people.

Next week …

On Monday at the Museum of Contemporary Art, former deputy mayor and mayoral candidate Linda Griego visits Zócalo to discuss why there are so few women in Los Angeles politics.

Joe Mathews on John F. Kennedy’s visit to Whiskeytown, California …

Bruno Kaufmann on ending military conscription in Switzerland …