Torture memos here, torture memos there, torture memos everywhere! On the left, they’re screaming bloody-murder for public hangings of all people involved; on the right, they want Obama’s head for letting out this confidential information. We’re all embarrassed and horrified, but is that a reason for not talking about the fact that the United States DID torture? How do Lynndie England and her crimes at Abu Ghraib fit into this equation? Can you chastise one and not the other? And if letting out the memos is bad for morale, isn’t torturing people bad for morale too? Maegan feels these the authors of these memos should be subjected to some sort of justice, and Teresa tries to remind us that if we want to do it right, we must be patient. Rome wasn’t rebuilt in a day, after all.

Besides torture, wiretapping is all the talk in DC right now after CQPolitics.com broke the story about Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) being wiretapped and getting caught offering to lobby for AIPAC. How much of it is true? Could this be a tempest in a teapot? Is this just another story the media is trumpeting without much evidence? Ted admits this is a big part of the media environment now, with everybody being under a tremendous amount of pressure to break a story.

And the big news yesterday is Gavin Newsom announcing he’s running for Governor of California, and did it via Twitter and Facebook! He might get new media, but he still has to get his message out there to, um, “regular folks” (aka non-twitterers). Will he make his stance on gay marriage a major part of his campaign? Of course, California is lining up a whole host of high-tech candidates for major office: Steve Westly, Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman, even Chris Kelly from Facebook. But to command the youth vote, you’ve got to do more than engage the new mediums – you’ve got to speak the language.

Finally, we’ve got a growing controversy, possibly, around Ron Howard’s new film, Angels & Demons, with certain members from the Catholic Church calling it out. While this is surely going to fail in stopping the movie from becoming a massive box office success, a more interesting question is this: do boycotts even work anymore?

Listen to the show here, subscribe to the iTunes podcast, or use the Blog Talk Radio player to the right.

Wilshire & Washington, the weekly Blog Talk Radio program that explores the intersection of politics, entertainment, and new media, features co-hosts Ted Johnson, Managing Editor of Variety; conservative blogger Teresa Valdez Klein (www.teresacentric.com), and liberal blogger Maegan Carberry (www.maegancarberry.com). The show airs every Wednesday at 7:30am PST on BlogTalkRadio.com.

On Tuesday morning, at approximately 11:42 am, Southern California was hit by a sustained earthquake that government officials proclaimed a 5.4 on the Richter scale. Immediately following the quake, the mainstream media across the country held its breath, hoping for LA’s demise. Headlines popped up on CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News, declaring “The End of Los Angeles,” “The Big One is Finally Here,” and “God Smites The Devil-worshipers.”

Felt as far away as Las Vegas and San Diego, the earthquake’s epicenter was around Chino Hills, about 30 miles east of Downtown Los Angeles. While media coverage quickly announced a major earthquake had hit California, very little damage has been actually reported, with absolutely no fatalities.

“We’re shocked, really,” says Mitch Dunning, head newswriter for CNN Online. “We thought we were going to have a real story on our hands. I mean, finally, the earthquake to end all earthquakes has hit Los Angeles. Millions should be dead. People should be at least fleeing on the streets in terror. Where’s the looting? The violence? The horror?”

Shaking his head, Dunning added, “Honestly, we’re all pretty disappointed. New Orleans gets all the luck.”

When details first began trickling in about the quake, CNN interrupted its coverage of a squash match between Vladimir Putin and indicted war criminal Omar Bashir. The network spent the next seven hours replaying a four second clip of the infamous 1994 Northridge Earthquake, under the lead: “Hollywood’s Deserved End?”

CNN and MSNBC have both promised round the clock coverage of the quake, especially now that it has ended and won’t be returning. They have also set up a hotline for any residents to please call to report any injuries, no matter how minor.

“Hangnails and up, that’s all we’re asking,” says Rick Mountainstorm, show producer at NBC’s local affiliate. “And if you have any good video footage of people freaking out during the quake, or even footage afterward of people crying, or you know, of a dog on a skateboard, sent it to us. We’re grasping at straws here.”

Many Southern California residents took a rather light approach to the whole ordeal. Most, since the quake occurred during working hours, took the chance to mock old ideas of earthquake preparedness. Workers hid under their laptops and cardboard boxes, laughed it up while mocking old brick buildings for not falling, and generally went on with their regular lives.

Dean Eckhart, an investment banker, said he and his friends made the most of the opportunity. “We knew that the earthquake meant no work for at least an hour or two, so we went to the hotel bar down the street and started tossing back martinis. It was awesome.”

After drunkenly hiding under the table in mock fear, Eckhart and his friends departed the bar, tanked and declaring, “Now that we’ve made fun of old traditions of safety, we’re going to go piss on bibles and the Constitution, if we can find some. Oh, and I would like to make a shout out to God. Thank you for leaving us alive. We look forward to trampling on the morals and cultural values of the rest of the country for many years to come.”